Affinity Publisher - Master Updated - Pages not Updating / Lost Master Link

[mrbips]

I have master pages with a table.

Pages have master applied and then custom information input on them.

Discovered error on table ( an extra line on the border on a few cells)

I edit the Master but the page does not update.

If I clear the master (and lose the custom info I've input) and re-apply it is fine.

Is there a proper procedure to force refresh pages with masters applied without losing the custom text I've input? 

Unchecking "replace" existing creates a bolded effect on the whole page.

 

Update 1: 

Fiddled more and its as if a large chunk of my pages lost their "link" to their master. So when Master is updated nothing updates on the page. My current doc the 1st 2 pages update but the subsequent pages do not.

I manually updated 30 of my pages so far by clearing and reapplying master but this cannot be the only way to "refresh" the links. Cannot reproduce the issue yet on another. 

Update 2: 

Updated to 1.7.2 still same issue 

Update 3: 

Side note that when I duplicate a master that has already been renamed - the duplicate has the exact same name as the original -- seems it would be useful that the duplicate indicates COPY or other indicator so that the wrong master is not edited by accident. If you do not rename the Master it does change the Name for example I just created Master X and when duplicating it made Master Y.

Update 4: 

I had a thought to create an additional master that had all my workbook text in it, then overlay (by not replacing existing master) on the 1st master on each page, which would allow me to quickly "re-apply" the necessary master to fix my original issue, so I created a new master and created a few dummy "Options" in my layers (Option 1, Option 2, Option 3) to enable as needed once applied to the appropriate page. However once this new master is applied to the page I am unable to change the options as they are greyed out and seems to be permanently locked. So thats a no go at this moment. 

Thanks!

[mrbips]

Bump

[stokerg]

Hi mrbips,

Can you attach the .afpub for this and i'll try following the points you've raised with your file open in Publisher.

16 hours ago, mrbips said:

Side note that when I duplicate a master that has already been renamed - the duplicate has the exact same name as the original -- seems it would be useful that the duplicate indicates COPY or other indicator so that the wrong master is not edited by accident. If you do not rename the Master it does change the Name for example I just created Master X and when duplicating it made Master Y.

Yup that would be useful.  Would make for a good Feature Request post

[mrbips]

Attached, i edited out my private info and stripped down a bunch of pages.

 

As I deleted text box items from the master, they updated fine.

If I change cell fill or cell border, they do not update. -- 

Add text in the master within table, it updates

Cannot reproduce issue in a virgin file. 

master linking issue.afpub

[mrbips]

Any update ?

[carl123]

All master page items have attributes which are either linked or unlinked to the corresponding item on normal pages.

When a master page item is first created all attributes are initially linked

In the case of Tables, 3 of these attributes are

Text
Text Frame
Transform/Constraints

If you go to one of your pages and expand the master page layer you will see some of the layers have orange dashes next to them.  This indicates that at least one or more attributes have been unlinked from the corresponding item on the master page.

If you hover over the name part of the layer you will see that the unlinked attribute is Text Frame

The Text Frame attribute controls the fills and borders/stokes within the table.  Since it is unlinked changes to these on the Master Page tables will not be updated on your pages.

Your Text and Transform/Constraints attributes are still linked on your normal pages which is why the changes you make to the text on your master page is updated on your normal pages and why repositioning the tables on the master page are also updated on your normal pages.

Note: The above applies to all pages except pages 24/25. If you hover over the table names in the layers panel on those pages you will see that in addition to the Text Frame attribute you also have the Text attribute that has been unlinked.  Which means that that page will also no longer respond to changes made to the text on the master page tables as well as changes made to the fills and borders/stokes on the table.

Unlinking an attribute from a master page item can be either an "automatic" or a "manual" process.  In the case of a Table as soon as you edit a table (e.g. add some text to it) on a normal page, both the Text and Text Frame attributes are automatically unlinked.  Selectively repositioning one table on a normal page requires you to first "Edit Detached" the master page layer on the normal page (i.e. a manual process) and then to reposition the table, which will then unlink the Transform/Constraints attribute for that table.

 

[mrbips]

Carl,

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. I now can reproduce the issue on a virgin file and understand the orange solid to dashed lines. This issue confused me greatly this past week.

So for a table, If we even mistakenly put any text on a normal page it breaks the link to be able to adjust the borders on the table... 

