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Can you fit frame to text in a text frame?


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With the frame visible, double-click the node in the middle of the bottom frame line. (This is a general tip, e.g., for Picture Frames, too.)

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Not that I know of. However, for a Picture Frame, double-clicking the right middle node does some kind of "fit width" action, if I remember correctly. I wouldn't try it with a Text Frame, though. Not sure what it's supposed to do, but it's weird.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 4 months later...
On 9/11/2018 at 7:52 PM, anthubbard said:

In INDD you can fit the text frame to the size of the text (I think cmd ctrl c is the shortcut) - is that possible in Publisher Beta?

Thanks

Just wondering (since I've never used this function before) - under what circumstances do you use this technique?

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On 9/11/2018 at 8:12 PM, walt.farrell said:

Not sure what it's supposed to do, but it's weird.

From what I can tell, it fits the width such that the text stretches to fill the height of the text box.

Double-clicking on the middle handle along the bottom of the text box fits to the current height of the text, so if you double-click that one first, then the one on the side, it gives a somewhat useful fit to the text.

The status bar also shows the "double-click to reset" text for the non-scaling handles in the corners of the text box, but as far as I can tell that doesn't do anything.

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53 minutes ago, kdog3682 said:

under what circumstances do you use this technique?

Imagine you have more text in the text frame than is visible. This shortcut expands the text frame to reveal all the text in the text frame.

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  • 2 weeks later...
4 minutes ago, Ralph said:

In INDD, and PagePlusX9 I (much more) frequently "go the other way" - fit text to frame.

In fact, it's a newsletter life-saver:)

Can't see how to do that in Publisher.

 

I'm not sure I understand how "fit text to frame" would work. Does it operate by automatically increasing or decreasing the font size until everything fits?

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Hi Walt - knew you would be the first responder :)

Yes, you are absolutely right. It is available in PPX9 and it makes life very easy when producing newsletters. Make a frame to fit the space, add text, then right click & <Size Text> to choose the option.

Voila, the text is now resized to two places of decimals to exactly flll the space available. I am currently trying to build in PP and Publisher in parallel, 'fitted' in PP with a change in font size from 10pt to 10.06pt (!!) and then ran into trouble with Publisher.  There are LOTS of variations available in PPX9 - far more than in INDD.

I guess if you don't know about it, it doesn't exist - but I can't see why/how that could happen if "fit frame to text" (of limited value, I find) does exist.

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38 minutes ago, Ralph said:

I guess if you don't know about it, it doesn't exist - but I can't see why/how that could happen if "fit frame to text" (of limited value, I find) does exist.

Oh, there are many things about these applications that I don't know about :) but I haven't seen any "fit text to frame" functionality and I don't think it exists. As for how this could happen, remember that the Affinity applications are totally new, completely reimplemented, and completely unrelated to the legacy "...Plus" applications.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Yes Walt. I know all that, but I do expect to find that the developers have conducted some "due diligence".

Even if PP was never looked at, if the developers think to include "Fit Frame to Text", "Fit Text to Frame" is an obvious corollary, unrelated to any other application. Though the fact that it is standard in both Quark & InDesign would make it (for me) an obvious function to include. There are other functions which are mysteriously missing (such as importing WORD - another thread I'm following) 

Don't get me wrong, I think there is some ground-breaking material in Apub - I just wish it had been built on a foundation laid by its predecessors.

Hey Ho - I'm putting Apub back in its box:33_unamused:

All the best to everybody

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IMHO frame to text fitting and vice versa as explained here are not very useful features. Copy fitting on the other hand is something done daily – stretching or compacting the text just so that no orphans or widows appear and text flows beautifully. There are many ways to do it.

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14 minutes ago, Fixx said:

Copy fitting on the other hand is something done daily – stretching or compacting the text just so that no orphans or widows appear and text flows beautifully. There are many ways to do it.

