captain_slocum

I was one of the original posters pointing out this crazy omission, and I see it is still rumbling on and no sign from Affinity they have heard. Hopefully the design team will have a meeting where they discuss this and see how important it is to the customer and to the future of Affinity. I have been in the computer design game since the early 80's and I am an IT and design consultant, and I can assure you this is a deal breaker. Quite simply, a DTP app that does not have inline Graphics and Tables (something that even the humblest of text editing apps, even the dreadful Word, has) will not be taken seriously. Frankly, a DTP programme without inline graphics is like a car without a steering wheel. When you buy a car you don't expect to have to ask, does it have a steering wheel! You just assume it does. A newcomer earlier asked what were the benefits of inline graphics. Well imagine this: You have produced a 24 page technical manual with illustrations every 2 or 3 paragraphs. The client asks you to add a new section near the beginning of the document. With inline graphics you just add the paragraphs - done. Without inline graphics you have to go through the whole document dragging the illustrations back into place. Even if you don't make a mistake (unlikely) it will take you hours. This is not a hypothetical example. It just happened to me. But I was using InDesign, so it took a couple of minutes and I knew I was not introducing errors. So why do I care? Two reasons: 1. I am always glad when something pricks Adobe's bubble and forces them to up their game. InDesign has had no real competition for years and needs a jolt. 2. Now I am semi-retired I do a lot of pro-bono work in our local community. I advise and help set up village magazines, church magazines, charity publications, etc. These outfits cannot afford to take out an Adobe subscription, but something like Affinity Publisher would be affordable. I have already promoted Affinity Designer (and indeed use it myself in preference for Adobe Illustrator) and Affinity have benefited from several sales due to my recommendation. But I cannot at the moment even contemplate recommending AP until it has at least inline graphics and tables. Affinity, if your publicity about wanting the design community to tell you what they want from Publisher is real, and not marketing hype, then email me and I will help you..

Recently, ads I design in Affinity Designer and export as a PDF suddenly will not open properly when placed in InDesign 2019. Some elements are missing. I am using Mac OS 10.14.1, Affinity designer 1.6.1 and InDesign 14.0.1 The screenshot shows very clearly the problem. Other applications I own will open the exported PDF correctly (Adobe Acrobat, Mac Preview, MS Word, Pages, attachment to email, etc, etc, except for InDesign 2019 and Photoshop 2019. At first glance, this would point to it being an Adobe problem - except for the fact that if I roll back to previous versions of InDesign, the problem is still there - pointing to a change in AD. Interestingly, the parts that you see missing in the InDesign placement were all parts that, prior to exporting, I altered or added to a page I originally made about a year ago before the latest AD update. Only the parts altered or added after the AD update are affected. I have tried all the different options for exporting a PDF from within AD. I hope you can shed some light on this as it is causing me considerable work flow problems. I would be grateful for your thoughts.

I can't think of a single app with a word processor in it that doesn't have inline graphics; the graphic is seen as just another character. It's really easy to implement. You might wonder, given that I have to have Adobe Creative Cloud anyway for all sorts of reasons, why I care about this. Well, I do a lot of work with communities and education and they can't afford an Adobe CC subscription. When I am trying to set up charitable and not-for profit organisations with a good, cheap, multi-platform, shareable, print based system for newsletters, journals, historical documents, magazines, whatever, there is surprisingly little out there. So come on Affinity, admit you've taken your eye off the ball on this one and put in-line graphics on the agenda - you'll have a winner.

