PaoloT

Another reason to default to 72dpi when resizing or exporting: this is the standard ppi resolution for the web. Defaulting to 96dpi means that you will have to change resolution nearly always. It is a way to make errors more likely, and in any case force (or forget) one operation more. Paolo

In addition to opening IDML templates from InDesign, Publisher can also open PDF files. This means that most of the design elements can be derived by any PDF. Each of the elements can then be easily converted into text styles or graphic assets. Paolo

It's not just kerning. OTF fonts include a series of substitution, positioning and justification criteria that allow for a finer management of spacing. In case they can make things clearer (or even more confuse…), here are the specs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/chapter2 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/jstf Somewhere they declare that these rules somewhat replace automatic positioning algorithms from the page layout programs ("clients"). Paolo

Not a native speaker, I know how delicate Japanese typography is. I can obviously involve my partners in some tests, but I would have liked to first get some more information here. I'm a bit surprised by the secrecy surrounding this matter. I've asked this question more times, but it looks like CJK language speakers are very reluctant in talking about it. Paolo

Just wondering if the inclusion of layout tables, taking care of horizontal (and vertical) position, isn't already giving the text a perfectly balanced spacing, even without having to compare adjacent lines. That is, if the positioning information contained in the font isn't already giving the best spacing for that font and size, and automatic rebalancing wouldn't be able to do any better, or just imperceptibly better. Paolo

I've watched again to the tests I did at the end of the other thread, and I would say that the current composer is perfectly fine. Maybe the paragraph composer was needed before the modern OpenType fonts came out, but it looks like there are now other ways to achieve the same results. The comparison I did in InDesign and Affinity Publisher shows two nearly identical results (only different in a line, due to different hyphenation). Paolo

I've been using Designer and Photo for paid work since their early appearance. Admittedly, for works that may seem very basic compared to some advanced graphic work from some other users. But even in these mundane tasks, they have given me actual benefit and improvement in workflow compared to the Adobe apps I was using before. Not so for Publisher, that I can't yet incorporate in a workflow including InDesign in the hands of most of my collaborators. And that still doesn't offer support for some of the languages in which my publications have to be released. It has however given me some precious tools, in particular for opening and editing PDF publications that I couldn't have been able to edit in any other way. And it did it admirably. Paolo

Since I only need proper horizontal writing support, may I ask if this one is correctly achieved, at least in Publisher? Paolo

I would bet Thomas is not exactly a user, but a technician and entrepreneur in an industrial sector where Affinity is one of the main contenders… Paolo

I'm on a Mac, and I'm saddened to always find that the new document from clipboard is a worthless 96dpi. I always have to change the resolution, clip after clip. Paolo

Correct me if I’m wrong, but they do different things. - RTL Fixer allows one to write in any application. - ParsiNegar gives you a dedicated editor, from where you can copy text that you can then paste in other software. With RTL Fixer you can actually work as if RTL was natively supported by the underlying app.

While waiting for a native solution, this might help with shorter spans of text in Designer and Photo: https://rtlfixer.com/fix-arabic-and-farsi-support-to-affinity-designer-photo-and-publisher/ Paolo

Isn't LibRaw also used by Luminar and Topaz? I'm not sure it is LibRaw to do the development, and not just the decoding. Paolo

Templates can be useful for a non-pro with modest needs (making a quick poster for a party or a newsletter for the local football club). Many users belong to this category. Using a professional template may allow decent results, even if this is not to be given for granted (it is not all that difficult to sabotage a perfectly fine template…). But templates have to be maintained. Older ones will sooner or later have to disappear. Adobe gives several templates for InDesign, but many of them are just localization of the same template. And some of them are really outdated. Apple Pages periodically renews them. I would believe that Serif has considered adding them, but then discovered how much work it is to create and maintain pro-level templates, that would not make their apps look more bland and less powerful than what they are. At the same time, I believe that users who rely on templates will not go much further in using something like Publisher. They would open a template, and then look for some AI feature letting them customize it without having to go under the hood. This is the type of user that will hate these apps very fast, because they will feel betrayed soon after having started using them. Paolo

99$ – or subscription – to get Apple Photos under a different name! 😁 Paolo

I will renew my request, but go one step backward: - When creating a new file from the clipboard, please let us set 72dpi/ppi as the default resolution in the preferences. I'm doing a lot of screen captures, and having always to change resolution is depressing Paolo

Yes, but you have to look for them, download them, and open them! Someone couldn't stand all this effort!

I'm not sure they have. Can a converter extract the semantic data from a PDF table of contents, and make it an ePub's index? Paolo

Thank you for this new version! Paolo

DWG/DXF export was loudly requested by many. I tend to think that it was a considerable amount of work. Since I believe that Affinity Designer is a tool much beloved by people making CNC works, I would consider this one of the biggest thing they have added lately. Paolo

As a side note: an ICML import filter would not be really needed, if Publisher could import and interpret Markdown… Paolo

Absolutely. The Pandoc to ICML converter is good enough, if the source materials are correctly made and not too complicate from a page layout point of view. Publisher could be the perfect PDF formatter for a workflow based on Markdown. Typst is great, but it is much less flexible than Publisher. Publisher could already be the perfect solution for technical and academic documents to be released in different formats. I'm sure it wouldn't be exceptionally difficult for Serif to extend the IDML importer to include ICML. All considered, it is the same format, only a headless one. Paolo

Apple Pages and Numbers have strong publishing tools for data. Numbers, for example, is based on the idea of having multiple tables and graphs in a page. Pages can do equations using the LaTeX syntax, and has decent page layout features. They are not deep publishing programs, but for the type of document described above they should be more than fitting. Paolo

Good question! In fact, the layer of the rasterized text had Opacity = 50%. So, it was not simply text. I'll use my customized preset, to be sure this type of bland effects will be exported. I see the resulting PDF file works perfectly fine when imported into InDesign. Thank you! Paolo

Hi, I had to discover this the hard way: with text rotated by 90° transformed in a bitmap image and downsampled. What I had done was to export my Designer image for reuse in another program. Therefore, I used the factory "PDF (for export)" preset, believing this was the one preserving all the details of the original Designer file. Not so. Is there a reason for this? Wouldn't one want to preserve the original elements when exchanging a project? In any case, I customized the preset to avoid rasterizing, and choose to include the advanced features in the exported file. It seems to work as expected. Text will remain text, even if rotated. But I would like to understand the reason for the factory settings, and if I'm doing the wrong thing in choosing that preset when exporting data for reuse in other programs (in my particular case, InDesign). Paolo