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Resizing text frame using scale handle should scale contents


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When resizing a text frame using the scale handle, it seems as if the text frame doesn't actually scale the contents of the frame. It seems like the frame itself retains a scale percentage that it applies to its contents, but it doesn't actually scale the contents.

This sounds confusing, but if you put some 12pt text in a text frame and use the scale handle to enlarge the size by 200% so the the text in the frame is now 24pt and then you link that frame to a new text frame the 24pt text from the first box will flow into the linked text frame as 12pt type. This is unexpected behavior. If a 24pt paragraph his reflowed into another text box, it should continue to be the same size.

So, the feature request would be for the contents of the text frame to actually be enlarged/reduced when a text frame is scaled so that its contents will remain consistent when flowing into a new box. Just look at your "unnamed" competitor for a better way to handle this behavior.

It doesn't make any sense to me the way it currently works. Adding copy to a text frame that causes text to reflow to a second box produces unexpected results. It's impossible to know which boxes are scaled what percentage, and it should be irrelevant what percentage the boxes are. The contents should be resized.

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Hi Jeff

Have a closer look at the text frame. You'll see two handles/nodes in the bottom right corner.

Moving the inner one will scale/transform the frame only, moving the outer one will also scale the contents of the frame.

Brilliant.

Macbook Pro mid 2015, 16 GB, double barrel: MacOS Mojave + Affinity 1 (+ Adobe’s CS6)/ MacOS Monterey + Affinity 2

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Resizing text frame using scale handle should NOT scale contents!

Normal and most used usage is to reshape text container using handles. Text size should be adjusted via styles.

Ability to change shape AND text size as an object is just an extra feature. Sometimes useful but not really bread&butter. Usually it is done with mod key with handle, Publisher has extra handle for it.

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3 hours ago, Fixx said:

Resizing text frame using scale handle should NOT scale contents!

But that's what it's defined to do. The scaling handle changes the container size and scales the contents.

If you don't want the contents scaled, don't use the scaling handle.

-- Walt
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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

But that's what it's defined to do. The scaling handle changes the container size and scales the contents.

Now that depends what you mean by scale handle. I meant using corner point as handle. Maybe corner point handle and scaling handle should have definite different meanings. For OP the difference was also vague.

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4 hours ago, Fixx said:

Now that depends what you mean by scale handle. I meant using corner point as handle. Maybe corner point handle and scaling handle should have definite different meanings. For OP the difference was also vague.

The scaling handle is the detached one, lower and to the right of the bottom right handle on the bounding box.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
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    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
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  • 10 months later...

I think being able to choose between the two sorts of handles (thus deciding how the scaling should be done) is basically a good idea.

I wonder, though, how do we use this when transforming numerically via the Transform panel? My recent problem was like this: I had completed an A5 sized flyer layout and then the client also wanted a version in A3 size (meaning just a scaling of exactly 200%) as a "mini poster". As all the proportions of the elements on the page – including textframes ond their content –  should remain the same I'd find it the easiest way if I could just select ALL the elements on the page, set a scaling of 200% in the Transform panel and press "Enter". This, however, doesn't work as doing it this way only scales the text frames as containers but not the contents (text size etc.). Obviously you cannot discern between the 2 sorts of handles when doing it this way – but on the other hand, if you do it manually using the handles it's sometimes hard to move the handles really precise enough to get the scaling percentage absolutely right...

I sort of seem to rememer that when doing such a thing in InDesign it helped when you just grouped all the elements before applying the numeric scaling – this way the apperance of the elements (including any text formatting) was scaled keeping all the original relations (as if it were an image or like when you set a scaling factor for printing).

Is there really no way to do this in Publisher but the manual one using the outward "Scale" handle?

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2 hours ago, Lorox said:

My recent problem was like this: I had completed an A5 sized flyer layout and then the client also wanted a version in A3 size (meaning just a scaling of exactly 200%) as a "mini poster".

Hello @Lorox,

try the following:

  • Go to File > Spread Setup...
  • Select in the Dimensions tab a new format from the Page Preset
  • Switch over to the Saling tab and click on Rescale
  • Finally click on OK

Does this what you are looking for?

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
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16 hours ago, dominik said:

try the following:

  • Go to File > Spread Setup...
  • Select in the Dimensions tab a new format from the Page Preset
  • Switch over to the Saling tab and click on Rescale
  • Finally click on OK

Does this what you are looking for?

Hi Dominik,

this actually sort of (but not quite) does what I need, although I'd prefer (maybe by habit...) to first set the page/document to the new size and then adjust the elements or building blocks separately and – for precision – numerically. Sometimes there are certain elements on the page that for some reason or other I actually don't want to scale exactly like the majority of the other elements – so having the page/document size right as a start and then being able to scale numerically feels a lot better for me (especially when I – e.g. – want type within a text frame go from 12pt [before] to exactly 24 pt [after] and not to 23,87 or so – which might well happen if just adjust the dimensions in Spread Setup and let this compute the scaling percentage...)

