How to View All Pages as a Single Vertical Stream?

[Richard S]

At present, Publisher does not seem to offer different preview modes; all documents must be viewed as "spreads" in their final layout. But this makes it harder to perform a final check of the text and contents.

Please consider providing alternative preview / viewing modes (like PagePlus does); particularly the ability to view all pages as a single vertical stream. This would allow the user to zoom in enough to read / check the text and then to progress through the pages of a booklet by simply scrolling vertically... rather than having to zig-zag: down... up... across... down... in order to read facing pages.

 Checking and performing the final tweaks to a multi-page booklet would be made very much more convenient.

[walt.farrell]

Just a comment: You posted this in the Designer Feedback forum, rather than the Publisher Feedback forum.

Perhaps a moderator will move it.

[MEB]

Thread moved.

[Richard S]

1 hour ago, MEB said:

Thread moved.

Thanks for moving this thread.
Perhaps after it became "lost" because the forum timed me out just as I clicked "submit," :-( 
...and it then re-appeared in the wrong section?
...Or perhaps it was just my mistake?

[Wasp11b]

You may be looking for something different, but have you tried from the menu 'View\Zoom\Zoom to Width' and then use the page control at bottom left (or Ctrl PgUp and PgDn - you can assign different if you wish) to page through each spread - no zig-zagging. You can scroll to zoom in and out.

[AlanPickup]

You can untick the facing pages in the Document Setup set up and the pages will be single, this can be re ticked when you want to work across facing pages for text flow etc.

[Richard S]

1 hour ago, Wasp11b said:

You may be looking for something different, but have you tried from the menu 'View\Zoom\Zoom to Width' and then use the page control at bottom left (or Ctrl PgUp and PgDn - you can assign different if you wish) to page through each spread - no zig-zagging. You can scroll to zoom in and out.

Thanks, but I think that still tries to display my pages as double-page spreads, rather than as a single vertical column of individual pages.

My publication is a very simple 16-sided A5 folded brochure, which consists mostly of text. It doesn't really need the power of a DTP program such as Affinity Publisher, but that is the tool I have (and am trying to learn).

Thanks for the suggestion to use keyboard shortcuts: I will try to learn a few, but mostly use the ordinary mouse interface. The "Navigator" panel might also help, but is more fiddly than the simple vertical scrolling I'm after.

To read the text comfortably, I need to use at least 200% zoom.

It would be nice to have a simple way to hide the Left or Right Studio panels during previewing, but that doesn't yet seem to be available on my Windows version.

I have attached a screenshot showing my simple document, at 200% zoom.

[Richard S]

1 hour ago, AlanPickup said:

You can untick the facing pages in the Document Setup set up and the pages will be single, this can be re ticked when you want to work across facing pages for text flow etc.

Thanks. Does ticking / unticking the "facing pages" option affect text layout, image placement or flow in any way?

With "facing pages" not ticked, I do get the single vertical stream of pages I want. But as I am performing the final checks & tweaks before sending the document for printing, I do need everything to be exactly as in the final version.

If I had an image which extended across eg. the centre spread, presumably that would go wrong if "facing pages" was not ticked?

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, Richard S said:

It would be nice to have a simple way to hide the Left or Right Studio panels during previewing, but that doesn't yet seem to be available on my Windows version.

Pressing Tab will hide or show the studios (and some other things).

[Richard S]

7 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Pressing Tab will hide or show the studios (and some other things).

Thanks, yes. However Publisher's Help claims that left and right panels can be hidden independently: Perhaps Serif is planning that for later?

While doing my final checks and tweaks, I need access to some of the tools, in order to make corrections (before I forget them). But I don't really need to see eg. the "Pages" panel. I prefer to do these checks and tweaks within Publisher, rather than while viewing a fixed PDF version.

[garrettm30]

My opinion on what you are describing is that you would be better served by a word processor for your current project than a desktop publishing app, where the focus is more on layout, especially in its limited very first version (limited as compared to what it can become in the future).

It seems that what you are describing may be similar to the "story mode" or "story persona" that some (including myself) have requested. I don't expect to see any such feature soon, but I would like to see something like that as the app matures. You might like to comment on one of several threads where the feature request has been discussed:

 

[walt.farrell]

56 minutes ago, Richard S said:

Thanks, yes. However Publisher's Help claims that left and right panels can be hidden independently: Perhaps Serif is planning that for later?

Yes, you can do that on Mac, via the View > Studio menu. I don't remember that on Windows, but I'm away from my PC.

[Richard S]

9 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Yes, you can do that on Mac, via the View > Studio menu. I don't remember that on Windows, but I'm away from my PC.

Ah, we're Mac's poor relation?

I accept that there may be some differences between the Mac & Windows versions and some rough edges, particularly in this first release. But sometimes feel that I'm fighting against this program.

[Richard S]

10 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

My opinion on what you are describing is that you would be better served by a word processor for your current project than a desktop publishing app, where the focus is more on layout, especially in its limited very first version (limited as compared to what it can become in the future).