And Based on these 2 additional forums posts.... There is no way to relink once the link has been broken!??! This is painful for any new users that only discover this once they've put hours/days into a project only to be tripped up by something like this with no way to quick fix... Damn glad I know now!

 

 

 

 

Attached, i edited out my private info and stripped down a bunch of pages.

 

As I deleted text box items from the master, they updated fine.

If I change cell fill or cell border, they do not update. -- 

Add text in the master within table, it updates

Cannot reproduce issue in a virgin file. 

[carl123]

42 minutes ago, mrbips said:

So for a table, If we even mistakenly put any text on a normal page it breaks the link to be able to adjust the borders on the table...

Yes, but I don't understand why.

If you add text to a table on a normal page both the Text & Text Frame attributes are unlinked.  I would have expected only the Text attribute to be unlinked. Which would mean you could freely change the fills and borders on the table on the master page and have these updated on normal pages.  Hopefully, this is a bug which can get sorted in the future.

In comparison, if you add text to a text frame (from a master page) only the Text attribute is unlinked.  The Text Frame attribute is not affected by the adding of the text.  You need to do other stuff, than simply adding text, to get the Text Frame attribute to unlink also.

 

[mrbips]

Mods - can this be moved to the publisher bugs forum?

 

 

[mrbips]

Also as I work through manually fixing my doc...

If Master's Margin is changed typically the normal page will update... however if for whatever reason you (as I as a newbie did during this project) change the normal page margin it unlinks from the master margin settings and seemingly unlinks with no indication that I can tell that margin is now unlinked. So when I updated the master margin thinking all carried through, indeed it did not..

Thoughts???

 

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, mrbips said:

If Master's Margin is changed typically the normal page will update... however if for whatever reason you (as I as a newbie did during this project) change the normal page margin it unlinks from the master margin settings and seemingly unlinks with no indication that I can tell that margin is now unlinked. So when I updated the master margin thinking all carried through, indeed it did not..

You're right that there seems to be no indication that the margin of a document page has been unlinked from the margin on a Master Page. If Publisher were handling that as it handles other unlinked attributes, then I would expect to see a notification about that when the document page is selected and you hold the mouse pointer over the Master Page's layer in the Layers panel.

[ETC]

On 8/30/2019 at 6:20 PM, carl123 said:

Quote

On 8/30/2019 at 5:23 PM, mrbips said:

So for a table, If we even mistakenly put any text on a normal page it breaks the link to be able to adjust the borders on the table...

Yes, but I don't understand why.

If you add text to a table on a normal page both the Text & Text Frame attributes are unlinked.  I would have expected only the Text attribute to be unlinked. Which would mean you could freely change the fills and borders on the table on the master page and have these updated on normal pages.  Hopefully, this is a bug which can get sorted in the future.

In comparison, if you add text to a text frame (from a master page) only the Text attribute is unlinked.  The Text Frame attribute is not affected by the adding of the text.  You need to do other stuff, than simply adding text, to get the Text Frame attribute to unlink also.

 

I'm trying to use Affinity Publisher v. 1.8.1.

Does anyone know if this problem in on the radar for fixing? I'm working on a calendar and had a table on the master page (the table is just the dates, which, of course, have to be in different boxes for each month). Text, Text Frame and Baseline grid are all unlinked attributes, so all the tweaking I've been doing to the master page table to get it right has been wasted, since it won't update the regular pages. Ugh!

Is this issue mentioned in the bugs section of the forums? I would hope that never, ever would something become unlinked without the user specifically authorizing it, but that it gets unlinked and then there is no way to re-link it is even harder to accept.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, ETC said:

Does anyone know if this problem in on the radar for fixing?

I'm not sure if it's even been reported as a bug. This topic is in the Questions area of the forums.

[ETC]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I'm not sure if it's even been reported as a bug. This topic is in the Questions area of the forums.

Hi, Walt,

Thank you for that info. I posted it here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/109915-master-pages-to-pages-forcibly-unlinked-attributes-no-way-to-re-link-them/

[DarelGabriel]

I also have this problem. Cut and re-paste of the original item on the master page fixes the problem. I hope that Affinity will address this issue.

[Avicennia]

On 8/30/2019 at 8:47 PM, carl123 said:

All master page items have attributes which are either linked or unlinked to the corresponding item on normal pages.

