Newbie Questions

[WJC]

190902

WARNING, NEWBIE ALERT!

My use of page layout programs goes back to before Aldus old out to Adobe. After that, I was a beta tester for the first InDesign and was happy with it until that left the people who made them rich behind by starting to charge for a SUBSCRIPTION just as my needs were waning. Further, I was using PagePlus 7 until I started using a Mac and Serif stopped supporting it.

1. I would like to know how to get rid of extraneous files that are on the attached taskbar. My efforts, so, far have failed. I am told I can attach a graphic. We shall see.

2. I imported a file ~ 100 pages from Word. When I try to grab a graphic and try to move it—even a quarter of an inch, the program gives me the endless color wheel and lock ALL ASPECTS OF COMPUTER USE to the point I have to do a hard shutdown to clear it. This wastes an inordinate amount of time for a fellow trying to get a small book to the publisher.

3. With InDesign, there is an easy-to-find button that will allow placing a drop shadow on a graphic. So far, I have located what is SUPPOSED to do that in AP (even giving particulars of the shadow), but nothing, so far has done the trick.

4. Finally, I KNOW I will have more asinine questions. So, if there is a person out there willing to help me for a few frustrating days—until I can get this book off my plate and I have time to learn at a more leisurely pace—please let me know who to address.

Kindest Regards,

Bill (WJC)

[CPC]

WJC,

Drop Shadows are just a click away, IF the relevant menu has been added -- go to [View] >>  [Studio] >> [Effects] to activate it. For each effect you choose a sub-menu appears with options for fine tuning.

Sorry I can't help with your other questions.

Regards,

CPC

 

[Alfred]

Use the ‘Offset Tool’ button (shown on the Effects panel in @CPC’s screenshot) to enable dragging of the shadow on the page as you would do in PagePlus.

[Callum]

Hi WJC,

You can get rid of the recent documents on your task bar by going into System Preferences and under General change the recent items dropdown (see attached).

In regards to your second issue please could you provide the file in question so I can look into this further for you?

Thanks

Callum

[R C-R]

9 hours ago, WJC said:

1. I would like to know how to get rid of extraneous files that are on the attached taskbar. My efforts, so, far have fail

From your screenshot, I think you are asking how to remove recently opened files from the Mac OS Dock popup that are extraneous either because they have been deleted or moved to some location that can't currently be accessed, so they cannot be opened in Affinity Publisher & nothing happens if you select one of them from the Dock popup.

If so, & if you are asking how to remove just those items without also removing the ones you can still open, I don't think there is any way to do this. In the Affinity apps you can remove all items from the popup by selecting "Clear Menu" from the Files > Open Recent submenu, but that removes every recent item from both the menu & Dock popup.

However, they are just references to these files maintained not by your apps but by the OS (sort of like symbolic links). They are not the files themselves, so aside from the nuisance factor, they are harmless, using only a trivially tiny mount of file space.

FWIW, I see the same Dock popup behavior for most other apps, including Quicktime Player, Preview, Pixelmator Pro, GraphicConverter, Nisus Writer Pro, & many others.

[WJC]

#2

190904

I would like to thank everyone who has answered my asinine questions so far, but I have some more at this time.

1. I need to know how to get the pages I am working on to stay put—or at least not be so sensitive to the mouse. I’m spending about half my time dragging them back to where I want them to be.

2. Test Wrap? So far, I can select an image and tell the program how I want the text wrap handled and nothing happens.

Also, when I TRY to move the image off the page—as easily done in InDesign—so I can see the text behind it, the image REFUSES to move off the page. It may reposition itself—apparently of its own choosing—but my text wrap problem doesn’t go away.

Cheers,

WJC

[Wosven]

10 minutes ago, WJC said:

2. Test Wrap? So far, I can select an image and tell the program how I want the text wrap handled and nothing happens.

Try looking at the Text frames panel if the option "ignore text wrap" isn't checked.

 

For the other questions, I'm not sure I understand them: when I click on an image and drag it out of the page, it comply!

Perhaps you pin it (a blue line should show where it's put in your text, where there's a blur pin) or put it inline in your text (if you try to drag it, a red cross will appear with your cursor)?
Is one of those icons active when you select it?