wonderings

So I see some very very VERY faint lines that are my bleed margins. How do I make them so I do not need to squint? Basically want them to stand out to easily see my bleed margins like in Indesign. As is it is pretty much the same as not having them unless I look really really hard. They should stand out much more to easily and quickly see. **edit** Ok I did lighten the background colour which makes it way more readable. Still would prefer something that stands out a bit more and would be functional no matter what colour background you use. Really the only way you can see the current bleed lines is if you use a white background.

Just did a test myself, made a spot colour for our cutter labeled "CutContour" (made 100% m). Exported the PDF with default settings as well as x4 settings. Checked the "more" box and "honour spot colours" was selected. The PDF did not show the spot colour and had it all in CMYK. I was curious if it did this with pantones, but they exported properly.

Another +1 for this feature. Really if Publisher is going to have people switch from Indesign they pretty much need to have all same functionality of Indesign. No way would I shift to Publisher from Indesign (99% of my work is done in Indesign) only to not be able to do the things I could simply do in Indesign.

Running High Sierra

Not done a lot with Publisher but have thrown in a large PDF to see how to handled it (very fast and smooth). Size of the pdf was 90.75" x 45.5". No crashing when panning around zooming in and out. I do get crashes when quoting publisher as it asks me if I want to restore next time I open it up. iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) 4 GHz Intel Core i7 24 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 MB 1 TBB flash drive

As the title says Publisher needs to be able to view separations. Maybe it is there already, I tried searching for "separations" but found nothing. Anyways an important feature that needs to be added.

I had no issues when I downloaded it last week. Opened up the .dmg file and then dragged and dropped the app into the application folder and started up. Could not have been simpler.

Why would you not package a file once done? It is the easiest way to keep all assets associated with that job in one place and not have to maintain a second library of supporting files. Also fonts are handled very well with Adobe CC, I rarely even use my font management software as a properly packaged file opens perfect with the fonts in the font folder. Yes there are still people who send working files, I personally would prefer PDF's but a few of our clients have us make changes after the fact. I also do not package fonts to hand them to anyone it is again to keep everything necessary to run that job together. I do not need to worry if I deleted something elsewhere because it is all there properly packaged in one complete set. Adobe TypeKit works well for what it is because if anyone is using Adobe CC they will all have the exact same fonts. Now I rarely use fonts from there as I find the library a bit limited, but the idea is fantastic in the framework of the subscription model Adobe has (and I hate). In the end whatever works for you is great, but there are many printers and designers though who organize like myself and keep jobs packaged. It was even recently added to Illustrator. If Affinity chooses to decide for its users how their workflow should work well I do see them having a lot of people unwilling to adopt. I would prefer choice to work how I need. You could do it your way with Indesign and I could do it my way, they would have 2 happy customers in that instance.

Quark and Indesign have been doing it for years with no legal issues. There is an initial dialogue box that warns you of the legality and you can choose to ignore in the future. Why make it an extra task to find them and put them together in a job when it can be done simply? All you are doing is creating more work for the end user, even if it only takes "1 min". Not sure how I feel about the image being embedded file types, will take some time to know if I prefer that over linked files being accustomed to it for so many years. I know I like having all file assets in one place and can easily grab it for another piece that is part of the same print package and use it without needing to open the one file and copy and paste as well as grab it elsewhere. Most images are unique for a specific job (outside of the obvious ones like payment logos and social media) and would be best put together within a folder for that job. Again it feels like it is creating more work for me to keep things organized and together when Adobe and Quark have solved this years ago and made my life easier in this regard.

Unless I am missing how Affinity does it, I see no way to package a file. This is a VERY important function in my opinion. Please add this as a priority along with bleed guides. There is no way I would work on a live job that I could not package and pull all the fonts and linked images into a neat organized folder. This has been around for ages with Quark and Indesign.

So been doing some tests here and there, comparing it to Indesign (my main app of use). I have a 180pg text book created in Word. Not the best place to create PDF's but I have never had issues with PDF's made from office and placed in Indesign or any other software for imposing or printing. Publisher completely mucks it up. This is a screen shot with side by side Indesign view of the page and Publishers view of the page: Screen Shot 2018-09-01 at 9.44.22 AM by B P, on Flickr Not sure if anyone else is having an issues with PDF's placed in Publisher, I have only tried the worst of the files to see how it handles it.

That feature is not in Publisher yet, there is a thread somewhere about it as it is a pretty important feature if not a completely necessary feature. Hopefully it will be there with the next update.

Would really like to see colours automatically added to the swatch panel. If I import a PDF with a spot colour or pantone it would be fantastic if Publisher (still HATE that name. Microsoft Publisher has a horrible reputation in print and you are starting out being associated with something people already hate) would see those colours and add to swatches so I can use it. This makes life so much easier. Oh and PLEASE add bleed option to the new document window. All you are doing is creating extra clicks for setting up a simple document.

