[Where i found palettes for HKS etc? these other ink systems than Pantone.]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

That sounds like a bug which should be reported if it hasn't been already.

In a way it is useful to have it both ways (and have a universal license), to be able to force process colors. But I suppose the code is meant to behave identically on both platforms.

[Does anyone used other than pantone spot colours with Affinity apps?]

I am not sure if I understand what you are trying to achieve, but true duo/tri/quadtones with special inks by applying different inks as defined e.g. by a tone curve cannot be done within Affinity apps. You could simulate something like that by e.g. applying one ink for a grayscale image and then using shapes with e.g. Multiply Blend mode on top, using different inks, and getting their intensity values from the underlying image. I have no idea why non-PANTONE-based special inks are required but technically you could specify and use inks from different spot color systems.

 

[Where i found palettes for HKS etc? these other ink systems than Pantone.]

I do not know which of alternative spot color palettes are really in public domain and/or freely distributable, but technically it is possible to "borrow" complete spot color libraries from e.g. Adobe and CorelDRAW, the latter of which coming with mostly Lab based representation color definitions in 53 spot color palettes for e.g. the following spot color systems: DIC, Dupont (Spectra Master), Focoltone, Toyo, HKS, Onyx, PANTONE (legacy and current 11 different) and Roland. Munsell and Natural Color System should be available if not free, then at a nominal fee. 

It is possible to manually create any spot color palette within Affinity apps and pick official color names and their (typically sRGB based) representation colors directly from manufacturers, and digitized palettes are available for some color systems, e.g. in .ASE format. For some reason it appears that at the moment only macOS versions of Affinity apps can import .ASE palettes containing spot color definitions. On Windows, spot .ASE palettes are imported as process color swatches. If spot color palettes are needed on Windows, they can be ported from macOS by exporting them as .afpalettes and then importing to Windows.

VectorStyler can open multiple palette file formats, including Corel .XML, Adobe .ACO, .ASE and .ACB, and export them to .ASE (which can be opened in Affinity apps). Anyone doing palette-based color definitions a lot, or depending on spot color production, would do well getting VectorStyler.

 

[Publisher 2: Misprinted proof from Flyeralarm due to a flattening issue]

7 hours ago, SpotColour said:

@thomaso mentioned that the white rectangle’s corner radius differs from the cut contour line radius. That is correct, and I have been looking for a stray element in my design, but it’s not there.

Perhaps there is one, but without an attribute. The cutting line might have been created by using a defining line with an outside aligning stroke, as the kind of shape that got clipped out (the white rounded rectangle), when using certain rounded corner angle, creates pretty closely a shape where the outer edge defines the cutting line.

What actually happened, is not clear, but knowing that Affinity apps will auto-expand non-center-aligned strokes could easily result in multiple cutting lines, once merged shapes get separated. Perhaps something like this happened during processing, even if visual appearance of the design seemed to be ok.

 

 

[Publisher 2: Misprinted proof from Flyeralarm due to a flattening issue]

26 minutes ago, thomaso said:

I'm wondering if the break at the bottom of the cutting contour is caused by the logo file being placed above in the layer stack hierarchy... while the corner radius of the outline and the white rectangle are different.

Might be, though it is odd that the printer did not mention about a broken cut line.

The following clip demonstrates a situation where a non-PDF/X-based PDF placed to be passed through will be rasterized when exporting using a PDF/X-based export method, and creates a transparency. This, combined with e.g. outside or inside aligned stroke (causing an expanded fill, instead of a stroke), could explain miscellaneous cutting job errors, including unexpected knockouts when ripping the job.

 

The "layer" thing might be related to something like opening the resulting PDF in e.g. Illustrator, and seeing object groups, instead of having everything flattened to the root layer..  

[Loading 1 document]

1 hour ago, Hietaharju said:

It didnt render at all, I have attached the output with the corel file.

Thanks. The UI is pretty complex. The Corel version is likely to ignore (at least) part of the element IDs so it probably could not toggle visibility state of object groups even if it were able to display the initial view of the design. If I manually change the opacity of svgcontainer, I can see the drawing rendered for a moment but then it is hidden again.

There might be point in trying to use the Corel-created version as a starting point (since it at least opens in version 2). As far as I know Affinity apps do not support applying object IDs via UI so if you create this from the scratch, you would need to add these kinds of things directly in the code. EDIT: Not true, at least 2. versions will export the object ("layer") names as ids. But they do not add class names, which makes attribute management more cumbersome.  

