k_au

OK, so I guess it has been really fixed this time 😊

Version 1.8 of OpenType was released in 2016, it included Variable fonts. The feature is mature and widely used nowadays. 
It would be great to have support for variable fonts. 

So, lots of pressure here on Affinity to do this. I just want to comment a bit on something. And please note, this is from the perspective that I personally love variable fonts, have made a bunch of them, and can’t imagine personally paying to license any general design tool today that does not support them decently.
Variable font support is NOT trivial
It isn’t just a matter of enabling something. And no, switching out their back-end font engine for Harfbuzz would not be trivial, and even if it were, that would not solve the problem! Don’t get me wrong, either supporting Harfbuzz or supporting variable fonts in their own engine is a huge amount of work. So many assumptions need to be thrown away, in either case. APIs reworked... agh.
But the other huge deal is: user interface aspects of variable fonts are a huge hassle. The names and contents of axes are completely arbitrary and not known in advance by app developers. What is the most axes a font can have? 64K. Maybe the app has some arbitrary limit lower than that. How fine should the stops be on an axis? How many predefined instances should they support per axis? How do they expose predefined instances for variable fonts and how do they make those interact with user-defined instances? Do they just use sliders for everything? Do they support decimals in axis positions or only whole numbers? Manual input of position coordinates, or only the sliders? And on and on.
Without going into the same detail, impacts on layout are similarly huge.
 
Writing this as former fonts product manager at Adobe (until December 2008), later product management for font management and web fonts at Extensis, and CEO of FontLab
Anyway, I am eager to see this support in Serif’s Affinity products, but please understand it is a heck of a lot of work!
(Is that enough italics and boldface for one post, or should I throw in some more gratuitously here?)

Hi All, I apologise for the delay in a fix for this issue. When we released our 2.3 update it included what we believed would be a fix for this problem as all seemed to be well here with our internal testing. Unfortunately this wasn't the case so this is now being re investigated. I apologise for my lack of updates in this thread I'll make sure to post here as soon as I get any extra info.
Thanks
C

Thanks @thomaso, it's kind of depressing to read all of this...
In a way, objects do have the global colour attached as an attribute that travels with them, as the example file above shows. But it really is not much use as long as no swatch travels with them.

@k_au, it is a known issue and a limitation "by design" in Affinity that "global" colour swatches don't work as expected because the understanding of the term "global" appears to vary. It was discussed quite a few times since years … for instance

Yes of course. But before I start working in the document, to save me from future frustration.
That's highly likely 🤣

Missing the easy path for sure. Right click and create spot from Fill, It already has Create global from fill but I would have thought Create Spot from Fill would be an easy add?

Actucally I reproduced it just now with the latest APub on Win 10:
Open a new project, draw a shape, make a new document palette, add the shape's colour as a global colour, edit the name in the palette if you want.
Then open another new project, don't close the first one. Copy and paste the shape from the first project into the new one. The shape will still use the global colour, but this colour will not show up in a document palette - there is none. But even if you make a new document palette before pasting the shape, the global colour won't be added to that palette.
I was wrong about drag-n-dropping, seems that does not work between document windows.

Maybe this thread should be aired on 'Feedback suggestions' but I would like comments from users first.
ADV2 can now offer different coloured guide lines. This is a very useful feature for what I am suggesting.
I have searched to see if anyone has suggested angled guide lines and there appears to be none.
Different coloured angled guide lines would be a great feature for those who like to draw in perspective.
Image 1 Shows a screen with 3 sets of angled coloured guide lines. Each set of lines can be on a separate dedicated layer if so desired. The layers can be selected using the selection icon below left of screen.
Image 2 Shows the 3 sets of lines converging to a point (vanishing points). The idea is that further guides can be drawn that will automatically converge (snap) at the same points. These guides can be turned On and OFF
Image 3 Shows how the guide lines can be automatically adjust for 3 point perspective. The left and right hand vanishing points (LVP and RVP) can be moved, along with their respective guide lines, onto a horizontal line representing the 'Horizon'. A perpendicular guide line can be moved left or right to snap to the vertical vanishing point (VVP).
Image 4 Illustrates how some one who wants to draw accurately in perspective buy using an ellipse and adjusting the guides accordingly.
Image 5 Illustrates how the 3 vanishing points can be used to draw in perspective.
Image 6 Illustrates a further refinement which may or may not be easy for a developer to manage and may cause the eyes of those following this procedure to 'glaze over'.
The purpose of the following procedure is to establish the correct ellipse proportions for the LVP and RVP guides.
Image 7 It will be necessary to draw the major and minor axis on the green ellipse using conventional vertical and horizontal guide lines.
Guide lines from the LVP and RVP should be drawn through the centre of the ellipse.
Image 8 Draw a blue ellipse with the same major axis as the green ellipse positioned with its minor axis on the blue RVP guide line and transformed to intersect the green ellipse at points A on the red LVP guide.
Image 9 Repeat 8 above only on the red LVP guide to intersect the blue ellipse at points B. If drawn accurately the the red ellipse should also intersect the green ellipse at points C.
Image 10 Illustrates These ellipses drawn on a cube although over distorted in perspective.
Have I made a good case for angled guide lines?
 
