Letter/Glyph Tracking/Spacing and invisible signs

[Friedrich Lux]

Hi everybody – I'm new her – excuse for my poor english.

I'm a professional Grafik-Designer for Print and Books, a long-time-InDesign-User and also a Teacher for software-courses (for Aff. designer/Photo and planning the first course for AffPublisher). Now I'm testing AffPublisher for som first projects – impressive. 

I noticed two little problems, which are importent for Pros with Layout:

1. When handling a mass of text in colums – I have to fine-tune the Letter/Glyph Tracking/Spacing for a lot of single rows. Typically it's done by keyborad-shortcuts (alt + left/right arrow) in steps – now by 10‰. In my opinion – this step is to large – 5‰ would be better. Or a possibility, to define your own steps in preferences, like it's possible in InDesign.

2. When working on Text on details – the display of hidden Signs (Points for Spaces – Paragraph-Sign and so on) is very important. I noticed, that there is no symbol for a forced line-break. But that would be very important – you have to find forced linebraeks.

thanks a lot 

Friedrich

 

Edited March 10, 2019 by Friedrich Lux

[jmwellborn]

3 hours ago, Friedrich Lux said:

Hi everybody – I'm new her – excuse for my poor english.

I'm a professional Grafik-Designer for Print and Books, a long-time-InDesign-User and also a Teacher for software-courses (for Aff. designer/Photo and planning the first course for AffPublisher). Now I'm testing AffPublisher for som first projects – impressive. 

I noticed two little problems, which are importent for Pros with Layout:

1. When handling a mass of text in colums – I have to fine-tune the Letter/Glyph Tracking/Spacing for a lot of single rows. Typically it's done by keyborad-shortcuts (alt + left/right arrow) in steps – now by 10‰. In my opinion – this step is to large – 5‰ would be better. Or a possibility, to define your own steps in preferences, like it's possible in InDesign.

2. When working on Text on details – the display of hidden Signs (Points for Spaces – Paragraph-Sign and so on) is very important. I noticed, that there is no symbol for a forced line-break. But that would be very important – you have to find forced linebraeks.

thanks a lot 

Friedrich

 

There is a symbol for a forced line break.   If you are on a MAC, use Shift+Return and you will find a little blue arrow.  Don't know what it is on Windows.   As for your question No. 1 are you referencing tracking?    If so, you can define a tracking percentage using the Character Panel or in Text Styles.    Was this what you meant?

[Friedrich Lux]

Hello, thanks for reply.

Question 1 – Charakter Tracking: Yes, I'm talking about this function tracking, but I (and a lot of others, I think) will use this feature by keyboard-shortcode – its a lot faster for working on long textes. The keyboadr-shortcode exists, but the assoziatet steps (10‰) are to large – better 5‰. Best solution would be to define my one custom keyboard-shortcode-steps in Preferences like it's possible in Indesign.

Question 2 – Yes, I'm using Shift+Return for forced line-break – but there is still no symbol – sorry. (Mac OS El Capitan, AffPubl. 1.7.0.257). Even if I use the Menu Panel Text-Insert-Breaks-LineBreak, I cant see the Sign. Also all other signs for manual breaks are not shown. Signs for Spaces or soft-hypens (for example), I can see.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Agreed. The current steps are far too large. 

In PagePlus X9, the default stop is 1% for Alt+Left, and 0.1% for Ctrl+Alt+Left. 

I frequently use the latter for fine control applying it to the entire paragraph to prevent widows and orphans. Any negative kern value exceeding -3% is too tight, and should be avoided as far as possible. Often, I can reduce a paragraph by one line with just 0.1-0.5% of negative kerning. 

Default Spacing

1% Condensed

3% Condensed (Too tight)

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Affinity Designer seems to use a different measuring system. I am not sure I am comparing like with like, but I can get the desired result with -8.0% of tightening. 

[Alfred]

19 minutes ago, Bhikkhu Pesala said:

Affinity Designer seems to use a different measuring system.

I wonder what different measuring system that might be! Per mille is per mille, surely?

Quote

I am not sure I am comparing like with like, but I can get the desired result with -8.0% of tightening.

Your reference to -8‰ seems to have got lost in translation.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I don't understand what your problem is with always fault-finding. In PagePlus 1% condensed = -8% of tightening in Affinity Designer. 

Maybe that would be -10% if the frames were exactly the same width. I did not measure it, I just resized it to get the same line breaks.

[Alfred]

7 minutes ago, Bhikkhu Pesala said:

I don't understand what your problem is with always fault-finding.

I don’t understand what your problem is with always misinterpreting my posts! You made the observation that AD seems to use a different measurement system, which prompted me to wonder what that system might be, and you then went on to write

2 hours ago, Bhikkhu Pesala said:

I can get the desired result with -8.0% of tightening. 

to which I responded

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

Your reference to -8‰ seems to have got lost in translation.

in an attempt to point out that what the forum is showing as ‘minus eight point nought per cent’ should be ‘minus eight per mille’.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Why not simply point out that Affinity Designer uses per mille instead of percent? That clarifies without being a sarcastic PITA. 

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, Bhikkhu Pesala said:

Why not simply point out that Affinity Designer uses per mille instead of percent?

Because I overlooked the fact that PagePlus uses percent! That makes more sense now, and it explains the ‘different measurement system’ issue: you used -8‰ in AD, and -1.0% (i.e. -10‰) in PP.

Quote

That clarifies without being a sarcastic PITA.

I’m sorry you’ve chosen to infer sarcasm from anything I’ve written here.