Line Spacing

[AlanPC]

Well I eventually stumbled upon this while trying to find "line spacing", so my comment is for anyone else looking for that phrase.

When using Word I almost invariably end up selecting "No Spacing" for my text, to avoid the big gaps each time I hit "return". If I WANT a bigger gap for a paragraph I just hit return twice. 

Been doing that for more than 15 years and my clients seem happy, but this rather clunky layout does mean there's no real possibility of AP replacing Word for me, which is a shame as I was rather hoping I could.

[Michail]

3 hours ago, AlanPC said:

When using Word I almost invariably end up selecting "No Spacing" for my text, to avoid the big gaps each time I hit "return". If I WANT a bigger gap for a paragraph I just hit return twice.

For reasonably professional results, I cannot recommend this approach. This way you cannot structure your document in a differentiated way. In addition, you will get into trouble when using formats (in Affinity: "Text Styles"). For example, when creating tables of contents.

[AlanPC]

I'm not trying to structure a document; I'm doing desktop publishing. Arguably the same thing but not entirely, as I'm talking about having control over the layout.

Sure, text styles, headers, H1 all that, fantastic stuff, for websites, books, even magazines, but most of the time I'm doing PDF reports of between 3 to 7 pages, and being able to choose how the darn thing looks and prints is far more important to me than being "correct".

The "no spacing" command in Word is a fantastic way of clearing all formatting and putting whatever text you have into the document's default font and size, without big gaps or anything else. 

It's no biggie, just means I'll still be using Word for my writing, and then pasting into Pageplus or Affinity, instead of being able to use either of them for that task. Classic example, though for my own use, not work, decided to recreate my daily schedule sheet. It's just a sheet I print out each day and fill in, with various little sections. I gave up trying to fit everything onto the page with Affinity and just did it in Word, then pasted it. That was a lot easier than trying to figure out how to do it in Affinity.

 

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, AlanPC said:

When using Word I almost invariably end up selecting "No Spacing" for my text, to avoid the big gaps each time I hit "return". If I WANT a bigger gap for a paragraph I just hit return twice

Why are you hitting return so often? Even in Word that's supposed to be used only at the end of a paragraph.

If you're trying to force a line break but stay within the same paragraph you should be using something else, like shift-return.

[AlanPC]

I'm old

(think about it)

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Why are you hitting return so often? Even in Word that's supposed to be used only at the end of a paragraph.

If you're trying to force a line break but stay within the same paragraph you should be using something else, like shift-return.

 

1 hour ago, AlanPC said:

I'm old

(think about it)

Every now and then my left hand reaches up search for the carriage return bar. 

[AlanPC]

Indeed

In fact I was lucky enough to learn to type on a Canon "word processor", which had a little blue LCD screen so you could see about 6 lines of text. You could (slowly) scroll up and down and when happy, hit "print".

When that wasn't working, or someone else was using it, which was frequent, i'd use a manual machine, which hard a hard return bar. There was none of this "hold some key down and the bar does something different" stuff; you either hit that thing and made a space, or you didn't.

The greatest thing I hate and despise about Wordpress is that "Oh, you hit return? BLOING! Here's a HUUGE space!" 

Sorry but I'm too old to change where this is concerned. I hit return, I want ONE space. I don't want 1.5 or 1.25 or 2.25 or anything except 1.0. If I wanted 1.5 spaces I'd hit it the return key 1.5 times...

[walt.farrell]

But to get back to your original point, Publisher also has options to help you. Paragraph styles can specify the spacing before paragraphs, and when that spacing is applied. You will need to assign a paragraph style to your text frame, and make sure the style has the options set correctly. You'll find two options in the Paragraph Panel, one for "Space before paragraph" that lets you specify the desired spacing, and another one that's a pulldown to control when the spacing is applied. The default for the latter is "Only between paragraphs" but you might try "Only at column top" instead.
Hmm. Actually, only at column top doesn't work as I expected. But "Ignore space for same styles" seems to accomplish what I think you want.

If you edit a text style, you'll find that in the Paragraph Spacing part of the edit-style dialog.

[PMan]

Hi AlanPC,

Well I'm old (74 in fact) but that doesn't stop me finding how to do similar things in different programmes.  You have suggested that you might well stick with Word and set your line spacing to 'No Spacing' and that you generally only output a few pages of PDF.  Walt has suggested a way which gives you total control over everything in a a paragraph style, but maybe you want to try something a little simpler first.  
If you start by drawing out a text box, then you can move the mouse pointer  up to this point on  the selection bar and you will see the mouse hint 'Paragraph Leading' appear.  
If you click on this down arrow, you can then set the paragraph leading to the same height (in points) that your text height is and then your text will have no gaps between lines (equivalent to Word's No Spacing).  However, hitting 'Enter' will give you a gap between paragraphs equivalent to the height of your text characters, and if you want to change that, you will have to use the controls in the Paragraph Panel to adjust that.  It really is worth spending a few minutes experimenting with the Paragraph Panel to achieve exactly the output you require as in my example below which I use a lot in Family Trees, which can be up to 50 pages long!

