Jens Krebs

Thanks, nice idea and I'll keep it for the future, might come handy.

That is a fantastic idea! Thanks!!!!

A crossword puzzle where the cells need to be exactly square. If tables don't work, I'll use text boxes instead.

Is there a way to fix the height of table cells so that they don't expand when / if the text doesn't fit?

Exactly my thought, put in clearer words by you ... "Guide Layer" is a nice term for it.

Hmmm ... certainly useful, but might become a quiet complicated to use feature, especially when juggling several grid layouts in one file. I believe a good way to achieve this would be one layer on each page that is set to "no print" (which would require the software to distinguish between "objects" and "layers", respectively find a different term for one of them)?

Thanks for your link Gabe and thank you, Joachim, for checking if it's just this file or a general issue. In any case, I have provided the two files in case you need something to "play" with. The issue occurs on ALL shadows on this page (text, logo and images). The original file has been created in InDesign 15.x on MacOS.

Importing a PDF from InDesign with shadows around text creates a very think line / box around the shadowed text -- at first I thought it was just an issue with my screen or the display, but the lines turn up in print as well. Please see the attached screenshot. A bit of investigation showed me that the text shadow consists of a dark grey rectangle and a mask that covers all but the shadowy part (bit like an inverse / negative shadow) -- the thin lines in the document are the borders of this dark grey rectangle (see attached screenshot, all THREE objects are part of the shadow). I can upload the file confidentially if you want to investigate, but cannot post it here.

If I bought your ebook /magazine and it would look as bad as ANY of the examples you posted (even what you call ,borderline acceptable'); I'd return it and complain and the file labeled "original" with just 5MB is relatively small, so nothing to worry about. This discussion has kind of spread far away from your initial question, spiralling into several potential and theretical examples and @Lagarto investing valuable time into reducing a 4.5 MB file down to 1.5MB, resulting in a massive quality loss. Neither of these examples have come from the original threadstarter, so ... @ksrcreative Can you get us back on track with some specifics, please? What size is your original A4 PDF export and what file size do you need to publish it on your website? Maybe simply posting a screenshot of the right PDF export settings for you will suffice, once we know what we're ACTUALLY dealing with ...

Sorry, that was my fault, I should have been a bit clearer: Option 1 refers to printing the PDF with "File --> Print", Option 2 refers to using the Affinity PDF export options, creating a file in 100% physical size, but with reduced image resolution. I used the terms "print" and "export" but could have phrased it more clearly.

1) If it's about physical DIMENSIONS, the easiest, but slightly ,hacksaw' solution is to use a PDF printer (integrated into macOS, lots of free software available for Windows) is to print it with a size of 71%. 2) If it's about FILE SIZE, the easiest solution is to reduce the image resolution from 300 (prepress) to 96 (screens) when exporting the PDF file. Generally: The physical page size doesn't matter for distribution on iPads or computer screens, people can simply zoom in and out as they please to see images or read text. As @thomaso correctly stated, the physical dimension and file size are mostly unrelated, exporting in a physically smaller size won't affect file size.

I am not qualified for this and don't actually know anything, but is it possible the "&"-symbol in the type foundries name throws something off in either the OS or Affinity software?

I recommend staying with a "real" PDF software. Publisher is a fantastic program, but it reads all PDFs as editable files and very often messes up the content when unusual fonts and effects come into play. If you have something that works, stay with it, otherwise take a look at Adobe Acrobat Pro 2017 (last non-subscription version).

10.15 Catalina (previous versions as well, it has worked for me since the first Publisher beta if I remember correctly, respectively I cannot remember it NOT working).

@thomaso As you said that for you the filename NEVER travels, here's a screenshot of what I normally get (pre Big Sur beta), when I copy and paste images from the Finder (as you can see in the status line, even though it's embedded and copy-pasted images, the original file location ,travels' with it and I could, if I wanted to, switch the images to ,linked'):