 
Screen 1 .afdesign Screen 2 .afdesign Screen 3 .afdesign Screen 4 .afdesign Screen 5 .afdesign Screen 6 .afdesign Screen 7 .afdesign Screen 8 .afdesign Screen 9 .afdesign Screen 10 .afdesign

I have logged this with our developers

I have logged this with our developers

OK, so I made a bug report to bring this some attention and maybe a clarification if it's a bug or a feature...
 

Hi k_au,
Thanks for this information, I've managed to recreate this and have logged it as a bug.
Lee

The same with Affinity Publisher 2.3.0 and PDF/X-4 …

 

Hi @Callum,  sorry but it looks like it's still not working. I just tried the same thing as above again after updation APub, and still get a PDF that has the "ÿISO coated v2 300% (ECI)" profile.

This is something that should be fixed in our 2.3 update I apologise for any inconvenience this causes in the meantime.
Thanks
C

FYI, Inkscape can also generate QR codes as well as EAN and some other codes and of course the output is a SVG.

Hi,

Apologies if this has already been requested - I did search around for a while for this, but there were a lot of varied results.

I would like to request proper vector brush support. I feel like this is probably quite a fundamental feature for a lot of people and would be a highly valued addition to the Affinity suite (which I really like, by the way!)

Thanks,

Jack

I'm on v2.1 now and still hoping to get real vector brush capability like Adobe Illustrator. Not just a vector line in the 'solid' brush category. When will I be able to create a vector (ala SVG) that stays as a vector after Exporting.
In V2.04, if I imported a PDF created with Illustrator which contained a solid vector brush, I could use this as a solid vector brush in Designer, a pure vector, however, when I Exported it the vector brush became pixels. 
With v2.1 this function disappeared and each imported vector brush element from Illustrator now becomes a separate vector element in the Exported file.  However, the element is no longer connected with solid vector brush attributes.  So it's a step forward retaining the vectors but no progress on solid vector brushes.  When will we be able to import.  Ofcourse Ctl-J can be used to make a simple line of identical items. Not like a brish really.

Artistic Calligraphic brush
A vector angled/tilted brush for hand writing with my pen tablet. I know it sounds extremely simple – it's one of the default brushes on Adobe Illustrator not found in Affinity Designer.
The Illustrator Artistic Calligraphic brushes look like this...

Perhaps a helpful hint: When I compare the PDF standards of two Affinity-Designer-PDFs exported with the profile "ISOcoated_v2_300_eci.icc" using Acrobat Reader, there is a difference under "Kennung" (Identifier?) for this profile (see screenshots). The special character "ÿ" (Lower case letter Y with Diaeresis) certainly does not belong in front of the profile name and is not found when using other profiles or in PDFs written with an earlier version of Affinity Designer. The profile used is the normal and not renamed profile from the file "eci_offset_2009.zip".
Actual PDF:

Older PDF:

 

Oh, now I see the issue in that example file:
The first text frame has Leading Override (from the Character panel) set to 13pt!
So, no mysterious bug, only an unexpected user interface issue...

This is a case where having and setting an overriding text style can help to ensure consistency.

Quoting from a comment from 2019 for publisher v1
this would be great to have in v2 of publisher