Asemblance

Hmm. Similar chops here, but no longer with a Fortune 500 company. (And quite happy about that!) The Affinity suite functions very differently than the Adobe suite, though there are obvious similarities. When anyone who's accustomed to Adobe tries Affinity software, the differences are clear hurdles to productivity. Admittedly, some of the differences aren't completely logical, certainly not at first. However, the fact that there are many professional creatives making their living with Affinity software, deeming it unusable is an obvious overstatement.
It seems that many detractors ignore that Affinity does not claim parity with Adobe, or any other, software. The clear attraction to Affinity—and likely why many stick around vs. just leaving and not commenting regularly about Affinity's shortcomings—is that it's a company determined to deliver a viable alternative to the software rental model that is consuming the market via Adobe and others.
Most everyone here detests, with a passion, the idea of renting software. It's on par with renting a house for thirty years vs. buying. At the end, you've got nothing. Nothing current, nothing outdated ... nothing. This is why (most of us) fervently support this little company and its software.
Are there issues yet to be overcome? Undoubtedly. Are there UI/UX choices that are frustrating? Clearly. But is the software functional, usable? Absolutely. If it weren't, Serif wouldn't exist. That said, the progress lately has been very encouraging. Not perfect, just encouraging.
And encouraging is what I intend to be while I'm here. Developing software that challenges the 800 pound gorilla and their endless treasure chest is hard enough without me bashing the team at every turn. If I ever get to the point where I find something better for my needs, that's it, I'm out of here. But that hasn't happened yet, and as long as that remains true, I'll praise every positive thing I can, and offer only constructive and hopefully helpful critiques along the way.
Cheers.
[steps down from soapbox]

I have Photo, Designer and Publisher, but mostly use Photo. There are certainly things I'd change in the UI, but overall the program offers so much that I can easily put up with it. Unless they do something incredibly stupid, I'll be upgrading to whatever versions come out.
Now, specifically, the drop down presets for many functions are useless to me. If I select a function, just open the window for it. There has never been a situation where I've use a preset for anything. Waste of keystrokes. This probably only applies to photo.
"Help" drives me crazy. It describes functions but doesn't tell you what the damn icon looks like or where to find it. I've wasted HOURs on this. It would be so easy for help to be helpful if somebody spent a day or three to embellish it.

Hi,
Just curious, is there any chance that Designer v2 will one day support the EXPORT of .dwg format?
Thanks!
Kelly
 

Has there been any improvements regarding IND/IDML support with the release of version 2.0? Or should we wait till 3.0..

Funny, the talk about IDML and shifting specs.
Adobe specifically state that, amongst other things, IDML allows backward compatibility with earlier InDesign versions. IDML, is, as far as I understand the spec, the "DXF" exchange format for this sort of stuff.

Honestly, if the exchange is not 100% perfect, but reduces the work load back in InDesign to fixing things like column spans.

I am in the similar position of having to use InDesign due to being in a team, but I effing hate InDesign, for the simple reason of being unable to scroll with mouse wheel, completely inconsistent with the rest of their suite. Bloody stupid imo and where Affinity does shine! Same interface across all 3 apps. 
To me, compared to the heavy lifting the Affinity Programmers have done to write these three amazing products, writing an IDML exporter should surely be a relatively trivial task? Surely? I mean writing a PSD exporter had to be much harder than IDML which is clearly defined?
 

so I know that I cannot export as indd or idml but I want to export to a file format that will open on adobe indesign because I am in a team and they all use indesign so are there any free software that will convert affinity publisher files to indesign files were they can edit it. or can I use one of the file formats to export it.

Hi, I'm trying to migrate from InDesign to Publisher but one major culprit is the lack of ability to export into any format that people could open (and edit) with InDesign - this could be a deal-breaker for some clients if they ever ask me about the source data of anything and I'll be only able to provide them with the AFPUB file.
As much as I love seeing you competing with Adobe (and Publisher itself seems to be a huge contender for InDesign so far), Adobe is still the "industry-standard" (and probably will be in a foreseeable future) so being unable to export into a format that allows one to switch between Publisher and InDesign is a serious problem.
Correct me if I'm wrong but since Publisher can actually import IDML files, it even looks like the lack of functionality in terms of exporting into the very same format is willful and deliberate, rather than actual technical limitation.
Can you please add this much needed option? I understand that you want your customers to stay with your apps rather than going back to Adobe but this limitation really isn't helping your cause...