[Publisher 2: Misprinted proof from Flyeralarm due to a flattening issue]

Please check two things in your design:

1) If the logo(s) is (are) PDFs and placed to be passed through (the default), they, too, must have been created using PDF/X method, since if you export using a PDF/X method (no matter which version number), the placed PDFs will [though not always] be rasterized (using your document DPI) in Affinity apps, if they have been produced using a non-PDF/X method.

If the logo is an RGB PDF and placed to be passed through, it will be retained in RGB color format when exported, which basically should be ok when exporting to PDF/X-3 or PDF/X-4 (which both allow mixed color modes), but might cause these kinds of issues when processed.

If the logo is a PDF file and you let Affinity interpret it instead of passing it through, please make sure that either the placed PDF has an embedded profile that is ISO Coated v2 300%, or that the CMYK profile under Preferences > Color is ISO Coated v2 300%, since a CMYK file without a profile will get the profile specified in the Preferences as its assigned color profile at the time it is placed in the document (and not the CMYK profile of the document). [But with just pure white objects, this is not likely an issue.]

If the logo is originally a CMYK bitmap, please check that it does not have an embedded color profile, or if it does, it matches your document CMYK profile (which is ISO Coated v2 300%) (if it does not have an embedded CMYK profile, it will be assigned with the document CMYK profile so its original color values will be retained); otherwise its color values will be converted at export time, which might potentially cause problems. [But again, with just pure white objects, this is not likely to happen.]

2) As the cutting line seems to be broken (and because your unwanted rectangle has rounded edges, implying that the cutting line could have been used to determine the shape of the knockout object), please ensure that it has been created as specified: using M100 that is made a spot color and given overprint attribute, and named as required, and the line itself is a center-aligned stroke (and has the recommended width).

[Loading 1 document]

4 hours ago, Hietaharju said:

For now I have to use Illustrator I guess.

Most probably so. Affinity apps especially have limited capability to interpret SVG, and as demonstrated above, there are limitations in older software (like Illustrator CS6) as for complexity of object hierarchy that is supported.  

Btw: did the Corel-created file fail to render at all, or was there mainly just a viewbox / dimension related error: I placed the file in a portrait A4 page and exported the whole page, while the original SVG had pixel dimensions and basically enclosed in a bounding box.

[Loading 1 document]

If I try to open or place the SVG file you provided in Illustrator CS6, I get an error message related to too deeply nested groups, and the file displays incorrectly but is opened nevertheless, without anything rendered (but objects being there, so viewable and editable in outline mode).

I can open the file, as you mentioned, in Publisher v1, and also in CorelDRAW (2023 tested). If I save it from CorelDRAW, using SVG version 1.1, Publisher 2 can open it, too (but I had only a cursory look on the file so cannot tell if there are errors in rendering). Illustrator CS6 cannot render correctly the Corel-created file, either (but allows viewing and editing in outline mode).

Here is the Corel-created file for examination:

M10788F_from_corel.svg

UPDATE: I subsequently opened your original SVG also in Xara Designer and Inkscape, where they appeared to open correctly (though the former reported of a couple of missing links), but saving as SVG from these two apps did not produce files that could have been opened in Publisher (at all, or rendering all over the place), or Illustrator CS6 (resulting in same error message about Tiny SVG). CorelDRAW 2023 however appeared to open correctly both the Xara and Inkscape created files. 

 

[Can Vector brushes be vector brushes?]

6 hours ago, loukash said:

6 hours ago, Andy05 said:

I will never be able to reinstall my Adobe suite once I change the system or OS. 😕

Have they turned off the license servers already?

@Andy05 Why so? Do you know if something has recently changed?

I bought a new Windows 11 Pro laptop early in 2022 and on a specific request on Adobe chat support "for reactivation" (there are guys who do specifically just that) and with the help of one of those guys I was able to install CS6 Master Suite on the new computer while they waited to verify that activation works. I had  four installations on other computers. The support guy asked me if I want my installation count to be reset to zero, and I did not reject, whatever that meant... I do not know if that had any effect on my subsequent activations and installations of CS6 Master Suite, but about a half year ago I purchased a new Intel NUC on which I installed the same suite (license). I still have old installations on the mentioned four older computers, and I can deactivate the suite on one computer and reactivate on another, as I wish. These are Windows 10 and 11 Pro computers. On one of these computers, I recently experienced an issue with Adobe Acrobat X Pro (part of CS6 suite), but managed to resolve this issue by downloading a cleaner tool from Adobe web site, and then reinstalling just Adobe Acrobat Pro from the suite. So I do not feel being let down by Adobe -- but as far as I know, they offer activation help only with CS6 suite (and not e.g. even with 5.5) [EDIT: According to the link referred above to Adobe site activation support seems to work for versions CS5 and later, but I am not sure if they offer live chat support and activation count reset service for versions other than CS6, so not being able to deactivate because having broken computers would likely be an issue.]