I have come back to this after a bit of respite from it because I do care about whether or not this software is going to be successful. Re-reading Hawk's reply to my post, I don't want to go over old ground endlessly, but there is one important point that I think, Hawk, with the greatest of respect, you have misunderstood. It could be my fault as I have posted in two different threads about the issue and I may not be clear about what I said, where. You imply that I am being unreasonable to expect the beta to have all the important features in it - but that is just not so. I don't expect that. I was an early adopter of Final Cut Pro X and there was all sorts of problems with a professional work flow. We were saying, oh no, where's the XML support, where's this, where's that etc, Apple are going all consumer with this. But now FCPX is superb, I wouldn't go back to Avid or Premier Pro for a big clock. But regarding Affinity Publisher, I had a reply from (I think) a developer who told me that inline graphics and tables was not being contemplated any time in the future. Had they said - hey, we understand, it's an important feature, but we need to get the bare bones out there first - in the way that Apple did with FCPX - that would have been very different. So perhaps you can see where I'm coming from. By all means add inline graphics in a later version, but don't say it isn't ever going to happen. Just admit that it is an important part of a serious DTP package and put it in the pipeline. As Grapher says, it really is not technically difficult. Even Apple Notes has it. In fact I can't think of a single app with a word processor in it that doesn't; the graphic is seen as just another character. You might wonder, given that I have to have Adobe Creative Cloud anyway for all sorts of reasons, why I care about this. Well, I do a lot of work with communities and education and they can't afford an Adobe CC subscription. When I am trying to set up charitable and not-for profit organisations with a good, cheap, multi-platform, shareable, print based system for newsletters, journals, historical documents, magazines, whatever, there is surprisingly little out there. So come on Affinity, admit you've taken your eye off the ball on this one and put in-line graphics on the agenda.

I've written about the following three requests individually but thought it would be useful to pull them together in one post. I have been using DTP professionally for many years and have recently spent quite a lot of time using this beta in a "real world" situation - ie trying to reproduce one of the magazines I currently produce in InDesign. As others have noted, the depth and amount of features in this beta is impressive. However, I feel APublisher needs to be clear about what it is. As it stands, it is a competent and well featured poster or 2 or 3 page newsletter app. It could be an InDesign beater, but to do that, Affinity need to listen to seasoned designers and publishers who know what they are talking about, and then publish a road map for the near future. Here are three things I have identified so far that APublisher does not have, but that in my opinion no serious publisher of printed material could live without: Inline graphics and tables. (A curious and fatal omission this - what were they thinking of?) GREP customisable presets. (An enormous time saver.) Spanning paragraphs across multiple columns. (Multi-column text becomes unwieldy if spanning headlines have to be in separate, unlinked, text boxes.) These were the first three problems I came across and they became apparent very early on in my testing. I am prepared to continue to evaluate APublisher if Affinity will publish a road map with these items on it. Otherwise there is little point, as I, and anyone who earns their living through DTP, will not be using it.

There seems to be two similar threads to this and I have contributed on this topic to both. Reading my original post here perhaps it came over as unnecessarily harsh snd censorious, so let me post on this forum the piece I wrote elsewhere this morning, which I hope gives a rounder picture of my feelings. (I was responding to a poster who suggested I was being unfair and I should be privileged to have the chance to test out the beta.) I wrote: Hawk: The absence of inline graphics and tables makes InDesign unfit as a professional tool. So would not having the other features you mention of course. But you are creating a false dichotomy - it is not a case of choosing between essential features. If it really would take another 2 - 5 years to create a professional DTP app (where did you get that figure from?) then either they should hire an extra software engineer or throw in the towel. The important point that I and others have made is that Affinity did not ask us professionals what was essential in a DTP app. They cite their 25 year experience in DTP (with the dreadful Serif!) but ignore the collective experience of many real world users such a myself who have been using DTP to make a living since its dawn. Nobody expects the first iteration of new software to be perfect. (When InDesign first came out it did not have tables.) And I know I speak for others when I say we have nothing but goodwill towards the Affinity team's efforts, and that we do not wish to nit-pick. But there are certain elements that have to be in place if an app is to be seen as a viable replacement for an existing go-to app. Without inline graphics and tables (something a developer colleague assures me is quite easy to implement - even the humble Notes on the Mac has it) APublisher just becomes another village fete poster app. [Having read the above post regarding the holy grail ability to open APublisher in ADesigner and APhoto I would suggest that for longer documents (which is what we are talking about here) it is an ambition that could be implemented in full detail later.] Our motives for these posts is not to have a pop at Affinity, but to help them in their endeavours, which we applaud. We understand that this is a beta and that 1.0 will look different, but we are dismayed that a moderator has said this is not on the immediate feature list. As for having the beta to play with being a privilege, I think the boot is on the other foot - Affinity should feel privileged that there are seasoned designers out there freely giving their time to make the app viable. I suspect that privately there are red faces over this, and (assuming they read these posts!) hope that wiser counsels prevail and that this issue is given the priority it deserves. As someone has noted elsewhere, a road map of future features would be very useful. If inline graphics is on the list, at the top, then great; if it is not there at all then at least we know not to bother looking at APublisher as a viable ID alternative. My experience of 55 years of business is that openness always pays off in the long run, and I know you guys are committed and working hard to that end. PS: I use ADesigner all the time, you did a great job. Illustrator was always impenetrable to most people who just wanted to get a job done and you nailed it. But knocking ID off its perch I think is bit harder. But I am sure you will get there - if you listen!