It seems that what you are describing may be similar to the "story mode" or "story persona" that some (including myself) have requested. I don't expect to see any such feature soon, but I would like to see something like that as the app matures. You might like to comment on one of several threads where the feature request has been discussed:

Thanks for those links. Yes, there is considerable overlap between the simpler end of DTP, and today's every more flexible word-processing programs.

Three of my reasons for using Publisher for this simple project:

• To help learn this new program (learning by doing)
• In the hopes that its PDF output will work better with commercial printing services
• Because I have it!

When I started using DTP, and later even with original versions of Serif PagePlus, they were "paste-up" programs... an electronic equivalent of a physical pasteboard: All text etc. had to be imported, rather than written directly within the layout program. At the same time, word-processing programs such as Word 5.5 for DOS did not provide WYSIWYG editing; only viewing. But we can now do simple word-processing in DTP programs... and simple publishing in word-processing programs.

But for my way of doing final checks & tweaks, I need to see the exact layout of the text etc.; and have the ability to make small corrections or adjustments. At the moment, Publisher is making this difficult.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Richard S said:

and some rough edges, particularly in this first release

While this is the first release of Publisher, it inherits the Studio technology from Photo and Designer which have had a significant amount of time to work out any issues.

[Richard S]

8 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

While this is the first release of Publisher, it inherits the Studio technology from Photo and Designer which have had a significant amount of time to work out any issues.

Yes, and I'm hoping that the suite will only get better. Nice the way that Serif keeps each program in step, during upgrades.

But as someone who seldom studies the instructions... until afterwards... I have suffered from some "corrections" made to Affinity Photo for its version 1.7: I had established a useful workflow which apparently relied on some of the Photo tools having specific faults or behaviours... which Serif has now corrected.

[Richard S]

On 8/2/2019 at 8:29 PM, AlanPickup said:

You can untick the facing pages in the Document Setup set up and the pages will be single, this can be re ticked when you want to work across facing pages for text flow etc.

Thanks, as a temporary work-around, I took your suggestion and "un-ticked" the facing pages option.

This seemed to work OK, although I do not know whether Affinity is clever enough to compensate for the central gutter or "creep" in folded brochures? If so, presumably I'll lose those features?

But a warning: Changing this option does mess up the master pages:

• Unticking the "facing pages" option seems to split a double-page master page into two separate single master pages, which are then attached to alternate pages. Sensible.
• However, "re-ticking" the "facing pages" option does not recombine the split master pages or apply what appears be a double-page master page to the whole left-right spread. Perhaps reasonable, but annoying.

I discovered this when I later tried to add page numbers: Although the settings looked OK on the double-page master page, they actually displayed only on left-hand pages. So I had to delete my master pages and create replacements.

[Wosven]

For checking text, I would export as PDF or print the pages and report/correct in APub each time I need (or later with printed version).

In APub on Windows, you can hide the panels but keep at the top the toolbar.  (not using Tab key, it's an option on the view menu). This way, you can zoom to have 2 pages displayed at a good zoom level, and using shortcuts or clicking in the text you can do modifications.

It would be better if in this mode we could display some specific panel with shortcuts (for example, only the Text styles one).

[garrettm30]

On 8/2/2019 at 3:45 PM, Richard S said:

It would be nice to have a simple way to hide the Left or Right Studio panels during previewing, but that doesn't yet seem to be available on my Windows version.

On this one point, you might consider the menu item View->Studio->Show Left Studio (or Show Right Studio as the case may be). You can assign keyboard shortcuts to these, and that way you can hide just one studio panel with quick keypress. When you show the studio panel, it remembers which studios you had in it before you closed it, including which ones were in the front.

[walt.farrell]

13 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

On this one point, you might consider the menu item View->Studio->Show Left Studio (or Show Right Studio as the case may be).

Those are Mac-only options.

[Richard S]

3 hours ago, Wosven said:

For checking text, I would export as PDF or print the pages and report/correct in APub each time I need (or later with printed version).

That's what I've just done for my final... final... check. But even at this late stage, I've had to return to AP, make corrections, then re-export the PDF.

37 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

On this one point, you might consider the menu item View->Studio->Show Left Studio (or Show Right Studio as the case may be). You can assign keyboard shortcuts to these, and that way you can hide just one studio panel with quick keypress. When you show the studio panel, it remembers which studios you had in it before you closed it, including which ones were in the front.

Sadly, MAC only at present; not available on Windows.

23 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Those are Mac-only options.

Agreed.

Thanks to everyone for tips & advice. Hopefully, future versions will (soon) make this easier?

[garrettm30]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Those are Mac-only options.

I’m sorry. I didn't realize something like that was Mac only.

[Richard S]

6 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

I’m sorry. I didn't realize something like that was Mac only.

No problem. It is listed in the online help in Windows versions, so perhaps one day...?

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Richard S said:

No problem. It is listed in the online help in Windows versions, so perhaps one day...?

I reported that last week as a bug, since the Help should not mention options that are not available. But I suggested that rather than fixing the Help it would be preferrable to include the option on Windows

The Serif staff have not had time to respond, yet.

 

[garrettm30]

To me it does not seem like the kind of thing that would be specific to one platform. The Windows version does have the mode where everything is gathered into a single window (besides any floating studios), right? I can’t find the name for that view, but it is the mode when Separated Mode is unchecked.