On the new NUC I also managed to get my old QuarkXPress 2018 activated. I had it installed and activated already on the allowed max two computers, the other being a virtual Mojave macOS on my old Dell laptop. Here, too, I had support personnel on live chat, and while QXP2018 is already out of support, they promised to reset the installation count if I failed to get it deactivated on the mentioned virtual mac. That worked, and even if QXP 2018 is not officially supported on Windows 11, it seems to run just fine on it.

Adobe CS6 Suite is now over a decade old software and runs without issues on both Windows 10 and 11 (we have two licenses and four computers where the whole suite is activated and run professionally all the time). Based on recent experiences, Adobe activation servers are still operational (with CS6, for which we have two licenses), so one can deactivate on one computer and activate on another.

I also just used a Black Friday offer to upgrade my CorelDRAW Graphic Suite from 2017 to 2023 (perpetual license, for both Windows and macOS) at about EUR 350 (VAT 0), which is nice to have in its own right (we had already version 1), but also to be able to use newer features not available e.g. in Illustrator. Photoshop and Microsoft Office are currently the only subscription based apps our family company uses, and we hope to be able to keep it that way during the remaining time of our professional careers.

[Why does Mail Merge give an unexpected value?]

Regional formatting is very complex already in Excel, and is made further more complex by applying custom regional processing in the client code:

As can be seen above, it is possible to create custom date formats that work fine within Excel (at least on a system that uses the regional settings of the computer where these formats were created), but when this kind of an Excel sheet is passed in to Affinity Publisher, the values returned by Excel are discarded, and instead the date formats are processed using client code. At first it seems that formatting is taken from the operating system regional settings, but they are not. E.g., Finnish long date system format would give in Windows 11 "perjantai marraskuuta" for something like DDDD MMMM (in Finnish notation pppp kkkk, instead of "perjantaina marraskuuta", which seems to be an older Windows regional setting that was achieved by adding 'na and 'ta literal suffixes in regional date formats). And the custom US English date formats that should only give short and long days and months, in Affinity give short and long full dates including years, but not weekdays, like Nov 24, 2023, or full dates like Friday, November 24, 2023:

This is a nightmare that will probably never be fixed, and at least not across platforms, so it is clear that formatted data should be passed either as literal or custom lookup values, or by using e.g. custom functions that return literal values.

 

With lookup tables:

UPDATE: I had not tested this previously, but have now verified that custom VBA functions ("macros") written on Windows work fine also on macOS (Sonoma 14.1.1 tested) Excel (latest version), and when used in Publisher 2:

The same screenshot also demonstrates the problem related to "internal formats" which on macOS seem to be dependent on the user account's display language (rather than regional settings), but on Windows appear to be dependent on regional settings (I have US English as the display language also on my Windows computer, but have Finnish regional settings on both computers; my Office apps are also in US English on both platforms). 

[Exporting PDF as smaller file size / downsize for reviewing only]

6 hours ago, loukash said:

The main reason being how PDFlib handles transparencies, layer effects and adjustments: poorly, i.e. it goes by "if in doubt just rasterize everything".

One big reason for bigger production file sizes is that Affinity apps miss the InDesign option for "Automatic (JPEG)" compression, which means that the program [i.e., InDesign] determines the compression / quality ratio by analyzing each image and varies the compression rate according to image properties. Affinity apps, by default, need to use very high quality setting of 98% for ALL images, to avoid an issue where a random (lower-quality) file, when compressed, will show clear artifacts. Affinity apps also miss separate handling for color, grayscale and monochrome images (the last mentioned are not actually even supported in Affinity apps). 

[Question about importing PDF to Affinity Publisher]

I have not found a way to place multiple pages from a PDF in a satisfactory way (I have only tested the 2.2.1 Windows version). There is often a small positional error even when using snapping to the guide lines (or page/spread mid point), and it does not seem to be possible to determine the page box beforehand, so it will always be TrimBox, no matter what setting was last used, or what method an already placed PDF uses (also, I am not sure if the placed pages are supposed to replace existing items on a page, if the Replace box is checked, but this does not happen at the moment).

Accordingly, it seems to be faster to place one page or spread, make sure positioning and page box are defined as wished, add the number of pages needed, and then copy paste an existing page or spread onto successive pages and use the Spread box to determine which pages should be placed on each spread.

[Char (10) in Mail Merge]

1 hour ago, EatMoreBacon said:

I will need to use codes that I find and replace after the merge?

Yes, if you use 2.x versions.

