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How to create columns in a text frame?


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1 hour ago, GarryP said:

As far as I know, Designer doesn't allow for columns in a text frame (yet); I've never seen the option myself.
The discussion above is for Publisher, as far as I can tell.

Thank you very much for the clarification GarryP. I hope it will be available in the future.

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2 hours ago, marcfrancois said:

Sorry, I meant Publisher,

Then, as a point of information, you asked in the wrong forum :)

Publisher has its own set of forums.

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

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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  • 11 months later...

This is the mistake that Adobe makes and where Affinity could have a competitive edge - if it chooses not to follow Adobe's lead. The reality is most people designer posters and simple print pieces in Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer, not InDesign and Publisher. Those tools can be useful for very long documents like books and newspapers, but they're far too limiting to to be useful for most design. Text columns and threading aren't cumbersome or difficult tools to produce - just include them in the Designer application and you'll outcompete Adobe. Doing the same dumb things Adobe does (dividing up applications unnecessarily) isn't going to win converts.

Forcing people to switch excessively between applications is a huge hassle. Serious designers need to mix and match textures, type and images seamlessly. Affinity Designer's superior raster and masking tools give it an advantage over Illustrator and it's why I'm giving it a chance. But finding out that Affinity is not following this strategy across the board makes me want to just back to Adobe products, since at least I know them already.

Edited by robdesigner
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17 hours ago, robdesigner said:

Forcing people to switch excessively between applications is a huge hassle.

It isn't much of a hassle in the Affinity apps because the native file format makes converting anything to open it in one of the other apps unnecessary & almost seamless. It is even simpler for those of us that own all three apps & can take advantage of StudioLink in Affinity Publisher.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.5.6 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
A
ll 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 10 months later...
54 minutes ago, Sideshowlol said:

I agree about the hassle aspect of switching apps to add columns to a text block in Designer. Freehand was brilliant at this back in the day. Hope this functionality makes its way into Designer.

Interestingly, I can copy a text frame with columns from Publisher and paste it into Designer and the columns remain intact. So that's something. There are obviously no column-editing features in Designer yet though. 

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25 minutes ago, Sideshowlol said:

Interestingly, I can copy a text frame with columns from Publisher and paste it into Designer and the columns remain intact. So that's something. There are obviously no column-editing features in Designer yet though. 

The file formats and objects are compatible among the 3 applications. Serif chooses what parts of the User Interface (UI) to make available in each application, based on what they think that users of the applications will need.

Text Columns didn't exist in the applications before Publisher was released. It is possible that they will make their way into the UI for Designer, but it is also possible that with Publisher avaiable Serif will keep them exclusive to Publisher in the UI, feeling that anyone who needs that kind of text formatting should be using Publisher. At this point Designer is, I think, more intended for illustrators, and Publisher for users working with text.

Remember, too, that with both Publisher and Designer installed you can work in Publisher and have one application that supports both functions via the Publisher and Designer Personas.

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

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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  • 1 month later...
On 10/5/2020 at 3:18 PM, walt.farrell said:

The file formats and objects are compatible among the 3 applications. Serif chooses what parts of the User Interface (UI) to make available in each application, based on what they think that users of the applications will need.

Text Columns didn't exist in the applications before Publisher was released. It is possible that they will make their way into the UI for Designer, but it is also possible that with Publisher avaiable Serif will keep them exclusive to Publisher in the UI, feeling that anyone who needs that kind of text formatting should be using Publisher. At this point Designer is, I think, more intended for illustrators, and Publisher for users working with text.

Remember, too, that with both Publisher and Designer installed you can work in Publisher and have one application that supports both functions via the Publisher and Designer Personas.

Thanks for your thoughts, Walt. I get that. I assume it text column editing will appear in a future pleaser of Designer. I have been in this game for a few years now. To date, Designer still lacks a lot of the functionality of apps from the dim and distant past, such as Freehand (which I've already mentioned and which was also ahead of Illustrator in terms of multi-page layouts and text editing functionality). If I could have Freehand's text editing features with all the modern benefits of Affinity Designer and a modern Mac, I would be a happy bunny. I live in hope as Serif have done a great job to date.

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