Tonda

@Pauls I am not sure if we talk about the same goal. My goal is to export what I see in the document into regular rasterized PDF. Passthrough is for me just the way to force the Publisher to interpret the source PDFs without altering their content (so fonts are not being snown in substitutes etc.). And during the export with "Rasterize: Everything" checked, all I expect from Publisher is to rasterize everything I see on the pages and save it into PDF (which I supposed is what "Rasterize: Everything" does).

@walt.farrell @deeland I personally have 3 reasons why I need to use often "Rasterize Everything", but I am sure there are others: - speed - if you have file with many objects, from some point the exported PDF is easier to view if the content is being rasterized, rather than in being in vectors (this is important especially if you are dealing with people who have slow computers) - size - for PDFs that are meant for example for online viewing or for proofing only, and there is no need to keep the vector quality, it is often much more space efficient to export is as rasterized PDF - security - some people require the content not being extractable from the resulting PDF, which rasterized content fullfils best from all possible options I don't understand why you are both convincing me that it is not possible to rasterize placed PDF (when it is being set to Passthrough mode), when I already twice mentioned that it works. If you don't believe me, try it yourself: 1. create new document (image policy does not matter) 2. place a PDF file in the document and set the mode of the object to PDF Passthrough: Passthrough 3. use text tool and write whatever you want somewhere on the page 4. use the vector tool and draw whatever you want somewhere on the page 5. Go to menu Select and choose "Select All" 6. Go to menu Layer and choose "Group" 7. Go to menu Layer and select "Rasterize" Do you still want to keep arguing that when you set the inserted PDF to Passthrough, it is not possible to rasterize it alongside the other objects on the page?

@deeland Sorry, but I think there is some misinterpretation going on. I don’t need to hack any PDFs. Let me describe the whole situation more thoroughly: I need to be able to insert into Publisher the PDF documents, that I receive from clients or others. This is quite common thing, especially if you work on stuff like advertisement magazines or conference brochures, where you create the material itself, but lots of the content comes already done by the companies who advertise there (their ads etc.) and you just insert these PDFs into designated areas. So for example in the conference brochure, each participating company may have 1 page, where first half is their logo and text description with some table, and second half their advertisement – and that advertisement is usually provided by them. So the work on the page looks like this: you insert their logo, write or paste the text and table content, and then insert PDF with their advertisement. You don’t need to do any edits on the PDF, because it is supposed to be in the brochure exactly as they sent it to you.

 Until version 1.9, if you received any PDF with embedded fonts that weren’t installed on your computer, this was impossible to do only in Publisher, because Publisher reinterprets PDF during inserting, so the fonts get substituted or in worse case the texts end being complete mess. Many other DTP applications solve this by letting convert the PDF to paths during the inserting, but unfortunately Publisher does not have this functionality, and if I recall correctly, long time ago someone from staff mentioned here that it will never be part of Affinity because of some technical or licensing reasons.

 So my solution was to convert the PDF to paths in callas pdfToolbox first, and then insert the PDF in paths into Publisher, which works fine, but quite undermines the approach of Publisher being self-sufficient tool for DTP, not to mention that pdfToolbox is quite expensive, so getting a DTP program and then being forced to buy another software, which cost roughly 10times of the DTP program, just to being able to insert PDF without problems seems quite ridiculous for me. 

So I was really happy to see that there is now PDF passthrough, with which if you insert a PDF in Publisher, it lets the PDF stay in its original form – so it completely solves my problem for getting PDFs into Publisher reliably. But then I have discovered the bug which is this thread about. If you export such document with inserted passthroughed PDFs into PDF with rasterisation on, the PDFs are missing in the export. I perfectly understand the sentence from manual you have quoted, because it means what I am writing. Also, there is no problem in this inserted PDF being rasterised in Publisher, because you can do it right now - just cmd-A on the page, group everything and rasterise, and you get the whole page rasterised, including the PDFs. If you then export it as PDF, this is what I need, just done using many steps, that would not be necessary if the export worked properly. So I think there is just some problem in what Publisher does when exporting the PDF - probably the code of export wasn’t adjusted for the new situation, when there may be some PDFs in passthrough mode on the page, so right now the Publisher just doesn’t have proper instructions what to do with these, so they are missing. Of course I don’t know the code, but no matter of the current state of the code, it can be easily implemented by adding something like “if Rasterise: Everything is selected, group and render all objects on all pages and then do the export and then return the file to original state”, because all this works if you do it manually.

@deeland Hello, there are actually two reasons for this situation: 1. As far as I know, passthough PDF mode is the only way how to get PDFs into Publisher reliably – and I am talking about huge amount of PDFs I am getting from various sources, who are not able to send anything else (usually it is some work that someone did for them in past and they ended only with the PDF), and I need to use these PDFs in further works (so I don't need to edit them, but only insert them as they are in other documents I work on). With the original PDF mode, I often ran into problems that Affinity wasn't able to interpret the content properly (so for example although the PDF had all fonts properly included and in past even commercial printer used this same PDF for printing the brochure without any problems, in Affinity some fonts are shown just as a character mess, or the pictures got white stripes over them). 2. Regarding the output - yes, of course, if the PDF goes into commercial printer, then no need for rasterising. But I often work on stuff like leaflets or PDF brochures, where the clients doesn't want the content to be in vectors (for example because they don't want the included logos to be extractable – and if you want to say that I can use PDF protection, then no – you can always extract the elements if you want, no matter how the PDF is protected). So exporting into rasterised PDF is quite common for me.