Thanks, I did miss that and yes it should be more prominent as anyone exporting for print or plates will be having bleed on most jobs. I guess once you know it is there then you can't miss it but I certainly did. Indesign has a whole section labeled "marks and bleed" you cannot miss it. Even with this post I had to scan over the image a few times before I found it. Would like to see support for bleed, to choose how much bleed, if I only want bleed on one side, all sides, top, bottom, etc. I know they want to be different then Indesign, but you need to take some of pointers from them, they are the KING of page layout software and have done things incredibly well. Also as others have mentioned need to see bleed guides on the pages, and again need customization of different size of bleed, choice of all around, or only the sides we want bleed. **edit** Just found a bleed option under Document setup that does give customization for bleed on each side individually. I am assuming when exporting as PDF if uses this documents setting for bleed?

Not sure how bleed is not there. I just downloaded the beta and that is the first thing I noticed when setting up a new document. This of all things is one of the most basic needs for print and setting things up. Unless it is hidden I did not see any option to even export a PDF with bleeds which makes this software completely unusable. Yes I know it is a beta, but really this is such a basic feature not sure why it would not be in first release. I do love the speed, which is something Affinity has excelled at. I do not use any of their software for live production work but do own Designer and Photo and appreciate how slick it is, Adobe has nothing on Affinity in this regard. Will run it through some tests with large heavy files I have in Indesign and see how it handles it, but again without the option for bleed I can do nothing with the app other then test when I have the time.

Would add to that the ability to save PDF's with spot colours and pantone colours. There was an issue with that early on with Designer. I think it has been rectified with later updates, I rarely use it honestly as I am comfortable with Adobe and prefer knowing exactly how my jobs will turn out rather then jumping in to something new. I will buy Publisher... hate the name.... as soon as it is released as it would be nice to have competition for Adobe Indesign, but think this will be a MASSIVE uphill battle fighting against an app that has been updated and improved throughout the years.

Excited to see how this app turns out and will buy on release date. Indesign is my favourite app and use it daily. Not much seen in the sneak peak, though did look smooth. Can you please please please change the name?? Publisher is already the bane of the print industry, i.e. Microsoft Publisher. I would think just about every prepress person like myself shudders when a customer says they created their file in publisher or attaches a publisher file.

So I started typing out this long reply going through everything I was doing. In the end I tried once more making a PDF and low and behold the PDF kept the pantone colour, my EPS file did not. So now I need to figure out what is wrong with the EPS file. Attached is a screen shot of the export settings, which I have not touched. I did try the setting preset "for print" and "for export" both converted to CMYK.

Does not work. I thought for a moment it was because I had a 3D bevel effect as well so I tried just straight text, no effects with a pantone outline/stroke. Does not work. If I am doing it wrong it needs to be changed as this should be a very basic and simple thing. Going back to illustrator to get done what I need till I can play with this more.

So I was having trouble with a certain effect I wanted with illustrator and decided to give it a shot with Designer 1.5.5. I got the effect I wanted with little fuss, it was great. Problem is I need the font to have a pantone outline. When I use the outline tool under effects I find my colour (needs a search option here, painful to find the right number) and select it. Now as a test I made a box filled with my pantone colour (152 C). Dropped the PDF in Indesign, the text outlined does not show a pantone but the box I made does show a pantone. Is this an issue with the outline tool in Designer or is there something I am missing?

So I was pleased to see how Affinity Designer handled a pesky file I have from a client. It has a solid red colour in CMYK for the background and a complex globe made of grids above it. This made trying to do anything with the file in Illustrator a nightmare and have never been able to successfully convert the background red colour to a spot to give me colour control when printing digitally. Anyways today I dusted off Affinity Designer to give it a try and to my surprise it selected the red background with ease... unlike Illustrator. Anyways, I want to now save the red colour as a spot colour, but I see no way of doing that. How do I achieve this?

So basically same sentiments as the posters above. It is close to being usable, but right now still a headache trying to manage simple colours. Was thinking maybe I was not looking at this right, but I am not. Something that should be changed as well is the global colours. Not sure what the intended purpose is for them, but they do not function well. I have a box, I have selected a Pantone Red 182 for the solid fill, for the outline I have Pantone 2312 (just an example). When I go under swatches and click on "document" to see the colours used in the job, rather then get Pantone Red 182 and 2312 in the list, I get "Global Colour 1" and "Global Colour 2" and so on and so forth depending on how many pantones I have in the document. Why not just list the name? What is the purpose of titling them with Global Colour? Now I could manually go and rename the colours, but thats really counter productive.

Try logging out and logging in again, can make a world of difference sometimes.

I missed that as well when I was initially searching. I am used to the search being at the top of a palette with Illustrator and Indesign. It is on the bottom and works exactly as it should.

Look in your application folder, it should be there. If you clicked the "buy" button in the app store and went through all the steps and nothing popped up saying you need to update your credit card, then you bought it. I think the days are almost over for having license keys as it is all done with online accounts. No serial numbers for Adobe anymore either, all connected with an adobe account which makes things much simpler. Hated having to keep track of all my different registration codes and serial numbers, life is much simpler now.