Good luck - I know I won't be going back to Word (or in my case the free Libre Office) when I want the complete control over the output that Affinity Publisher gives me [and remember this is still in Beta so further improvements are very likely

Ian Price

[AlanPC]

Aha! The "ignore space for some styles" thing seems to do the trick!

Thank you both, Ian and Walt, for your help.

I prefer to reduce my reliance on Word if possible and this helps. My main PC remains Windows 7 and for my laptop I removed Windows 10 and installed Linux Mint. If I have to learn something new then I'll learn something without the bullying business methods and spying of Microsoft. Sadly it looks like there will never be a Linux version of Affinity, but hey, Wine is a thing...

A.

[MxHeppa]

Leading overdrive dont fix thing what you see this picture i mean lines overlap. what do. i used beeteen each step enter. but one text part is so long needs two lines or more but now they overlap.

 

 

 

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, MxHeppa said:

Leading overdrive dont fix thing what you see this picture i mean lines overlap. what do. i

If you've used leading override, you probably shouldn't do that. Just set it back to the default and let the program work normally.

But without your actual document, or screenshots of more settings (your Context toolbar, the Character panel, etc.) it's hard to say for sure.

[MxHeppa]

8 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

If you've used leading override, you probably shouldn't do that. Just set it back to the default and let the program work normally.

But without your actual document, or screenshots of more settings (your Context toolbar, the Character panel, etc.) it's hard to say for sure.

at least i can solve this way.(looks fine)

Paraggraph leading is 5pt ja Space After Paragraph. and i what you mean normal way?

my project file is here. recipe for this food is not mine.(but they dont have copyright where i live). and x charters are place where we put tools what you need. there is single page demostration file. At least these settings look fine i think.

 

keittokirja.afpub

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, MxHeppa said:

Paraggraph leading is 5pt ja Space After Paragraph. and i what you mean normal way?

Thanks for the file. I'm not sure what you're asking, but I was simply saying not to override the paragraph leading. I did not suggest "space after paragraph" and I'm not sure that's needed.

The file you provided seems to work properly. At least, the text does not run together as you showed. So you apparently made some change, which means I can't see what the problem was.

[MxHeppa]

oops i posted fixed file. i try post something non fixe directly way gomes.

 

[kevinslimp]

I wanted to chime in on the text style spacing issue. I've got the same problem with the latest beta. It was not a problem with the previous beta or the non-beta version I'm using.

I have tried all recommendations above, it still reverts to 12pt every time.

Interestingly, if I open a file created in the non-beta version - in the new beta version - the text styles panel works like the previous panel - the one in version 1.8.6. It not only acts like the old panel, working correctly, it takes on the look and characteristics of the old panel, which is different from the new beta.

I'm leading a large webinar for professional page designers Friday, comparing Publisher to InDesign, and this looks like an issue I'll have to explain. I noticed the new data merge tool, but haven't figured it out yet. Thanks.

[PMan]

Hi kevinslimp,

Have you tried setting up a paragraph style that you want, testing it to ensure that is correct then exporting a blank document [with those settings ] as a template?

When you create a new document from that new template, you should find that your new publication has your requisite settings.

Hope that helps you - good luck with your webinar

[kevinslimp]

2 hours ago, PMan said:

Hi kevinslimp,

Have you tried setting up a paragraph style that you want, testing it to ensure that is correct then exporting a blank document [with those settings ] as a template?

When you create a new document from that new template, you should find that your new publication has your requisite settings.

Hope that helps you - good luck with your webinar

Thanks PMan. That helps. At least I can open a template of a page and the style works correctly. Again, thank you.

[PMan]

Hi kevinslimp,

1st I hope your webinar went well!

2nd I woke during the night and thought "New text styles that are set up MUST be exported with the publication so that when somebody else opens the publication, it is seen as the creator designed it.   A little experimentation this morning proved my point so if you open the attached publication 

Sample para styles.afpub   

then if you click on the Styles rolldown  button,

you will find some new styles in the list, A, A1, B, C and D. 

As noted in my previous post, if you set up paragraph styles then delete all text frames that you might have used while setting them up, then you can export the blank publication as a template.  When you open a new publication using that template, then as soon as you start a new text frame, you will find your new text styles are available.

 

Best wishes 

 

PMan   [Windows 10   affinity-publisher-customer-beta-1.9.0.887]

[PMan]

Hey Kevinslimp,

Following my update 16th Jan, it is possible to set any of the existing styles to whatever you want or to create your own styles.

First as before, set the style to what you want [font, font size, font colour, any indents and paragraph spacing]
2nd To modify an existing style (eg Body), select some of your text and then open the Text Styles tab 

3rd When you have done this select the style that you want to change [Body in this example]

you should now find that the Paragraph symbol at the bottom is now no longer greyed out but White and if you position the mouse pointer on it it will tell you that clicking on it will Update Paragraph Style 

4th Click on this symbol and Body text will now become altered to your selection [and the word Body will change to your selected Font too].  If you do this in a publication that has a lot of text frames with Body text, then all instances of body text will be immediately updated to your new style.

Keep on learning!!

PMan   [Windows 10   affinity-publisher-customer-beta-1.9.0.902]