pixelstuff

What they don't mention there are modern photo editor features like font and vector layers or live filters.

The first line somewhat indicates you had already said your farewell.
Canva will likely bring a much needed accelerated development to Affinity. I'm looking forward to it. Some of us who spend hours every day in Affinity see it differently.

There is no way to answer the questions about what will happen in the future other than to wait & see, or as @SallijaneG just wrote, time will tell.
Where did you see Canva say that? AFAIK, they never have claimed they are targeting Adobe or any other company in particular, just trying to improve their share of the graphics software market.

My guess would be that Canva is wanting to compete more directly with Adobe to some degree, but they didn't want to start from scratch. So they may be planning to beef up the current Affinity apps with connections into their cloud system, like cloud storge or seamless import of Canva templates into the Affinity apps. They may expand the professional apps beyond the three currently in production, like Lightroom or Dreamweaver clones (no telling if they want to get into video). They might even go the Microsoft path of creating desktop apps and a stripped down web based app that looks similar.
Basically they are probably hoping to save time from building a professional suite from scratch and the main reason for wanting a professional suite is to go after some of Adobe's monopoly market share.

My guess would be that Canva is wanting to compete more directly with Adobe to some degree, but they didn't want to start from scratch. So they may be planning to beef up the current Affinity apps with connections into their cloud system, like cloud storge or seamless import of Canva templates into the Affinity apps. They may expand the professional apps beyond the three currently in production, like Lightroom or Dreamweaver clones (no telling if they want to get into video). They might even go the Microsoft path of creating desktop apps and a stripped down web based app that looks similar.
Basically they are probably hoping to save time from building a professional suite from scratch and the main reason for wanting a professional suite is to go after some of Adobe's monopoly market share.

An interesting comment from the owner of a large Australian company on subscriptions. It's about 1:36 in to the video
 
 

That makes me wondering if Amazon it doing targeted ads in their Prime Video service. Perhaps you hadn't previously seen Canva ads because you never searched for Canva prior to the acquisition and those new searches were somehow cross referenced to your Amazon account or IP number or whatever.

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @tperhai.
I think you must mean Designer and Photo! Affinity Publisher was launched in 2019.
Serif have pledged their commitment to the perpetual licence model. I don’t think it would be fair to assume that they’re going to renege on that commitment.

Really, if I make a suggestion and they implement the feature, the reward for me is that feature becoming a reality without having to spend thousands of dollars to build it myself.

Really, if I make a suggestion and they implement the feature, the reward for me is that feature becoming a reality without having to spend thousands of dollars to build it myself.

Really, if I make a suggestion and they implement the feature, the reward for me is that feature becoming a reality without having to spend thousands of dollars to build it myself.

What you described is an example where the designer did all the work to make the idea from the sportswear business (a logo that communicates such and such) become a reality. Likewise Affinity is doing all the work to implement a user idea from the forums like the logo designer did. The sportwear business paid the logo designer and forum users are paying Affinity.
For your parallel to match up with Affinity paying for ideas, the logo designer should be paying the sportswear business for their idea. That would be silly.

A couple years means two years. Microsoft said they will discontinue support for MS Publisher in October 2026 and no longer include the app in their Microsoft 365 suite.
It is possible the users of MS Publisher won't bother looking for something new or they'll try to cram the work into Word, but who knows. Some might be in the market for a low cost replacement.

Did you ever work on V1 or InDesign or Illustrator or v3 Pagemaker? LOL, every program needs time to mature to get professional. Quark took to V3 and it was so good they forgot to make it better in good ways and v4 was terrible.

Have you opened a PDF with InDesign to edit it? Can't do it. You can with Affinity Publisher. It's terrifying at times, but once you work out a system, it's pretty nice.. I have edited text and extended bleeds to files that would have otherwise been total failures.


Can you explain the lack of accesibility in PDFS means? I do think they should have an acrobat type of program, but since they don't I use Qoppa PDF Studio and Callas PDF Toolbox desktop and an old (7) of Acrobat.

I have identified issues with Publisher but it still does a good job on a number of items that Adobe will never address. Try this, import a PDF to InDesign, say 24 pages with bleed. Do the same in Publisher. In ID you have to set each page up in the right place each page... it's work. Affinity, make 24 pages bring first page in on first page of doc, set, then copy and past and just switch the page numbers, it's very robust.

On Adobe, well they are the kingpin, everyone should gun for them if they intend to dethrone them. If Affinity went after Quark... well I think you get what I mean.

I really like Affinity programs even though I can't use them all 100% of the time, yet. I hope they continue to mature them and can compete.

