Problems making a magazine style layout

[DavidSilverSteel]

I have a long term problem using Affinity Publisher Beta, continuing over many updates. My current version is 1.7.0.249

I can reproduce it - but with difficulty.

The problem may start on - say - the third page of a document. I am using Windows 10 on a PC and I am trying to produce a magazine style document of several pages, with basic 4 column text frames on each page and with photographs and text captions placed on top of the four column text. The photo panels placed on top of the 4 column text boxes have their text wrap settings set so that the underlying text in the 4 column text box will wrap around the photos and the captions beneath the photos which are in separate small text boxes also over the top of the 4 column box. I am a user of both Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, so I am fully conversant with layers, layer levels and nested layers.

I attach two screenshots - 1. Publisher Prototype illustrating the type of document that I am constructing and 2. Publisher Problem which I shall use to illustrate my difficulty.

In Publisher prototype you will see that I have a page with four column text flowing from page to page. I have a heading panel at the top which is laid on top of the 4CTB. Two photo panels are laid on top of the 4CTB (Steam Engine and Castings). I have extended the layers panel to show that each Photo panel consists of a Photo frame containing a photo, A text box containing a caption, and that these three layers  gave been grouped into a fourth layer called a "photo panel". This works ok, although it is dissapointing to have to create my overlay text boxes off the page and then slide them onto the page over the 4CTB. Also note that the "Part 1" text box shows the contents partially outside the text box. sometimes the text box and the contents have been inches apart! I left the text boxes selected when taking the screen shot, to show you the layout more clearly.

In the Publisher Problem screen shot, I show you the problem which often occurs. I have stripped this out of a four page document which I have had to abandon (yet again) as the whole document became unworkable. You will see that there is a 93 x 63 mm text box on the right hand page which can not be deleted - I have no idea how this happened. If I delete the photo Panel 21 on the left hand page, then the aforementioned problem text box will immediately take up the space on the left page where photo Panel 21 has been removed. The problem text box remains empty, but I can see body text behind it. I cannot delete it by deleting a layer - there is no layer associated with it - and I cannot select it to delete it. I simply must start the document from scratch. This has happened MANY TIMES. I cannot click my cursor into the 4CTB on the left hand page to delete body text or to edit the text in any way. It is simply there, and I must delete the document and start again. I am not sure, bu I sometimes copy a "Photo Panel" i.e. a group of 3 layers and paste it to another page. This seems to work ok, but I often then begin to have similar problems to the above.

Are you able to help me with this, as at present it is unusable for MY needs. I can send afpub files for the documents illustrated, but they are about 8Mb in size. Rebooting Affinity Publisher and reloading replaces the programme just as it was.

I hope that I have illustrated the problem adequately and that you are able to understand my explanation.

Kind Regards

David

 

[000]

Two questions:

1) Can you attach the Publisher file, please?

2) Any way, the lost, unselectable frame is somewhere on your master page?

BTW: I like, how you grouped the image and caption (going to do this on a draft I'm currently working on; won't use Publisher for actual layouts at the moment though), just wondering why everything is placed a bit off the guides.

[DavidSilverSteel]

Hi Jens,

Thanks for your reply. I am attaching the two publisher files for your observations.

Things are off the guides simply because I had been messing about with them just before the whole thing became a mess. the guides do work though.

The Four column text boxes are on the master page, but the small problem box isn't there - or at least I don't think so! - I can't find it anywhere.

Kind Regards

David

p.s. the text and photos are copywrite.

Testing Problem.afpub

Testing1.afpub

[000]

Thanks, I looked into the matter and deleted them instantly.

The issue was actually super-easy to solve: You have a single text frame grouped / layered together with your image (see screenshot) – I guess, because the image is on the left page and the empty text frame on the right page, you cannot simply click on it, because to Publisher it must look as if the frame is moved out of the page. Anyways, select it in the layers panel, delete it and you're all fixed up and ready to go. :o)

[DavidSilverSteel]

Thanks Jens,

WOW - how had I missed that. Put it down to old age!

Thanks for your help and I shall be more careful in future about grouping rogue frames where they should not be grouped. (I am still mad at myself for including that!)

Thanks again 

[000]

You're most welcome ... I enjoy digging into files and finding things like this. :o)