Where are Text Styles in Designer for iPad?

[Grum]

I use Text Styles extensively in Designer for Mac and have just installed Designer 1.7 on my iPad but I can't find them anywhere!

Also checked tutorials but no mention - they must exist somewhere as this page https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/ proudly boasts:
"Any device, anywhere: Whether on Windows, Mac or iPad the features and file format are exactly same." 

Can somebody point me in the right direction please?

Thanks!

[DM1]

Is this what you are looking for? 

 

[Grum]

Thanks but no - although I did expect to find Text Styles in the Text Studio.

To be clear, on the Mac you can define Paragraph and Character Styles which are grouped under Text Styles. However on Designer for iPad this feature does not appear to exist. I'm now wondering whether there are other features that are NOT "exactly the same on Windows, Mac or iPad"? 

[DM1]

1 hour ago, Grum said:

I'm now wondering whether there are other features that are NOT "exactly the same on Windows, Mac or iPad"? 

I'm certain that would be the case. The iPad features are improving but to use Affinity Photo as an example, we still lack essential features such as importing palettes and creating and or exporting macros.  Designer may be closer but I don't use a desktop so can't really say. The new included features are great and hopefully the few annoying bugs will be fixed soon.

[Callum]

Hi Grum,

Welcome to the forums

Unfortunately text styles aren't currently a feature of the iPad builds.  This is something we might add in a future update.

Thanks

C

[Dybkjær]

I know this is 3 months old, but: I define a frame text with the style I want for, say, body text. Then I select it, select Fx -> styles -> Add style from selection, and rename it "text body".

Now I can easily apply that text style to other text objects, and by creating more such styles, I can easily switch between them for a given text object.

The latter points to the weakness of this technique and why it is only a workaround: The style is neither editable, nor linked with the objects to which it is applied. So I cannot edit a style, and then the linked objects changes style automatically.

Nevertheless, using styles with text frames makes my life easier.

[DM1]

8 hours ago, Dybkjær said:

So I cannot edit a style, and then the linked objects changes style automatically.

I wonder if you can save the frame text style as a symbol. If so, edits to one would apply to all. 

[Dybkjær]

On 9/23/2019 at 4:17 AM, DM1 said:

I wonder if you can save the frame text style as a symbol. If so, edits to one would apply to all. 

Yes, works like a charm. Except that when you edit the text, the text also changes accordingly in all the symbol instances.

So close, but no cigar.

I guess Serif has to design carefully before they add this functionality, but I hope they do. Maybe they can move a module from Publisher to Designer (or release Publisher for iPad, that would be great).  

[DM1]

2 hours ago, Dybkjær said:

Yes, works like a charm. Except that when you edit the text, the text also changes accordingly in all the symbol instances.

Glad to hear that worked. Now let's try for the cigar. 

Try turning off the synchronise symbols in Symbol Studio. Changes made while sync is set to off will only change the edited symbol.  Switch back on to edit all symbols at once. 

[Dybkjær]

1 hour ago, DM1 said:

Glad to hear that worked. Now let's try for the cigar. 

Try turning off the synchronise symbols in Symbol Studio. Changes made while sync is set to off will only change the edited symbol.  Switch back on to edit all symbols at once. 

Good idea. However, I cannot get that to work. I do this: Create text Hi, make it italic underlined Hi. Add symbol from selection. Pull that symbol in twice to have now three objects Hi Hi Hi. They are linked, if I make them bold and edit the text, they all react: Hi! Hi! Hi!  Now uncheck Sync symbols. Edit one works fine: Hi! Hihi Hi! However, check Sync symbols again and edit style again to remove underline, only the unaltered instances react: Hi! Hihi Hi! Am I doing something wrong, or does it not work on iPad? My iPad? Anywhere?

An aside spawned again by this exercise: The UI is dark. The text symbols in the Symbols tray are black. They are literally invisible - an annoying UX error. The same goes for Assets. Most of my assets are dark and hence near impossible to see. To be honest, all the dark grey icons on the really dark background are difficult to distinguish. A light themed UI would be a huge UX improvement.