+100 for IDML Export!! And seems like this thread got way off topic...is there any update/status/beta on IDML export? This thread was started TWO years ago 😂

Neither of which is a photo editing app, neither of which as far as I am aware has a desktop presence. I am not sure of the point you're trying to make. I don't know the target markets or tooling either vendors (or Serif) have which might make it more of a sensible business decision for one or the other and how much legacy code they've had to port.
All of this is my point. It might look easy to do cross platform software development (in my experience not, and my very limited and ancient experience with mobile devices even less so), and yes there are more and more toolsets to help it get done but without knowing the ins and outs of it then the assumption that seems to be being made that (a) it's easy & therefore (b) Serif must have some ulterior motive not to do it just doesn't hold water for me.
I think that if it were low hanging fruit they'd have plucked it by now.
As I've repeatedly pointed out I'd LOVE an Android tablet version of Affinity Photo.

+1 for IDML export  

Its really sad how V2 still doesn't include Android apps and the fact Serif doesn't want to even consider it. They really miss out on a great count of interested buyers

The client had no requirements about the source file format, as long as I supplied them with PDFs they can print or publish on the web. This time, the specific requirement for IDML files came from the translation company. They use a translation software which accepts only IDML files. My client had no idea about that.
I have no problem paying for the conversion software. I just wanted to nudge Affinity again about the importance of having an IDML export feature inside Publisher.

They really should. We should corner affinity and send them emails and petitions we want it for android!!

I have just purchases the entire suite for desktop and would do the same with the entire suite for Android if ink it would ever be developed.

How many users are there for each of those operating systems you listed?

This is exactly the reason for me to stick with Adobe InDesign (even if I bought a couple of Publisher licenses, to support its development). 
Let me also add that I've been successfully shifted to Photo and Designer for their – albeit imperfect – abilities to work bidirectionally in .psd and .ai formats. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to adopt them. 

Obviously many Editors and Designers have expressed the need for AfPub to export an IDML file. I am about to co-design a book with an English designer. He uses InDesign and I now use AfPub. We both worked together in London so we know what we want.
I have been trying to work out the best way to design and edit pages and or design separately and combine into one file for publishing. IDML is what is required. 
How do the programmers and marketers at Affinity decide what is important? Do they survey on line comments or is there a priority list of requirements? From a distance it seems as if the main efforts are being used to sort out 'bugs' which is understandable. What would be interesting to see is a set of goals that Affinity are aiming to complete. Perhaps not enough to alert competition but enough information for users to know that something is happening about a particular requirement.
[like moving pages in AfPub from a dialogue box rather than trying to drag pp147-148 back to chapter one  after p10...]

I'll do a +1 for IDML export too.  It's the closest thing to a "universal" page layout format right now.  Even if it's not perfect, if it gets you 75-90% of the way there, that's a lot of work that doesn't have to be redone if you were to recreate something from scratch.
With an IDML file, I can get the document into various versions of InDesign as well as QuarkXpress.  I think Scribus possibly too.  And others.
It's not just for sharing or collaboration either.  For me, the bigger thing is archival purposes.  It's not entirely uncommon that I might have to open a file I created many years ago (for example, a PageMaker file) to update it or repurpose it or etc.  Will Affinity Publisher 2040 be able to open my 1.x file?  Maybe.  But, I'd be more comfortable having a secondary option just in case.
An XML file could work too, maybe.  But what other than Scribus could open it?

+1 for IDML export
At this point, I'm OK if it's not perfect conversion. I just need the afpub files to be openable somehow in InDesign. Then the InDesign user can edit my files and doesn't have to redo everything from scratch.
Pretty please, Serif! 😟

+1 for IDML export

Hi there,
Since Affinity has been very quiet lately, I wanted to ask when the next beta version will be released.
Is there a page that tells what new features are planned for AF Designer and AF Photo?
Or which problems were fixed in the Mac version?
I would be very happy about some information.
Thanks very much

It's a feedback forum, as long as it is civil there is no harm in continuing. If anything, it helps them gauge interest in a particular request. Those other threads were locked outside of the scope of just being a request.

I've been lurking here for a few years and I've seen a lot of community members shout down other community members requests for other platforms (Not accusing you of this.) to get these threads locked. There are merits in keeping these requests open and showing support for them. Affinity/Serif at the end of the day will make any decisions that make sense for them. But I honestly find the community response to these requests quite concerning and sometimes toxic.

+1+1+1+1
Same to us here!
We no longer want to use Adobe (more than 50 users!), but...
All our documents must be translated in 3 to 12 languages and the source for translation must be IDML!
Still need to keep bidirectional exchange with clients, agencies and other designers.
Otherwise we can not switch to publisher. 

+1 +1 for IDML export!
urgently needed - otherwise I can not switch to publisher. 
Still need to keep bidirectional exchange with clients and other designers.

I like their products and wish I could use it on my preferred operating systems(Linux[Pop!_OS] & Android). So I'm showing my support for this, +1 for Android. I don't really see a need for discouraging discussion about this. Either Affinity will decide to do it or they won't.