1 hour ago, EatMoreBacon said:

Or is Alt 010 something that can be inserted in Excel?

No, Num keys do not seem to work in Excel cells (basically using CHAR code or ALT+ENTER does the same within an Excel cell).

[One year later and still no changes to the frustrating UI...]

10 hours ago, R C-R said:

that seems to be a trend for other companies as well, like with Apple's obsession with hiding things until they are rolled over

When I recently cleaned my MacBook Air and clean-installed Ventura, then upgraded to Sonoma, I noticed that when using Apple Magic Mouse (which effectively also hides mouse buttons, and enables "secondary" button only by a non-default user choice), auto-exposing scroll bars on mouse-over event does not work!

Fortunately they still offer "always on" option for having these oh so highly disturbing (very narrow and dimmed) UI elements visible as part of the (still visible) window contours!

On the other hand, that tendency seems to be balanced by offering title bars that are a kind of a UI joke. There is so much crammed activity on modern app title bars (especially on Windows), that there is barely room for the title itself, or grabbing and moving the window (some apps allow doing that by a way of grabbing a control that exists there, some by grabbing a random narrow empty spots that exist between these controls)... 

Both these tendencies (excessive minimalism and excessive clutter) cause usability issues, but at the same time, also appear to be work of UI "specialists" whose job it is to develop UI, rethink and improve the "user experience", and they seem to have the final word. 

Yes yes: grumpy old guys complaining because of bad eyesight and shaky hands not willing to learn any new things 🙂 

[Char (10) in Mail Merge]

I had a closer look on this, and the linefeeds are not actually stripped, but simply just do not take effect. So my assumption on them being stripped to avoid issues in processing text streams was wrong.

So, in version 1, this is what happens (CR = control code 13, hex OD, would probably work on macOS, while LF = control code 10, works on Windows), both in actual text boxes and labels previewing data in the Fields panel:

....while in version 2 (this, too, from Windows), the line feed codes are clearly part of the text stream but just do not have the line feed functionality:

As shown above, the LF control code, when entered manually in a text box, still works fine, so it seems to be a deliberate act of ignoring the effect when line feeds are part of the data merge feature. Perhaps it is some kind of glitch, after all.

[Char (10) in Mail Merge]

7 hours ago, R C-R said:

Does that mean it once did so maybe this is a regression that should be reported as a bug?

I think it has been reported. Hard-coded LFs and CRs might be something that cause problems e.g. within CSV files so maybe they are now deliberately ignored/stripped (earlier they were not). 

[PDF saved as CMYK from designer, are not accepted by printing plant as they come out as sRGB]

As you have "Points" in the initial screenshot of your post [implying that a PDF file might have been opened for interpretation], I'll show one scenario where this kind of RGB-CMYK confusion can easily occur. It basically involves placing an RGB-based PDF for passthrough in a CMYK document and exporting it to PDF. One might imagine that this results in a CMYK converted colors, as it would do when doing a similar thing in InDesign. But in Affinity apps an RGB based PDF would be passed through as an RGB file even when creating a CMYK export from a CMYK document (and disregarding the value of "Convert image color spaces"). Perhaps your printer has been seeing something that was produced like this?

Your posts, however, might be results of your checks, performed by opening the original RGB based PDFs in Affinity Publisher (or any other Affinity app) -- thus interpreting the contents. If you open an RGB file in a CMYK document, or later switch an RGB Affinity document to CMYK color mode, and then export to CMYK PDF, the resulting PDF will be in CMYK mode (as your posts are) -- all RGB 0, 0, 0 blacks (e.g. in barcodes, that might initially have been monochrome bitmaps, which in Affinity apps will be converted to 8-bit RGBs) will be four-color blacks -- as they are in your post attachments.

I am not saying that this is what has happened, but just showing one explanation for issues that are frequent on this forum. 

Having a tool like Adobe Acrobat Pro (perpetual license or subscription), pdfToolbox (more expensive, but operates on multiple platforms with the same license), or in a more limited way, PackzView (free but license only given for professional use), is highly recommended...

[Char (10) in Mail Merge]

Data Merge no longer recognizes any line break input (Excel-based, or hard coded Chr(10) or Chr(13)). The only workaround I know is using any custom code, e.g. <br> and then use Find Replace in Publisher to replace occurrences of <br> with the desired line break (e.g. both line and paragraph break are supported as codes in the Replace box).

[Publisher: How to paste text with formatting (code blocks)?]

4 hours ago, R C-R said:

I downloaded Visual Studio in my Mac & very briefly tried to get it to copy RTF text to the clipboard but could not figure out how to do it, in part because there does not seem to be equivalent menus to the Windows ones you showed, like Language or Plugins.