When a master page item is first created all attributes are initially linked

In the case of Tables, 3 of these attributes are

Text
Text Frame
Transform/Constraints

If you go to one of your pages and expand the master page layer you will see some of the layers have orange dashes next to them.  This indicates that at least one or more attributes have been unlinked from the corresponding item on the master page.

If you hover over the name part of the layer you will see that the unlinked attribute is Text Frame

The Text Frame attribute controls the fills and borders/stokes within the table.  Since it is unlinked changes to these on the Master Page tables will not be updated on your pages.

Your Text and Transform/Constraints attributes are still linked on your normal pages which is why the changes you make to the text on your master page is updated on your normal pages and why repositioning the tables on the master page are also updated on your normal pages.

Note: The above applies to all pages except pages 24/25. If you hover over the table names in the layers panel on those pages you will see that in addition to the Text Frame attribute you also have the Text attribute that has been unlinked.  Which means that that page will also no longer respond to changes made to the text on the master page tables as well as changes made to the fills and borders/stokes on the table.

Unlinking an attribute from a master page item can be either an "automatic" or a "manual" process.  In the case of a Table as soon as you edit a table (e.g. add some text to it) on a normal page, both the Text and Text Frame attributes are automatically unlinked.  Selectively repositioning one table on a normal page requires you to first "Edit Detached" the master page layer on the normal page (i.e. a manual process) and then to reposition the table, which will then unlink the Transform/Constraints attribute for that table.

 

Thanks for this explanation Carl123. It was really helpful. I'm having this problem as we speak and thought I was just doing something wrong because I'm a newbie. It seems the issue has not yet been ironed out (as of November 2020). At least I can stop trying to work out what I've done wrong! Now to find another way to achieve what I want to do... wish me luck!

[EmmaS]

Any update to this? (Currently March 2021.) I'm trying to change the font in a master text box, but updating the master doesn't update the pages.

[reinfeldx]

On 3/8/2021 at 6:54 PM, EmmaS said:

Any update to this? (Currently March 2021.) I'm trying to change the font in a master text box, but updating the master doesn't update the pages.

Same as of April 2021

[Old Bruce]

On 3/8/2021 at 4:54 PM, EmmaS said:

Any update to this? (Currently March 2021.) I'm trying to change the font in a master text box, but updating the master doesn't update the pages.

 

25 minutes ago, reinfeldx said:

Same as of April 2021

The font is a property of the Paragraph Style not the Text Frame as far as 'updating' is concerned.

[Ross Burton]

Just hit this exact same bug, so it's still a problem...

[JKM]

I just started my first project with Affinity Publisher (v. 1.10.5) and also had this problem.

I wanted to have a master page containing a table and then create 36 of the content pages based on that master. I haven't decided which background color to use for the cells, so had hoped that I could adjust that later, after creating the content pages and adding text to the tables. But that doesn't seem to work.

Has this changed in any way in version 2 ?

[Old Bruce]

47 minutes ago, JKM said:

Has this changed in any way in version 2 ?

Not really sure what you want but if you change anything in the table on the actual pages (1 to 36) such as adding text to the table then the colour of the rows/columns/cells are baked in. For the whole table.

So I think the answer is; No.

[JKM]

13 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Not really sure what you want ...

Well. What I want is that just the text in the cells is different on the content pages and that everything else is taken from the table on the master page.

What seems to work (at least for the background color) is to define a table model and - setting the pages to "edit detached" temporarily - apply the changed table model to the table on each of the content pages. But repeating this 36 times is not very convenient.

[walt.farrell]

37 minutes ago, JKM said:

Well. What I want is that just the text in the cells is different on the content pages and that everything else is taken from the table on the master page.

You can have that, as long as you keep the tables empty until you've decided what you want. At that time, set the format on the Master Page, and it should flow to all the related document pages. Then add the text.

[Eulenmensch]

How does this solve the problem though? For a lot of people the workflow is to first insert the content and then edit the styles. Especially if you thought you had everything set up correctly, fill in the content and then notice a small mistake. The solution can't possibly be to delete all of your content out of the document, edit the master and then add the content back in? I wanted to add a little bit of padding to all of my cells but somehow I need to use a workaround of detaching all of my instances to individually apply a custom table style. Seems counterintuitive to me, especially whith all the other things we can edit in the master, even if it does contain text.