Disappointed!

[Glenbo]

Have just tried laying out a text file a book using this! Well there is a long way to go, auto-adding of pages if it is there, doesn't work, so I add text boxes that are linked to the Master Page but that didn't do anything, in fact, it's a pain in the backside to select said boxes, the only way to do this is to find them in the layers palette and select release from the pop up menu. How about a simple Command-click or Command + Alt-click? Getting text into the frames is also a pain in the backside, the only way is to copy and paste from Word... These are the basics, Serif (Affinity) you're not going to win hearts and minds with this! I spent an hour fiddling and after that, I gave up! All I had were three pages, of pasted text, in InDesign and Quark, I would have set half the book! Oh and where is find font? For typesetting this is useless!

So these are the big requirements as of my test this evening:

* Importing Word Files or at least RTF files.

* Find font, I use this a lot to set up the document to applying styles - for instance, I find all occurrences of italics and apply a basic Character style of Italic, this ensures that when I set up the Paragraph styles the original document intent remains.

* Autoflowing text!! You simply cannot typeset without this!

** OH, AND PLEASE MAKE IT EASY TO CREATE DOCUMENT PRESETS!

[walt.farrell]

Auto-adding of pages exists. If you fill a text frame you can shift-click on the link-frame icon (I'm not sure of its formal name) about 1/4 of the way up on the right side of the frame and you'll get a new page/frame to hold overflow.

No, at this point, you do not want to have a text frame on a Master Page that you'll want to put text into on a document page; that won't work without a lot of fiddling. But you can put one on a regular page and use the auto-adding to get new pages, or duplicate the pages yourself. You don't need to have it on a Master Page.

You can insert text from RTF files into a text frame, via Text > Insert Text from File... or by right-clicking in the text frame and choosing the same option.

Text will flow from text frame to text frame (takes a click, though) or automatically around objects placed over the text frame (and there are Text Flow options to control how it does that).

If you haven't watched the tutorials, you really should, if you're going to be trying this beta release. They're short, and cover the basics, including several of the things you've complained about.

[Glenbo]

Walt, I've been typesetting for years now, and so far the only Application that cuts the mustard is InDesign, Quark has always felt clumsy to me, although I do like their Synchronised Text option!

I tried Text > Insert Text From File... and just got an error on an RTF file maybe it didn't like it from Word? Or some language option?

The adding text frames like you describe sounds an awful Faff for a 224 pp book! A Text frame on the Master page is far more elegant that's why InDesign and Xpress have had so much success with it, trying to work on an illustrated book that is still being written working like this would drive me crackers!

I have watched the tutorial videos, and they didn't cover points like find and replace fonts?

I extensively use Style Sheets as it's the smartest way to typeset these days and gives you an Epub ready book, if you use Anchored images in InDesign, I can't even see an ePub option in Publisher yet?

On the whole, there's much to like - I like the interface and I like how a lot of it is logical but I suggest the developers look at how a designer lays out a book and stop them at certain points to understand why they are doing certain things... I'd happily share my screen with one of them and explain what I am doing as I do it if it helps them make this a great product, I don't like Subscription based software, renting Adobe Bugware isn't fun! Glen

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, Glenbo said:

I have watched the tutorial videos, and they didn't cover points like find and replace fonts?

That doesn't exist yet. Rather, Find works to let you find text that uses a font (on Windows, but perhaps not on Mac with this beta build), but you can't change it with Replace.

[Glenbo]

Ah that's the issue for me then as the first steps I go through on a typesetting job are, create basic Character styles, then do a find change based on formatting so all Italic styled fonts will get the character style Italic etc, this way when I apply Paragraph styles I keep the editor and authors intent...

[Mandu]

Why would you need to find and replace fonts? You have paragraph styles and character styles, don't you? You know what is the purpose of those, right? Using these in publication design is essential! In fact, I have been thought that the first thing you should do after creating a document is to set up paragraph styles for your text so that everything and anything you make or import immediately gets converted to your style that you have assigned. When the need to change a font arises, you would create a new style or change a font in the already existing style, without searching for anything.