I had an editor who would tell me to 'make it fit' and bless him he never flinched when I'd pick up a trash can and a pair of scissors.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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4 hours ago, Ralph said:

It is available in PPX9 and it makes life very easy when producing newsletters. Make a frame to fit the space, add text, then right click & <Size Text> to choose the option.

Can’t you achieve the same effect by adjusting the frame to fit the text and then dragging on the extra (bottom right-hand) handle to drag the frame out so that it fits the space? :/

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Hi Alfred,  well, I can't get the same effect!

Dragging the disembodied handle (on my OS) stretches the contents as though they were bitmaps. That is, pull down and the text is stretched vertically; its size (and all the other good stuff) is not adjusted to fill the frame. Dragging that handle with the frame & text in different configurations produces some interesting effects, bu not one that I recognise as "Fit Text to Frame" - what Fixx is describing. Fixx, you say "there are many ways to do it". Do you mean "in Publisher"? If so, can you let me in on the secret:)

Is it my OS? Windows 10 Pro, fully committed to Windows Update.  

Thanks everyone

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2 hours ago, Ralph said:

Dragging the disembodied handle (on my OS) stretches the contents as though they were bitmaps. That is, pull down and the text is stretched vertically; its size (and all the other good stuff) is not adjusted to fill the frame.

If I drag the disconnected handle of a Text Frame it enlarges or shrinks on the diagonal only, maintaining the proportions of the text within the frame. It sounds like you're holding shift if it's distorting the text. Don't do that :)

Simply dragging that scaling handle isn't sufficient for your needs. It can be done, with some experimentation.

  1. Drag the right or bottom handle to make the Text Frame big enough to hold all the text.
  2. Position guides (vertical and horizontal) to show where the frame needs to fit.
  3. Position the frame so it's upper left corner is at the upper left corner of the guides.
  4. Then iterate as needed: (a) dragging the middle right handle (to widen or narrow the frame (which will reflow the text)) and the middle bottom handle (which will also reflow the text) to get the frame close to the size you need, but with all the text still fitting in the frame and (b) dragging with the scaling handle to enlarge or shrink the frame to more completely fill the space (which will change the text size without reflowing).

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Thanks Walt, I appreciate your effort and time.

I'd kinda abandoned that approach as an option early in the process, life being too short:/ Basically, it is like expanding a fixed ratio bitmap. Maybe it would work better in conjunction with a spreadsheet to calculate the correct ratio :o (I'm joking!!!)

The other approach is to select all the text and incrementally change the size in the menu until it fits. Also abandoned for same reason.

Maybe I'm not making the right sort of document (sic!) but I have yet to find anything I want to do that I can't do as well (or better) in PPX9 - which is somewhat depressing. 

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  • 1 year later...
13 minutes ago, prophet said:

Perhaps something has happened in the new 1.8, but now, when double clicking the bottom handle of a text box with overflow text, the box resizes to fit only the text that is visible. It doesn't expand to include the overset text.

Found the answer myself…in the "Text Frame" panel, I had "Hide Overflow" checked. Once unchecked, double clicking the bottom (or top) handle fit frame to text as expected.

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As I ponder this more, I'm not liking this behavior or the show/hide overflow option.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a situation where I would like to show overflow text vs. always having it hidden. If the text doesn't fit the box, the overset handle/symbol tells me I need to change the font size or the box size. Seems odd to just let the text flow out unconstrained.

And the corollary of sorts, why would I want the text box to snap to fit only the visible text? If I have put text of a particular size and style in a box (say a headline or pull quote), I will almost always want a quick way to make box to be big enough to hold it all.

Or to say it another way: If the box size is the defining factor, I would rather see the indication of overset so I can adjust the text to fit rather than see the text overflowing. And if the text is the defining factor, I would like have a quick way to make the box fit the text regardless if it is overset or not.

I know I can make all this work by resizing boxes and clicking handles, but I'll echo the common lament that sometimes Affinity Apps increase workflow time by even an extra click or move of a mouse, when there seem to exist more efficient techniques.

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