LetraStudio, ColorStudio, FontStudio, FreeHand, Quark, Corel, Canvas, Scribus, Inkscape, Gimp, Ready Set Go, Live Picture, Painter, Typestry . . . and a host of many others I have used to get jobs done. Sometimes the top dogs are great, but they don't have all the answers for all the problems.

Adobe, in my, and many other's opinion are too expensive for a good amount of the design community. Affinity is trying to alleviate that problem and we salute them, but we don't give them an easy pass for short falls.

 

INDEED arrogant sales nonsense that I and others have warned about sounds as if it was written by a bad used car salesman. It's condescending, inaccurate, and boastful drivel that is so damaging to Serif's credibility as a company, they have likely already painted themselves into a corner as far as all professionals are concerned, those who have read it first and then tried the programs. Serif may shudder at the thought of how much they have isolated themselves from professional customers at that level with such words that simply do not hold true.
As I've said, it's not enough with financial resources; it's about the attitude and professionalism at Serif, which needs to go up several levels. Something radical needs to happen before radical results can be expected. Not tweaks.

Hi,

Did you send a pre separated file? 6 pdfs per color?

I have some use for that in a certain subfield, but it's been a while since they can be used with modern rips architecture, you lose a way to trap.

Yes on Picas! When I was a camera man and did not need to know about sheet size I used picas forever! My only issue with picas is real picas vs picas on computer are not equal (digital picas are exactly 1/72", whereas regular picas on my Plankcs Typographic ruler is slightly larger 72.3 or so per inch.

I have one thing that kills me in printing. PANTONE Color books are not numerical anymore. Some genius's decided to put them numerically at the index and by hue on the printed page. Well that's just a pain somewhere...

I get files in that have the same issues as in the 1980's, RGB/missing fonts...  just had a canva job yesterday where a maroon red was picked from two different online colors that look similar I am sure, but they converted to cmyk and it was light years different.

I blame schools for hiring poor teachers in graphic arts programs. I would love to teach a class on production values of printing. Type, Color and Bleed. I regularly run into experienced designer who don't bleed out items... I would teach about quality font choices on a budget, PANTONE Color to Process, document size!!

How about a class how not use photoshop as a pagelayout program!!

These are my biggest fears.
Because I expect and would like development to move in such a direction that Affinity programs become truly professional tools equipped with mature and high-quality functions, which means, for example:
top-notch rendering library (no redraw issues, smooth zoom-in-out without flashing render tiles, no delays in rendering / updating thumbnails) professional object styles (dedicated dialog, ability to either clear and replace all object settings or replace only specific ones or save defaults) Split/ span columns  professional spread and page management (multi-page spreads, moving and page reorder) foolproof color managment and pdf export workflow comparable to a professional tool (without reinventing the wheel, where everything has been working optimally for many years) true vector brushes and patterns vector symmetry tools symbols libraries variable font support creating cutom glyph sets drag-n-drop to rearrange columns and rows in table tables across multiple page or inside text frames envelope distort (using selected object as a shape for the envelope) and more and more... Otherwise, I can't imagine how Affinity would compete with Adobe, which is what the owners of Canva declare.
 
And for God's sake, stop this type of marketing↓
With all my sympathy and respect for your programs, it has nothing to do with reality. What's more, such arrogant marketing, unsupported by quality, slowly becomes distasteful and discourages rather than encourages people to buy your products.
You can advertise your product in a more balanced way without treating your current and potential customers like mindless idiots.

Let's hope Canva purchased Serif because they wanted something a lot different than what they've currently built, including the Affinity brand name.

Let's hope Canva purchased Serif because they wanted something a lot different than what they've currently built, including the Affinity brand name.

i enjoyed reading  TidBITS   take on the issue:
Canva Acquires the Affinity Suite
 
 
 
 
;

Can you translate what it means in regular language? Aside from a bunch of unrelated idioms strung together, I couldn't figure out what it was trying to say. After reading it twice I decided someone was just playing around with an LLM.

A couple years means two years. Microsoft said they will discontinue support for MS Publisher in October 2026 and no longer include the app in their Microsoft 365 suite.
It is possible the users of MS Publisher won't bother looking for something new or they'll try to cram the work into Word, but who knows. Some might be in the market for a low cost replacement.

With any luck Affinity might pick up a few new customers in a couple years when Microsoft discontinues their MS Publisher application.

Correct priorities actually. Serious work is done on a desktop computer.

I suspect a few people just want to get as many other people as possible to jump on the FUD bandwagon about this because for some reason they just enjoy churning the waters with dubious information. Not exactly the same thing as trolling but close.