While syntax highlighting works in Visual Studio 2022 for Mac (without needing to do anything extra), I was wrong to assume that formatting would be copied onto Clipboard on the macOS version of the app, as it is (by default) on Windows version. It is NOT, and the feature is not available on the macOS version of the app. 

Visual Studio is also quite limited, especially on macOS, because language support is poor, so using Notepad++ (as I did on the video clip above) would be much more versatile and powerful. On macOS using Xcode would probably be the best (free) choice to get syntax highlighting in a page layout app.  Note, though, that e.g. Pages supports HTML formatting so it would be possible to use VS Code and copy its language specific syntax highlighting onto Clipboard and paste it formatted into Pages..

[Publisher: How to paste text with formatting (code blocks)?]

The issue with VS Code is that its syntax highlighting when copied onto Clipboard is HTML formatted, not supported by Affinity apps.

On Windows there is Notepad++ (free) which can copy formatted, syntax highlighted text either in HTML or RTF, and it supports dozens of languages. RTF formatted text on Clipboard is supported by Affinity apps (as it is in most other page layout apps). As for macOS, Visual Studio (available up to 2024) is free and also supports RTF format when copying syntax highlighting onto Clipboard.

[Strange PDF transparency effect with PDFs created by v2.2.1]

8 hours ago, Lorox said:

Unfortunately I really don't know and cannot say anything about their policy and requirements – as I actually have been doing work for different sorts of packaging over the years (as for other areas of graphic design) I just like to count myself lucky to seemingly fitting the bill for them.

I have never done anything directly related to packaging (if custom CD-ROM/DVD covers do not count), but perhaps they scan VAT registers, indicating true professional activity, and public company registers implying involvement in the field of graphic design (e.g., in Finland, there are public codes that indicate this). I do have a nominal company web site, too (even if using national suffix), so that might be something that they check, as well. 

[Strange PDF transparency effect with PDFs created by v2.2.1]

3 hours ago, Dazmondo77 said:

Am I right in thinking that PC's running 64bit can still run 32bit apps? If so an old version of Acrobat is still usable.

I am not sure if I understood your question -- certainly everything 32-bit still runs on all 64-bit Windows platforms, including Adobe Acrobat X, etc. There might be occasional glitches with activation when running modern CC-based subscription software concurrently with legacy perpetual license based Adobe software on the same computer, but these kinds of complex situations can still be resolved either by cleaner software provided by Adobe, or live, by help of their chat support personnel. The actual issue, and reason for incompatibility, is basically Apple, not Adobe. [EDIT: As for Adobe, I have understood that actual activation support is only available for CS6-based apps; this, however, is not a technical limitation based on Windows, but an Adobe-chosen restriction.]

[Strange PDF transparency effect with PDFs created by v2.2.1]

4 hours ago, loukash said:

But that would explain it, as it's a known and documented Affinity bug. Possibly Packzview can't handle it as graciously as Acrobat and others do?

It is a possible cause, though I do not understand why it should happen (which is of course just a "common sense" argument, and ultimately based on ignorance). The issue is there also when producing PDF/X-3 based exports (from Affinity apps), so whenever transparency flattening is forced (and within Affinity apps, this only happens when using PDF/X-1 or PDF/X-3, as plain PDF 1.3 that would do that, is not supported). As for PDF/X-3, supporting mixed color spaces (and basically allowing generic ICC-based color processing and multiple embedded ICC color spaces), complex situations can arise, but within PDF/X-1, everything should be resolved already in the source and nothing left for interpretation so basically having a profile intent -- even if an erroneous one, as with recent Affinity apps with strange misspelling and false MD5 hash tags -- this should "in principle" be irrelevant for rendering, because only native color values should matter. 

But I am definitely out of my breath here, so I am reasoning just based on comparison with what works, so as you mentioned, perhaps Adobe software, and more generally RIP software, even if not by Adobe, safely just drops something that does not make sense, like references to non-sensical, misspelled ICC profiles. 

[Strange PDF transparency effect with PDFs created by v2.2.1]

I have tried to compare the internals of the two PDFs that you provided, but not with results that show any obvious difference that could explain the anomaly in PackzView. I was suspecting that there is some difference in use of mask when knocking out the shadow effect, which could explain the strange omission of the shadow and the black plate in PackzView rendering, but the only difference so far I have found is that the name of the intent ICC profile, and its MD5 hash tags, deviate from each other in these versions. -- Which basically IS odd since the profiles are supposed to be exactly same. The size of the transparency flattening (rasterization) is also different: 733px vs. 730px. 

These are screenshots of PDF/X-1a verifications run in Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020, both files passed through without errors.