Isn't Passthrough just the way how is the content of the PDF presented, or processed during export into object-based PDF? Technically nothing prevents Publisher to rasterize such PDFs, and actually it can do it already - if I select such inserted PDF, I can rasterise it using the context menu, and if I have on the page another objects alongside the inserted PDF, I can just select all, group it and then rasterise the group, and the result is what is supposed to be in PDF exported with Rasterise: Everything. Also, there is no problem when exporting page with Passthrough PDFs to bitmap formats, and I guess the process is the same as when the page is being rasterised during export to PDF, so I don't really see the reason why it should not be possible into PDF...?

Steps to reproduce: 1. create new document (image policy does not matter) 2. insert a PDF file in the document and set it as PDF Passthrough 3. File > Export > PDF 4. PDF (for Print) > More > Rasterise: Everything 5. After exporting, the resulting PDF is blank. If you add another object in the Publisher document (for example write some text with text tool), this other object is exported, but the inserted PDF is still missing (so in my example you would end with blank PDF containing only the text).

Take a look on https://www.qoppa.com/pdfstudio - I own the older Pro version and coming from Acrobat Pro X I am quite happy with it, although I am not sure if it does really everything you mentioned. You can try yourself the free trial here: https://www.qoppa.com/pdfstudio/download and at the moment they have promos 25 % Valentine discount + next version for free with purchase. Just note that it requires Java (at least the older version I own).

Hello everyone, both Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo for Mac are not able to open their files if the files are on locked media (which of course includes optical discs like CD, DVD or BD discs). As a person who is used to backup finished work onto the BD-R discs, I am quite unhappy about this fact - most of time when I go to backups, I need to open old files only to check or print them and this means I have to always copy the file to the harddisk first. To be honest, I don't understand this lock at all, because if you open the file from unlocked media, don't modify anything (just for example print it) and then close it, the file is not modified at all - so apparently when I would open file from CD and close it, Affinity apps will not modify anything too. Besides, the error message is provided by Affinity apps and not the macOS, so apparently Affinity apps know which file is on locked media and which not - so if the problem is that something in the apps needs the file to be unlocked (tools, history...?), what about making these parts unavailable (disabled) when the app detects that the file being opened is on locked media? Or if it is easier to make, just open the file in separate window without any tools around, only with ability to print it? (If it would be possible to click on objects and copy them to the clipboard, it would be great too). I use many other Mac apps, but Affinity are the only ones where I noticed this lock - you can open even the files in apps like Pages, which has the for-user-transparent saving (the file from locked media simply opens as locked - you can view it and print it as much as you want, but if you try to do any change, Pages shows you message that you have to make a duplicate). So is it possible to remove from both apps the lock for opening the files from locked media, please? Thanks and have a great day.

Hello affinitydummy, if you need this way of importing now and don't have any other way, here is my solution: Graphic (formerly iDraw, now by Autodesk) imports PDF so all the fonts that are not available are automatically converted to curves, then you can easily copy everything via clipboard into the Affinity Designer. The quality of import is very good - right now I tried to download local newspaper in PDF and import it and it is without problem. The downside is that Graphic cost 30 USD (you can find it on Mac App Store). There is probably some free solution too - I tried Scribus (open source page layout application), to which you can import PDF and then export to PDF in curves, but the quality of text conversion is not as good as in Graphic (the letters are little bit scattered). Hope it helps and have a great day.

When you design materials with texts (posters, brochures etc.), it is later often necessary to translate the material into another laguage(s) and then you have to make different language versions. Because the translators are usually some third persons (who of course don't have Affinity products, usually not even Macs), you must provide him/her the design in PDF, which he/she translates - either by retyping everything into the new text file, or by using some PDF converter and then rewriting the result. In the end you get some Word file, in which one your text box is three separate text frames, there are spaces instead of tabs and many similar nice things. And you have to orient in all this, copy everything back into your original file and repair all the mess. My idea is - would it be possible to add export "for translator" that would export all the text content from your Affinity file into the .txt file? You would then give the translator this text file alongside the PDF (because the translator usually still needs to see how the texts are placed in the material), the translator would translate the text file and then send it back to you - you would then just import it back via special command and voila - all the texts in your Affinity file would be replaced with the translations. Of course the .txt file would have to be arranged inside in some way so Affinity will know what goes to which text frame during importing back. I suppose the objects have some unique identificators already or there could be some identificators generated during export. I can imagine the file like this: <Affinity54997548784548578a> Buy our <Affinity54997548784548578b> milk <Affinity54997548784548579> It's tasty, it's healthy etc. (that would be export from the Designer file with two text frames - one with title "Buy our milk", where "milk" would be in different style (hence separated), and second frame with the third text. Another possibility could be that the order of the texts would be taken (optionally) from the names of the objects - so if there would be many text frames and you would feel that you want set the order by yourself, you could just number the text field and mark during export that it should use the order from the names. While this whole idea might sound like nothing big with files where are 5 sentences, imagine that you have 100 pages long brochure in the Publisher with tables, pictures with text descriptions etc., and then this whole thing gets translated by one import...