Meet Swift Publisher 4

[fonetico]

Nick,

The problem does not appear to be font specific. It happens with them all in the regular text box.
I have, however, discovered that when I double click anywhere on the slider it will move and remain at that point. If I drag the slider it will immediately snap back to zero.
Interestingly, the Inset Margin slider seems to function normally.

I have a suspicion this problem only started when I updated to v 4.0.1 but I can't be certain.

I also appear the have the same Save problem as axys. If I modify an existing file and attempt a routine save it will tell me the file already exists and asks if I want to replace it.

The preview icon works in SP3 but I can only get a generic icon in SP4.

[Nick]

fonetico,

Please try my earlier suggestion to fix the problem with saving.

I've manage to repeat the problem with text settings in the Inspector. It is present on OS X 10.10, while on 10.8 the program works correctly. The font size and spacing controls operate as expected on 10.10 if the whole text box is selected - this can be a temporary workaround until the bug is fixed.

Nick

[fonetico]

axys,

Has Nick's suggestion for the Save issue worked for you?

[axys]

Not tried it yet - on the list for the weekend. Good to hear (in a bad way) that its not only me with the save issue.

All my SP3 files have never had the correct icons - they always pick up the SP2 icon, even if I change them manually in Get Info, they will switch back. It's very annoying because they will open in SP2 as a blank page and I then have to close and drag the file manually onto SP3. I generally try to put sp3 in the title to id them. Its one of many SP3 unresolved issues that still has me using SP2 for 95% of the time.

[axys]

1. Open SP3 file into SP4 - content pages bar is open. Click on book icon to close - nothing happens. Click again and it closes. Close file (no save request). Open file - content pages bar is open ie the file state is not being autosaved.

2. If I then open the source panel, close the file and reopen the source panel is closed, ie the file state is not being autosaved.

3. If I repeat the above actions, but manually save (cmd-s), I get the same save dialogue/overwrite scenario reported above.

4. Open new SP4 file, make changes to page set up, close - save dialogue opens, save to desktop. Saved file is a blank icon. Double click - opens in SP2. Change in Get Info to open in SP4 - works ok. Desktop icon remains blank. Drag into a folder and icon changes to SP4.

[axys]

Hi

When I open an SP4 file, edit it and save, I have to save it as a separate document (with the same name, and overwrite the original). Why is this? It doesn't happen in other programs or in SP2 or SP3. Why can't I keep the changes in the original document?

I couldn't reproduce this. Please check the title bar for the "Locked" notification. Maybe your document is read-only.
Nick

I've tested this on numerous occasions and on two different Macs, both 10.8.5. It is a consistent behaviour. Create a new document, add something to it, save with a name, close. Open, edit, close - a dialogue box says 'do you want to save the changes', click 'save' - warning that the file already exists - I can only either overwrite it or change the name. The same thing happens if I do command-s or just click on the close button. In addition, there is no black dot in the red button to show unsaved changes.

The file is not locked or read only.

It seems that once the first overwrite is done, if I keep the document open and continue to work on it, I can save as normal. Once closed and reopened, it has to be overwritten again to be saved.

[fonetico]

I have the exact same behaviour on MacBook v10.9.5 and iMac v10.10.5 except the black dot in the red button seems to be working normally.
It's difficult to imagine there aren't others with the same problem.
Come on, speak up!

[axys]

Page size set as A3 landscape. Go to Print > (spinning ball) > default A4 printer shows Paper Size as 'Other' (although it does define the correct dimensions to the side, but portrait). Select correct A3 printer > (spinning ball)> Paper size stays as Other, select A3 > (spinning ball) > picture to the left stays as portrait, but prints to landscape. This is all very tedious and time consuming, particularly when printing several documents in a row. I accept that setting the default printer is my option, but thereafter, none of the additional actions were required under SP2, and no spinning balls either.

