Hokusai

MattP, That sounds like a good idea, I'm looking forward to it (I realise it is something that might be added much later but I'm still looking forward to it) . I really think it would be helpful for beginners as well it would be helpful in cases where there is some confusion as to whether or something is a raster or a vector. Hokusai

00Gz, Thanks for the response. I'm having different issues but maybe they are related? For me I have trouble switching to the magnifying glass and sometimes I can't get the move tool and other times I can't get the node tool. There are also times when I get the node tool but it looks like the move tool but it behaves like the node tool.

I've been having a lot of problems switching tools with this beta, especially getting the magnifying glass (or in my case I can't get it even though I press command + spacebar). Is this a known issue? Is anyone else having trouble with this? Hokusai

ChrisP, No worries, I think that raster items or raster effects in a vector program confuses many people! I hope that MattP's explanation clears things up for you. MattP, Maybe it would be helpful if there were a palette that showed items that are raster items (or items that will be rasterized on export) similar to the "Links" palette in Illustrator. Or better yet, how about something that would indicate in the Layer stack that something was a raster (like a different colour or something)? I think that what will be rasterized confuses many people, especially people new to vectors, and a Links/Raster palette or something that better indicated what is a raster and what is a vector would be helpful. Just a thought. Hokusai

Ton, This post might be a useful read. Especially towards the end where they talk about PDF import. https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/572-affinity-publisher-file-import-from-page-plus-please/ Hokusai

MattP, Thanks for the detailed explanation! Very informative and useful to know. I think Affinity is wise not to use Apple's PDF path as it would make things even more complicated for people when they hand files off to be printed or viewed by others. Hokusai

ChrisP, I'm just curious as to how you are able to do make a drop shadow in Illustrator or iDraw that isn't a raster? When I create a drop shadow in iDraw or Illustrator, it is a raster effect which when I export as a PDF, gets rasterized. You are right they both do create clean crisp drop shadows but only if I set the dpi to at least 300. A drop shadow by design is a raster effect, there are ways to make a faux drop shadow out of vectors but the look is slightly different. In my work, I don't use rasters only vectors and so if there is a way to create a vector drop shadow (with the feathered look of a raster drop shadow) I would love to know how to do it. Thanks. Hokusai

pilarcf, Currently there is no way to build multipage layouts. The Affinity team is working on another program called Affinity Publisher that is for Layouts but it won't be out for a while still. They have said before that by the end of this year (2015) they hope to have a beta of Publisher out (but the final release would of course be later). As well I believe that they are planning to add artboards and pages to Designer sometime in the future (it is on their roadmap which can be found here https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/842-affinity-designer-feature-roadmap/). In the meantime, you can create pages in Affinity Designer and then export them as PDF files and then combine them using Apple's Preview application. It isn't ideal but it works well enough to get by for now. Best of luck, Hokusai

I think that simply exporting your Affinity Designer files as PDF will work best. PSD files might be okay for Affinity Photo files but for Designer files, I would stick with PDF.

ChrisP, I think your mistake was using, Divide, that splits the objects up. If you added the shapes (using the Boolean operations) and then you would need to create the center part and then Subtract it from the main shape. The resulting object won't have any lines. Sorry, I hope this makes senses and helps. Hokusai

Are you talking about opening the file in Affinity Designer or you can't open the file in the online trace application? It sounds like you are talking about the online trace tool but I'm not sure. Trace tools normally want raster file formats such as tiff, jpeg, png, etc. I don't know but I would think that they wouldn't open an .ai file (there would be no need as .ai supports vectors).

MEB, Quick question, aren't linear gradients that use a transparent fill also rasterized when exported to PDF and EPS? I know with EPS they are but I wasn't sure with PDF? For some reason, when I export any gradients as PDF (all linear gradients and all with regular solid fills in the gradient) they all get rasterized (at least if I open them up in Illustrator they appear as images but I'm using an old version of Illustrator and that might be the reason). Glad to hear that support for vector elliptical gradients will be added in the future.