[DM1]

The edits to unsynched symbol should not effect other symbols even when resynching. See attached vid. You need to select the symbol and then turn off synch.

unfortunately the symbol ui is terrible and no symbol naming on iOS. Hopefully affinity devs will improve this. Make a feature request (I have) but the more who point out how bad this ui currently is the better.

[marcoborghesi]

This is really an important feature that I hope will be implemented really soon. 

[Cooner]

Gonna chime in and add my two cents for text styles in the iPad version of Designer, also.

I create template files a lot … for example, I'm working on a few different comics that use different lettering styles (different fonts for each project, alternate font for different characters or different types of word balloons … centered lettering for word balloons vs. left-justified lettering for exposition boxes … etc.) The styles make it easy to keep lettering consistent across different projects. So I was kinda surprised when I opened a template to create a new page while I happened to be on my iPad the other day, and text styles were nowhere to be found.  It would be a great addition.

This makes me wonder now … If I open a desktop file on my iPad, edit it and save it, will the existing text styles still be there or will the iPad version wipe them out? 🤔

[These8arms]

I’ll also add my vote to this being an essential feature we need on the iPad version!

Missing this means some edits take an unnecessarily long amount of time, where they could just be a few taps and done in seconds. Really hoping this gets added soon.

[Wildflower]

Text styles is a feature I would love to have on the iPad and need for my work as a UX/UI designer.

Is there a list to see what features are being worked on to release?

[Cooner]

Giving this thread another bump … I was just talking to a friend who works at Apple and he was asking me if I thought I could do my work completely on an iPad without relying on a Mac, and as I was cataloging the handful of challenges I'd face, the lack of text style support in Designer was near the top of my list.

I'm curious if this is still on Serif's radar for development, or if there could be any recommendation that it should be? Especially with the M1 iPads out now … I doubt text styles are highly processor dependent but full feature parity would be nice to go with the current "as powerful as a traditional computer" story of the iPad right now.

Thanks!

[dantaylr]

On 6/16/2021 at 2:36 PM, Cooner said:

Giving this thread another bump … I was just talking to a friend who works at Apple and he was asking me if I thought I could do my work completely on an iPad without relying on a Mac, and as I was cataloging the handful of challenges I'd face, the lack of text style support in Designer was near the top of my list.

I'm curious if this is still on Serif's radar for development, or if there could be any recommendation that it should be? Especially with the M1 iPads out now … I doubt text styles are highly processor dependent but full feature parity would be nice to go with the current "as powerful as a traditional computer" story of the iPad right now.

Thanks!

Completely agreed. I’m desperately trying to make this thing my primary design device and text styles are crucial! 
 

I long for the day when angry iPad feature requests begin to outnumber angry PC feature requests. 

Edited July 20, 2021 by dantaylr

[transitdiagrams]

It's actually essential. Also a Glyph browser is missing and the ability to use a soft-return

[Kobold]

Now you know, why this never got into Designer 1 ......   they kept that for Designer 2 where you can find it now. Looks like a well made plan ...... 

[DM1]

3 hours ago, Kobold said:

Now you know, why this never got into Designer 1 ......   they kept that for Designer 2 where you can find it now. Looks like a well made plan ...... 

There are lots of new features in V2. Are you saying they should have been added in V1? Then why even have new releases? It’s a business and the company sold you a package as is, then gave you extra features on top, all good. But where does it cut off?

[Kobold]

I always thought Serif wanted to bring us software, that enables us to work flawless on iPad, desktop, laptop computers, ....  

[dantaylr]

I'd just like to say thanks to the team for thoroughly implementing all of this in V2!
 

I can imagine it would be easy to come up with conspiracy theories that they added these features only to V2 to force you to upgrade, but honestly this is the one and only suite that doesn't take my money via subscription and it's really nice. On top of listening to our angry comments the team has to eat. They've done a wonderful job so far.