[axys]

SP4 not running - drag an SP4 file onto the Dock icon - SP4 launches and opens file, but then opens a new blank document over the top of it, which has not been asked for and is not required. The 'open nothing on start up' option in SP2 mostly stopped this happening. Preferences need enhancing to allow this.

[axys]

Yes, I'd figured that, but I don't always want to start with Templates - occasionally I might want open a Template, whilst in SP, which I should be able to do from File, as in SP2 and SP3. It’s a fault.

Can't believe this hasn't been fixed!

[axys]

Hi

When I open an SP4 file, edit it and save, I have to save it as a separate document (with the same name, and overwrite the original). Why is this? It doesn't happen in other programs or in SP2 or SP3. Why can't I keep the changes in the original document?

I couldn't reproduce this. Please check the title bar for the "Locked" notification. Maybe your document is read-only.
Nick

I've tested this on numerous occasions and on two different Macs, both 10.8.5. It is a consistent behaviour. Create a new document, add something to it, save with a name, close. Open, edit, close - a dialogue box says 'do you want to save the changes', click 'save' - warning that the file already exists - I can only either overwrite it or change the name. The same thing happens if I do command-s or just click on the close button. In addition, there is no black dot in the red button to show unsaved changes. The file is not locked or read only.

This appears to have been fixed in v 4.0.2, except that I still do not have the black dot to show unsaved changes, but I can live with that (for now).

[MJBS]

axys,

Do you think it is now worth upgrading? I've been holding off until all the reported bugs had been fixed, especially considering that none of the most common user requests have been addressed in v.4. I'm also still concerned by repeated comments on the SP AppStore page that v.4 cannot open files created with v.3. I use SP every month to produce a much liked community magazine. I simply cannot risk finding I cannot access earlier files.

I would value your comments.

Michael

[axys]

I hardly used SP3 so I have few SP3 files but I've never had a problem opening them in SP4. I have probably thousands of SP2 files and open those into SP4 without any issues (bar of course it's a one way route - make a copy first if you don't want to lose the original). I remain disappointed in SP4 and avoid it if at all possible - in particular the unresolved printing issues mean I end up with rasterised pdf's which are very poor quality. Numerous other requests and bugs reported in this thread and others have not been addressed and development as a whole seems to have ground to a halt. For the best part I still use SP2 - I know its issues and can work round them and still have a quality output at the end. For several years I used it to produce a 25 page quarterly community newsletter which was professionally printed.

Worth upgrading? You haven't got much to lose, you retain the previous version anyway*, but if the quality of the output is important, do a test run before committing a lot of work to SP4.

* More often than not, double clicking an SP2 or SP3 file will open it into SP4, even if it is set to SP2. SP4 files assume SP2 icons just to confuse things - a very longstanding bug. I long ago learned to drag files onto the respective dock icon rather than double clicking. Good luck!

[axys]

I've recently come across the bad pdf output whilst using SketchUp Layout - the issue is that the Layout outputs v1.4 pdf's when a minimum of v1.6 is needed to avoid the transparency issue. SP also outputs v1.4, hence I suspect the issue with SP. I have found that exporting a pdf and then printing that from Adobe Reader rather than Preview overcomes it, but that's another thing to do which shouldn't be necessary.

Apple's built in QuartzPDF functionality prints transparency at 72dpi, hence the apparent 'blur' of parts of the print - when QuartzPDF versions it's output, it uses the 'lowest' version needed to view the content and if read as 'strict' by the print driver then some features may be downgraded or lost.

The next SP4 or 5 needs to instruct QuartzPDF to output v1.6 pdf's to overcome the issue.

There is some useful info here http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/basics/pdfx-3

edited - exporting a pdf and then printing that.

[Nick]

Hi,

Thank you for explaining the issue with PDFs. I've forwarded this information to the developers.

Exporting to PDF/X-3 might not be helpful by the same reason – we use Apple's Quartz Filter to create it.

Nick