Hector, Thanks for clarifying. I didn't realise from your first post that you were talking about Boolean operations, sorry. I thought you were talking about something else. Good suggestions. I think that #2 in your list would be symbols, wouldn't it? I believe that Symbols is on the Roadmap to be add sometime in the future.

ONSO, I'm not sure if you are talking about the Layer Colour or you have "Snapping" enabled. To change the Layer Colour, you "option click" on the layer in the Layer palette you will see a contextual menu and at the bottom of that contextual menu you will "Properties". If you select that you can change the colour to another colour. To turn off Snapping, just go to "View/Snapping Manager" or click on the Magnet Icon on the context tool bar. Best of Luck, Hokusai

Hector, Are you using the Mac App Store version or the Beta? In the Beta you can use Points for Text Sizes. Except for making a duplicate (which you can do with an extra keystroke, command + J), doesn't "flip" left, right, horizontally, vertically and this does the same thing as "mirror"? As well, currently if using the Node tool if I select multiple nodes I can delete them, is this different than deleting a segment?

Keep in mind that Illustrator didn't have LiveTrace until CS 2 (which would be Illustrator version 12). Affinity Designer is still a very young application and it is still growing and maturing and it will no doubt take time to add this (if they do decide to add it). In the mean time there are many standalone applications that can do this for you. Of course none of them do nearly as good of a job as you can do by simply tracing it yourself.

nuppieri, I don't believe that you can currently modify colours on a palette. You can only delete them or rename them. I'm guessing (and hoping) that the ability to modify existing swatches will come later. Hokusai

Ben, Maybe the Giraffe team can also crank out a Linux version that Linux users would be willing to pay loads of money for? I'm sure that there are many projects that will keep the Giraffe team busy for quite some time. I wish them the best of luck. ;) Hokusai

MEB, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one! I'm trying to be more careful because I noticed recently the spell-checker's choices are often completely different from what I was intending to use. Hokusai

alanateal, Welcome to the forums. A good place to start is the Affinity video tutorials https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/ As well the Forums also offer a lot in the way of tutorials as well, they can be found here https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/9-tutorials/

DemiAsian, If you choose a gradient then you can make it two colours (or more if you choose). Other than that, not that I'm aware of. Hokusai

michaelmee, I'm not 100% certain but I would guess that for some reason the Arial that you are using with Affinity Designer isn't the same as the one that you are using to create your web page mockup. There are actually many different versions of Arial, many of them have them even have the same name as they are actually different versions released at different times by Microsoft (and of course other venders also have their own versions of Arial and they could be different as well). I believe that even with an Arial that has Japanese characters, it doesn't contain them all so occasionally you will get the blank rectangle because you are trying to use a character that the font doesn't include. Not all Japanese fonts contain all the characters (they normally contain all the Hiragana, Katakana, and most of the basic Kanji characters but there are many Kanji characters and some fonts don't contain them all). I have Arial (regular) and Arial MS Unicode. Arial doesn't have Japanese characters at all and Arial MS Unicode does. I hope it helps. Hokusai

No worries, glad I could help. That is odd that you got a pixel selection while only using the Draw Persona. Hokusai

ChrisP, If I was to hazard a guess I would say that you accidentally (or by choice) switched to the PixelPersona and then at some time made a selection. Once you switch back to the the DrawPersona, it appears and it won't go away until you deselect it. Of course that is just a guess and it could be a completely different issue. Is it possible that you were moving back and forth between DrawPersona and PixelPersona? It might help others to say which version of Affinity Designer you are using. The Mac Store app or the Beta? The marching ants go away when if you use command + D (for deselect) so it leads to me believe that at some point you were using the PixelPersona.

retrograde, Funny, I meant gradient Mesh (not mess)! I'm not sure if I typed mess or if the spell check did that for me (or to me)? Recently it happens more than I feel it should.