Ramon56

This was a featur that existed in PagePlus and was very handy because it took ages to update some text (even a typo) in a long document (I have books of 600 pages). It allows to create separate files for the different chapters, and combine them into a single PDF. I have not checked how they update the index, but will try to find out as soon as I start playing with it. And yes, it's a pity that it does not have ePub export yet.

Did the same test, using a Word document with quite a few footnotes. Import was flawless. I have not tested more advanced footnote aspects, but this test shows that at least it covers the minimum that I expected when I purchased V1, so I am happy. I have taken the reduced price offer and will now explore other capabilities. For the moment I am happy, as this was my biggest stumbling block; hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.

Well, it seems that the long, long wait is over. I have not checked it yet, but even a basic functionality will remove quite a few grey hairs. I have not seen anything about Word import of footnotes and endnotes, so I'll have to test that out. On the other hand, I have seen a very nice feature that PagePlus had and was missing, which is the combination of different Publisher documents as chapters into a single book. This is great, I can assure you, specially when you have books with hundreds of pages!

Pulisher is "supposed" to be BETTER than word processors for publishing... yet it has less publishing capabilities than those.

Don't count on it. In any case, I find it interesting that you combined the html files in Calibre. I was not aware thta was possible. Need to test that.

I have far better things to do than evaluating beta software. You may have all the time in the world, but I certainly don't. 10 days for evaluation is also far too short, and it takes also quite a lot of time to master a complex program, even assuming that you can dedicate a lot of time to it (which I couldn't). By the time I realized that this feature was missing, it was too late for the money-back (which I certainly would have requested). Now, the statement that the marketing material lists all functions is plain nonsense. Does it tell that you can underline, use italics or bold? That you can use different fonts? That you can indent paragraphs or space different lines? No, it doesn't, yet those capabilities are there. When people buy such a program, they consider that certain things are so fundamental that they take them for granted. I certainly did NOT expect that AP would NOT have such a basic feature as footnotes and endnotes, which are included in simple word processors such as MS Word, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or even WPS Writer. Why would I buy AP if it has LESS features than a word processor? So yes, I feel absolutely cheated.

True, but PagePlus had ESSENTIAL features (such as footnotes/endnotes) and combination of different files that AP STILL does not have! (Can you imagine a motorcycle without a brake?) Same here. BUT I am going to make certain before paying a dime that it has the features that I need (including of course footnotes/endnotes). I won't be cheated a second time.

I personally do not have much hope.... after 4 years, we still do not have footnotes.

Don't hold your breath. Serif has already disappointed me enough.

This is fine, but the problem is a different one: I have also experienced this issue. It's no good that you can merge different documents if afterwards Publisher crashes because the resulting file is so big that it cannot handle it... PagePlus had also this issue, but the "book" feature did not physically merge the files into a big file, it was only used to perform the final publication, and that worked like a breeze... Well, I hope it does not take four years (and counting) before it is added, like footnotes.

The predecessor of Affinity Publisher (PagePlus) had the capability to build "books" by including/merging several files. This was a nice workaround to the fact that it took ages to process big files. If Publisher cannot handle a whole book, then they should consider adding this PagePlus feature.

When i use my Kindle, Footnotes are handled as a pop-up. End notes are at the end of teh ebook.

Fully agree! Look at what Will said. In any case, the functionality that is missing is exactly what all users have been screaming for over the past years (not only ePub, but for example footnotes/endnotes). If you provide similar functionality and drop the "old " version, you are "replacing" it, like it or not, even if it is not exactly the same. And then you should have the main features (not the same code!). You can add new features and drop unused or unnecessary ones. And BTW, you only inherit the bloat and bugs only if you reuse the code, but that is NOT what we are talking about - we are talking about features, not reuse of code! For your information, I have over 40 years of experience in software development (I started with punch cards!). I have developed desktop software, websites, corporate systems and even airborne software operating systems for fighter aircraft. I have also chaired two international software standardization committees, so I need to take no lessons from anybody. Having stated that, and having also developed consumer software, when you drop a product and replace (YES, replace) it by something oriented to the same purpose, the users expect something similar or better. You can develop it from scratch (no objection to that), but you should take care that you include the features that your users value. The very first thing that we did when we developed consumer software is ask the users what features they considered essential/valuable, and made sure that those were included. This is not discrediting anyone's work - but ignoring the users and what they require is simply sloppy and is unlikely to increasy user satisfaction. Anyone with a minimum of knowlege in marketing will tell you that user satisfaction is key to the success of a product. It is evident that you are NOT a software designer, because otherwise you would know that the backwards compatibility of old files is not necessarily maintained even over different versions of a same software. Plenty of examples abound. And you are insisting on code, as if code portability and code reuse was the only solution when you want to create a new product or even a new product version. Let me tell you something: I completely redesigned with my team a major application that had been initially developed in Powerbuilder to C++. Significant architectural changes had to be done, and except some very few algorithms, NOTHING was reused (zero code ported). Yet it was marketed as the new "modern" version of the SAME product! (and yes, we created it from scratch.) Backward compatibility? None. We had a way of migrating the old data (by means of a conversion program), but there was no way to run the old files/databases, nor get back to the old format. It simply made no sense to maintain backward compatibility, and still it was a new version of the same application!

That was also my understanding.

Agreed. But PagePlus did have a limited capability to do this. On one side, you had the PagePlus documents, and then you had the PagePlus books (see example from one of my books below). They were two different types of files. The PagePlus document would be equivalent to the S1000D data module, the Pageplus book would be the S1000D publication module. They need not to be mixed, as Scriverner does, but it's much easier to implement. This PagePlus feature would probably not be sufficient to handle the S1000D documents, but it certainly would cover the Scrivener equivalent. You could improve it by "linking" the individual files to the Publisher sections.