Hawk: The absence of inline graphics and tables makes InDesign unfit as a professional tool. So would not having the other features you mention of course. But you are creating a false dichotomy - it is not a case of choosing between essential features. If it really would take another 2 - 5 years to create a professional DTP app (where did you get that figure from?) then either they should hire an extra software engineer or throw in the towel. The important point that I and others have made is that Affinity did not ask us professionals what was essential in a DTP app. They cite their 25 year experience in DTP (with the dreadful Serif!) but ignore the collective experience of many real world users such a myself who have been using DTP to make a living since its dawn. Nobody expects the first iteration of new software to be perfect. (When InDesign first came out it did not have tables.) And I know I speak for others when I say we have nothing but goodwill towards the Affinity team's efforts, and that we do not wish to nit-pick. But there are certain elements that have to be in place if an app is to be seen as a viable replacement for an existing go-to app. Without inline graphics and tables (something a developer colleague assures me is quite easy to implement - even the humble Notes on the Mac has it) APublisher just becomes another village fete poster app. Our motives for these posts is not to have a pop at Affinity, but to help them in their endeavours, which we applaud. We understand that this is a beta and that 1.0 will look different, but we are dismayed that a moderator has said this is not on the immediate feature list. As for having the beta to play with being a privilege, I think the boot is on the other foot - Affinity should feel privileged that there are seasoned designers out there freely giving their time to make the app viable. I suspect that privately there are red faces over this, and (assuming they read these posts!) hope that wiser counsels prevail and that this issue is given the priority it deserves.

Thanks Chris_K. Keep plugging away Hank!

Well, that is hugely disappointing. I had so hoped that I, and the people I collaborate with could all switch to APublisher. But it is not to be. InDesign it is for the foreseeable future then. What a shame. I use ADesigner and APhoto all the time, so had high hopes for APublisher. How on earth did you miss such a vital feature?! Did you consult with real world users who make their living from DTP? If you had, you would have made inline graphics and tables a must. You had a glorious opportunity to stick one to the big boys and you blew it.

Can I give this a bump? Spanning columns with headings etc is something I use all the time in ID, but can't find it in AP. Have I missed something or have you not implemented this?

Me too. MacOS High Sierra.

I have posted on the other similar thread to the same effect. Not having inline graphics and tables is just a non-starter. I like what I have seen of AP so far, but this really is a deal breaker. I know that is an overused phrase, but it is just not possible to create a 100 page booklet with graphics and tables unless they flow with the text. Imagine you had to add a paragraph at the front of the booklet - you would have to go through 100 pages adjusting the graphics and tables, which is not just time consuming but very prone to error. So this is an absolutely essential feature and I would not even countenance using AP without it. Please pass this on to your design team. Now I know that this feature is not in the app, I will no longer waste any more of my time testing it until I am notified that the feature will definitely be in there from the start of the finished product. I am so very disappointed. I was looking forward to this very much, but without inline graphic and table flow, it is, frankly, a joke. PLEASE tell your design team this is a huge, huge mistake and unless they get onto it as a priority there is no way AP can be taken seriously. I speak as someone who had been using DTP since 1985!

I have posted on the other similar thread to the same effect. Not having inline graphics and tables is just a non-starter. I like what I have seen of AP so far, but this really is a deal breaker. I know that is an overused phrase, but it is just not possible to create a 100 page booklet with graphics and tables unless they flow with the text. Imagine you had to add a paragraph at the front of the booklet - you would have to go through 100 pages adjusting the graphics and tables, which is not just time consuming but very prone to error. So this is an absolutely essential feature and I would not even countenance using AP without it. Please pass this on to your design team. Now I know that this feature is not in the app, I will no longer waste any more of my time testing it until I am notified that the feature will definitely be in there from the start of the finished product.

Can I add my voice to the need for good GREP with customisable presets. I estimate the GREP presets in ID save me at least an hour per day. I couldn't use an app that didn't have this facility.

Some understatement! ESSENTIAL. How can you possible produce a long document with graphics without the graphics flow with the text?