[Glenbo]

Pretty obvious when you deal with word files all day I don’t want to typeset a book in Calibri or times new roman! But I do want to keep what is italic italic etc that’s why!

[Fixx]

You can set the style options to keep font trait (bolds/italics).

[Glenbo]

That’s not good! It’s taken nearly 2 decades to get users not to do that because Quarks implementation of these styles were not postscript and failed on image setters and RIPS, so I’d advise Affinity to avoid bad form, better to choose s proper font and font style from the family!

[Martigny]

5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Auto-adding of pages exists. If you fill a text frame you can shift-click on the link-frame icon (I'm not sure of its formal name) about 1/4 of the way up on the right side of the frame and you'll get a new page/frame to hold overflow.

No, at this point, you do not want to have a text frame on a Master Page that you'll want to put text into on a document page; that won't work without a lot of fiddling. But you can put one on a regular page and use the auto-adding to get new pages, or duplicate the pages yourself. You don't need to have it on a Master Page.

You can insert text from RTF files into a text frame, via Text > Insert Text from File... or by right-clicking in the text frame and choosing the same option.

Text will flow from text frame to text frame (takes a click, though) or automatically around objects placed over the text frame (and there are Text Flow options to control how it does that).

If you haven't watched the tutorials, you really should, if you're going to be trying this beta release. They're short, and cover the basics, including several of the things you've complained about.

I'm copying and pasting text of over 100 pages long with no issues - formatting is preserved. It's not ideal, but until Publisher is able to import .doc files it's a simple option.

The tutorials are a great help and after that it's just a question of learning all the wonderful tools available in AP

[Mandu]

I was hasty a bit with my post. In the document menu there is 'Font Manager' (right next to resource manager) feature that allows you to see all typefaces, locate them, and change them.

[Glenbo]

Hi Mandu, thanks for that very helpful

 

im determined to try making a book with this as I learnt with InDesign, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do a real job, I’ve pretty much done the job in InDesign, so this is just proof of concept for me personally! I want to have a back up DTP app to use and Publisher looks very good, so maybe my post should have said vaguely disappointed

[Martigny]

8 hours ago, Glenbo said:

Have just tried laying out a text file a book using this! Well there is a long way to go, auto-adding of pages if it is there, doesn't work, so I add text boxes that are linked to the Master Page but that didn't do anything, in fact, it's a pain in the backside to select said boxes, the only way to do this is to find them in the layers palette and select release from the pop up menu. How about a simple Command-click or Command + Alt-click? Getting text into the frames is also a pain in the backside, the only way is to copy and paste from Word... These are the basics, Serif (Affinity) you're not going to win hearts and minds with this! I spent an hour fiddling and after that, I gave up! All I had were three pages, of pasted text, in InDesign and Quark, I would have set half the book! Oh and where is find font? For typesetting this is useless!

So these are the big requirements as of my test this evening:

* Importing Word Files or at least RTF files.

* Find font, I use this a lot to set up the document to applying styles - for instance, I find all occurrences of italics and apply a basic Character style of Italic, this ensures that when I set up the Paragraph styles the original document intent remains.

* Autoflowing text!! You simply cannot typeset without this!

** OH, AND PLEASE MAKE IT EASY TO CREATE DOCUMENT PRESETS!

Hi Glenbo,

I just saved a Word file as .rtf and imported it into Publisher with no issues - all bold and italics were retained.

 

[Glenbo]

I’ll have to look into this the file was from a client who has multiple versions of word I’ve had issues before with their files! Thanks for taking time to let me know!

[Martigny]

3 hours ago, Glenbo said:

I’ll have to look into this the file was from a client who has multiple versions of word I’ve had issues before with their files! Thanks for taking time to let me know!

You're welcome