Master page attached to a paragraph style

[Distill7]

Please add a feature that allows overriding the master page choice if there is a specific paragraph style in that page.

A use case scenario for this is:

in books interior. we need a master page (Body) for the main matter, usually, it has running head + folio (page numbers).

We use a different master page (chapter) for the 1st page of each new chapter, it has folio, NO RUNNING HEAD, plus or minus some graphics.

If we apply the (chapter) master page to each chapter opening page, let's say page 8 for chapter 2, then I make the font size bigger, which pushes the chapter 2 opening page to page no 9, but the (chapter) master page is still applied to page 8. Which means now I'll have to apply (chapter) master page to page 9, and apply the (body) master page to page 8 too.

Now imagine if you have a book of 50 chapters, everytime you make some tweaks that changes the pages order, like font size, tracking, lining, add or remove pages and so one, you'll have to apply those master pages 50x2=100 times, which is a very time consuming task. If you implement this feature it would be of great help.

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by toutou123

[Fixx]

Yes, the problem is that set master page does not follow chapter start. You would indeed need routine like <if style = "Chapter Headline" then set master to "Chapter First">, or  <if Start Paragraph is set to "Next Page"  then set master to "Chapter First">

Kludge fix would be to use one master page and add the graphic and white box to cover the running head anchored to headline. Then they would move with text to right position.

Another way is of course to prepare the layout in separate chapter files, which is not really supported well enough in Publisher (book feature).

[Seneca]

9 hours ago, toutou123 said:

If you implement this feature it would be of great help.

That would really be great and would push Affinity Publisher ahead of other players.

Meantime, you can pin your picture to the Title (you can do it right now) and then you can use Paragraph Decorator to hide the Running Header with a think white line.

[Distill7]

 

 

1

3 hours ago, Fixx said:

Another way is of course to prepare the layout in separate chapter files, which is not really supported well enough in Publisher (book feature).

Preparing each chapter in a different file won't give you a lot of control over the styling of the book, especially if there are special tweaks here and there. The ability to see the document as a whole is way better.

[Distill7]

 

 

 

23 minutes ago, Seneca said:

Meantime, you can pin your picture to the Title (you can do it right now) and then you can use Paragraph Decorator to hide the Running Header with a think white line.

That's a very smart idea, however I'm wondering if the white rule and the text will be still exported to the pdf file. I'm worried if that might cause some problems for printers.

[fde101]

I would think it would work out better to have properties of a paragraph style that would force a page and/or section break, and to set up the alternate master to happen at the point of a section break.  If the section break travels with the paragraph style, then simply formatting a title with that style would cause the title to appear at the top of a new page and the automatic substitution of the master page would take place as well, and it would help to delimit the chapters into distinct sections as well.

If as others have suggested the sections are made more readily visible in the pages panel, this could simultaneously help as a document navigation aid...

[Distill7]

 

 

1

2 minutes ago, fde101 said:

I would think it would work out better to have properties of a paragraph style that would force a page and/or section break, and to set up the alternate master to happen at the point of a section break.  If the section break travels with the paragraph style, then simply formatting a title with that style would cause the title to appear at the top of a new page and the automatic substitution of the master page would take place as well, and it would help to delimit the chapters into distinct sections as well.

You can already set a paragraph style to create a page break. In the paragraph style options: Flow: You can set it to start on: Next page, next odd page, or next even page.

This will automatically move the chapter text to a new page. However, you can't apply a master page to it. I don't think you can apply a specific master page at section break or any other break at the moment. But creating this feature for a paragraph style would be better, for example you can create breaks for empty pages to place images on them where you won't need pages numbers. It's better to choose it in the paragraph style rather than one size for all.

[fde101]

Thanks, I missed that option.

A checkbox when using one of those page options to also trigger a section break would be nice.

Not sure how the idea of using a paragraph style to avoid page numbers on a blank page would work - if the page is blank, then there wouldn't be a paragraph style present to trigger that?

 

Tying master page selections to paragraph styles could be problematic as if you have different paragraph styles on the same page which ask for different master page overrides then you would need a mechanism to determine which one "wins" - which could be chaotic.

Rather having a property of a master page saying "override with this other master page when at a section break" would add the flexibility of having different potential overrides for different starting master pages while at the same time eliminating the ambiguity of having to work out the battle of the masters when trying to apply these to paragraph styles.

[Distill7]

Having multiple paragraph styles with master page override on the same page is really problematic, but that can be solved by finding a mechanism of priority or an error message. If the designer makes his design to avoid such problems would be fine.