However, you can get pretty close (as to my example) by first dialling in exactly double measurements in Spread Setup and let it do the automatic and exact 200% scaling of all elements and then adjusting single special elements manually. When you have that sort of document where the bleed is actually included beforehand within the page size (as most online print services like to have it) you may have to adjust the overall Spread Setup a second time to correct the included bleed which often stays at acertain value (say 3mm) regardless of the document/page size being A3 or A2.

Furthermore I find that when doing the scaling (of a text frame) manually (because you cannot do it manually for the reasons discussed here) it may by helpful to use some dummy element which CAN be scaled numerically instead, though, and use this to snap some guides to it which then again can be used to snap the text frame to them when doing the manual scaling. This seemed a lot more relaxed to me than moving my hand/mouse/pen in those microscopic increments when trying to exactly hit that certain scaling percentage you're aiming at.

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2 minutes ago, Lorox said:

Sometimes there are certain elements on the page that for some reason or other I actually don't want to scale exactly like the majority of the other elements

Hi @Lorox

this of course can only be done manually. But as a starting point I think spread scaling is not bad.

 

2 minutes ago, Lorox said:

Furthermore I find that when doing the scaling (of a text frame) manually (because you cannot do it manually for the reasons discussed here) it may by helpful to use some dummy element which CAN be scaled numerically instead, though, and use this to snap some guides to it which then again can be used to snap the text frame to them when doing the manual scaling.

That's an interesting idea. Each one works differently 🙂
I've done this with other objects but now with text frames.

Cheers,
d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
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Before I forget:

Two things I noticed when scaling text frames via the scale handle

1. Why do we only have ONE scale handle (at the bottom right corner)? Regarding the position of a text frame on the page it may well be more convenient to scale from another corner, I'd say. As all corners are otherwise basically equal in terms of handling an object/element it seems only natural to request Affinity to add scale handles to ALL 4 corners of a text frame with a coming update. Doesn't it?

2. When scaling a text frame with the scale handle the text and its attributes are seemingly scaled wholesale (as desired). But as this seems to be the case with most inline formatting and text styles as well (font size, line height, indents etc.) I noticed that an underline within my text (being in fact a paragraph "embellishment") remained at its original line thickness and had to be adjusted separately afterwards. Is this by any means intended or is it just a minor bug?

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22 minutes ago, Lorox said:

1. Why do we only have ONE scale handle (at the bottom right corner)? Regarding the position of a text frame on the page it may well be more convenient to scale from another corner, I'd say. As all corners are otherwise basically equal in terms of handling an object/element it seems only natural to request Affinity to add scale handles to ALL 4 corners of a text frame with a coming update. Doesn't it?

Good question. I had to get used to this.

22 minutes ago, Lorox said:

remained at its original line thickness and had to be adjusted separately afterwards. Is this by any means intended or is it just a minor bug?

You mean the paragraph decoration? Check scale with object there.

------
Windows 10 | i5-8500 CPU | Intel UHD 630 Graphics | 32 GB RAM | Latest Retail and Beta versions of complete Affinity range installed

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On 5/12/2020 at 4:53 PM, Joachim_L said:
On 5/12/2020 at 4:29 PM, Lorox said:

 

You mean the paragraph decoration? Check scale with object there.

Yeah, I guess it's actually called that way (maybe I came up with "embellishment" by mistake). I hadn't noticed that "scale with object" option there and I'll check later – thank you, though!

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On 5/12/2020 at 10:29 AM, Lorox said:

it seems only natural to request Affinity to add scale handles to ALL 4 corners of a text frame

Agreed, but also provide the option in preferences to turn them all off, and make that the default.  I've seen far more reports on the forums of users who landed themselves in trouble by using the scale handle instead of the normal ones without understanding what it did, than from users who wanted the functionality of the scale handle and couldn't find it.  It has proven to be a source of more confusion than it is worth sticking in front of people who are unlikely to want its behavior.

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14 minutes ago, fde101 said:

Agreed, but also provide the option in preferences to turn them all off, and make that the default.  I've seen far more reports on the forums of users who landed themselves in trouble by using the scale handle instead of the normal ones without understanding what it did, than from users who wanted the functionality of the scale handle and couldn't find it.  It has proven to be a source of more confusion than it is worth sticking in front of people who are unlikely to want its behavior.

Possibly, I haven't really thought of it this way...

Personally, I think that Adobe has it adressed quite satisfactory: in InDesign all handles firsthand affect only the container as such and the content stays as it is (except from text flowing differently by forming longer or shorter lines according to the changes in the size of a text frame). But when you press the command key while dragging the handles the frame's content gets scaled along. You learn this once and you've got it, I'd say.

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