What I meant when I said that triggering a certain master page at section break won't work, is let's assum we have:

• [Body Master] : with running head and page numbers for full-text pages;
• [Chapter Master] : with page numbers only fur chapter openers;
• [Blank Master] : with nothing on it, I apply it to front matter pages and other purposes like full photos...

Now the problem with a section break, is that sometimes I need to use the [Blank Master] page, and sometimes I'll need to use the [chapter master] page. A feature to trigger only one master page at every section break won't really work.

[Distill7]

Another question for anybody, is there a way to select all pages that have a certain paragraph style. This way if I can select all pages that the chapter paragraph style I can select them all and apply [chapter master]. It's not fully automatic, but it's better than selecting them one by one.

[dominik]

4 minutes ago, toutou123 said:

Another question for anybody, is there a way to select all pages that have a certain paragraph style. This way if I can select all pages that the chapter paragraph style I can select them all and apply [chapter master]. It's not fully automatic, but it's better than selecting them one by one.

You cannot select them but search for them. The search result list let's you jump to each found page and apply the master page in question. This is not automatic nor a one click operation but should reliably bring up all pages in question.

d.

[Fixx]

44 minutes ago, toutou123 said:

Preparing each chapter in a different file won't give you a lot of control over the styling of the book, especially if there are special tweaks here and there. The ability to see the document as a whole is way better.

That is why book feature is needed in Pubisher. To keep styles and settings on sync.

[fde101]

26 minutes ago, toutou123 said:

A feature to trigger only one master page at every section break

That's not what I was suggesting.  It would be a property of the master page itself.  If you have one basic master page for the front matter and another for your actual content, each of them could specify a different substitute master page to be used when a section break is reached...  also, you could always manually substitute if there is an occasional exception.

 

29 minutes ago, toutou123 said:

[Blank Master] : with nothing on it, I apply it to front matter pages and other purposes like full photos...

Again, with full-page photos, what paragraph style would be able to trigger your proposed feature?  A page with a full-page photo is not likely to contain any text that could be used to activate this feature.

[Seneca]

1 hour ago, toutou123 said:

 I'm worried if that might cause some problems for printers

No issue whatsoever. I've employed this technique in inDesign for a number of years while layout out books. It just works and you don't need to search for anything.

Try it first before anything else.

[fde101]

25 minutes ago, Fixx said:

That is why book feature is needed in Pubisher. To keep styles and settings on sync.

It also gives me the rather unrefined fuzzy idea of the concept of "linked sections" in which an Affinity document could be linked to from section manager such that its pages would appear within the document and auto-update in/from the linked-to file...

[walt.farrell]

12 minutes ago, fde101 said:

It also gives me the rather unrefined fuzzy idea of the concept of "linked sections" in which an Affinity document could be linked to from section manager such that its pages would appear within the document and auto-update in/from the linked-to file...

@Patrick Connor mentioned that they plan to have a page selector that will allow inserting multiple pages from a Placed PDF file. If they make that work for Placed  .afpub files, too, that could provide something like the Book feature that some have asked for, and that you just suggested. I like your idea of connecting this to the Section Manager.

[Distill7]

1 hour ago, Seneca said:

No issue whatsoever. I've employed this technique in inDesign for a number of years while layout out books. It just works and you don't need to search for anything.

Try it first before anything else.

I have tried and it works even though the text and the white box are exported.

The only problem with this technique is that it's very time consuming especially if I want to add a graphic to the chapters openers in addition to removing the headers.

[Seneca]

14 minutes ago, toutou123 said:

The only problem with this technique is that it's very time consuming especially if I want to add a graphic to the chapters openers in addition to removing the headers.

I don't think we are on the same page here.

I will try to record a short video about what I mean.

[Seneca]

55 minutes ago, toutou123 said:

The only problem with this technique is that it's very time consuming especially if I want to add a graphic to the chapters openers in addition to removing the headers.

Would the solution below solve your problem?

Alice.afpub

[Distill7]

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Seneca said:

Would the solution below solve your problem?

Thanks for your time and effort. The decoration/rule above solution is great. As for the chapter graphics thing, I also found that if you link the graphic instead of embedding it. Then you can make any changes to that file and all instances will update.

While your solution is the best workaround so far, I'd still love an option to trigger a certain master page when a paragraph style or a section break is present if they can implement it of course, because it's quicker, cleaner, and might give you more creative options.