kfriis

No, not suddenly. It was the whole and sole purpose of this maneuvre to produce advanced PDF’s in the future, but based on existing content in my current docx portfolio. What is it you do not understand here? You stated: “You cannot Open a .docx file in Publisher, but you can Place it, which will give you basically the same capabilities as Opening one” I described my approach and the reason, why I cannot use “Place” in real life. Either you haven’t bothered to check, or you’re simply ignoring facts. What is it? For years, I and others, had suggested that a way to “Open” (in your terminologi) docx documents for direct import with true formatting (as is possible from pdf from the same docx), instead of using the - in my eyes - feeble “Place” approach, would be a nice feature to have. Just like - in my case - export to ePub “fixed format”. (NOT “floating” format, as some seem to assume in any debate). You’ve made your Policy choice. Fine. I now have made mine: No money flowing into your coffers 😇

No, it won't. Have checked. Open the pdf produced by the Word document. Perfect, but no styles (obviously) so not fit for any continued use, editing, revisions, modifications or updates of content over the coming years. Then repeated the process with place based on the same docx, that produced the pdf imported perviously. Both the docx and the pdf version look identical on any of my computers (old or new, Mac or Windows). After a few "adjustments" of basic page setup and document size, I was ready for... a huge, big'e, colonormous shock followed by a screeching halt. The same document, containing also around 120-125 images all over the place etc.Other details missing (in docx place, not after pdf open). Not even fit for starting a conversion process worth the name. Why would I do this to myself? Regards

Well... Out of curiosity: Why would it interest me, what other tools cannot do either? Will that solve any of my needs? Some of my documents, are up to 17 years old - Publisher was not even a gleam in anyones eyes, then - and where PDF output is a prerequisite, a different approach could be interesting to look into. If I have to transfer around 80+ documents (with up to a couple of hundred images, some illustrations and whatnot), I'll need all the help I can get in the transfer process. Without "direct Open" Publisher is plain out. The remaining documents, even more intricate to handle (including also video, animations and sound) is moving to a new tool, allowing both PDF - not optimal - and very good ePUB output: it's the ePUB output that is required. Publisher is excluded even before entering the fray. So: Ask not why... Regards P.S. Without Publisher, I'm in no need of any Affinity Products, and all my V1 licenses for all my platforms (iPad, Mac, Windows) will not be renewed. Most have been uninstalled, leaving only the bare necessity active on a single machine for maintenance reasons.

OK, I got it to work - somewhat. Cannot create (Open) a new document based on a docx document (docx not selectable) Right click on first, empty page, selecting “Add pages from File” to a new document, does not allow selection of docx file. Import Content does not allow selection of docx file. Place allows selection of docx file. I uninstalled and reinstalled publisher, and now it imports styles. Place does now respect the page size, but - boy is this cumbersome. Just as in V1. This approach is simply too cumbersome and not viable for large documents. Especially, if you have many with various formats. Since Publisher can read content, why can't it read the few extras, like page size, margins etc. and pull in content, as required. Everything is already defined in Word. Page size. Margins. Columns if any. Variable section formatting. etc. and so on. Redefining the complete page layout from scratch before the document can even be imported and poured into the new framework, that is already present and completely defined in the source document is not my cup of tea. Styles with the defined fonts are now there in my reinstalled Publisher, but the rest... I'm not starting to replicate document layout each time I need to import documents of varying formats and page layouts via the "place-approach". That's too much. Sorry. I'll not use version 2 of Publisher. It's too cumbersome in my view. Still, I may have overlooked something. If you can point me to an approach, that lets me open a Word docx document from scratch, and after reading the document present me with a reasonable semblance of the original word content and layout for the complete content, all pages, page breaks, varying sections and margins etc. and full text and style definitions, I'm game. I cannot find any way do do that. Open would be an obvious choice, but I cannot select docx. I can select the pdf output from docx, but that is not usable (no styles defined that way), although positioning etc seems to be perfect. Source docx should be usable then, but no... It's simply not flexible enough for my use cases. I'll not update any of my existing V1 licenses. It seems to be a case of take it or leave it, and I leave it there - just uninstalled again Regards

I may have overlooked something, but I'm not able to read in a long(ish) Word document, and keep at least the style definitions, basic formatting, font selection, size etc. In short: Does Publisher V2 still not support a reasonably full Word docx file content import? Yes, I know, I can import pdf-files. Still there is no style definitions, and the point for using (non-)Publisher V2 is not clear, if you have to edit anything by hand. If not even basic word style support is supported, no need to test further.

Saved me some money. Not buying into V2 suite (have V1 licenses for iPad, Windows and macOS). No longer using V1. V2's still too limited for MY use cases. YMMV. Regards

There really is not much difference between a fixed format pdf and a fixed format ePub (for some reason, ePub detractors mostly relate to fre-flowing novel content or alike), seen from the editing tool perspective. I use the same tool for pdf and ePub (fixed format), where possible. No difference in work environment, media, content etc). Only when using “interaktive” elements, video or audio, there are differences. Mostly this is reduced to me positioning a 16:9 video (for instance) replacing a 16:9 image (with hugely reduced content and usability). Similar for interactive elements. One image with limited to no usability in real life is replaced by a “widget” (in real life inserted as a ‘complete blob’ to be scaled and positioned in the same way as an inserted image, and ready formatted for inclusion as a complete element - akin to videos, but different in composition and content). PDF output Is a modified/reduced Postscript description representing a fixed format document of required size (similar to physical prints, but portable in digital format). EPUB output is a slightly reduced/modified html description (in this case) representing a fixed format “web page“ with dynamic elements with predetermined position and size (just as images, but far more powerful in use and content). In fact, most ePub documents (one unit analogous to a one unit pdf) can be exported directly as a web page too. The same tool can output fully formed pdf documents (with heavily limitations in usable content), fully formed epub documents and fully formed web pages, that can be published as part of corporate or publishing networks. Same tool. Publisher with the capability to accept and manage “blobs” of inserted media, like audio, video and animation, and delivering the material in standard epub or html output format instead of pdf. The actual editor interface will to a huge extend be similar to identical. Only minor modifications due to extra format handling is required. No “rocket science” at all required. Just a broadening of minds and minimal extension of capabilities. You may not need it. I do. Have had the main requirement of epub handling since start of 2013. Regards

I have, and still do. But I continue to follow the topic, just in case. And decided to comment on the upcoming iPad version mentioned, and Publisher in general (for my use cases). Regards and a big, holier than thou smile 😇🤪🙏🏻

Ah, yes… it’s guaranteed, that someone would get the wires crossed, and misunderstand my message (on purpose?) 🙏🏻

It doesn't look as if it is a worthwhile addition to my iPad anymore. I need comprehensive Word file import (with style handling(creation), and as a minimum full footnotes, endnotes and decent ePub export (fixed format) with full support of audio, video and html widget animation. Probably even full support of unencrypted ePub material import too. What would have sufficed a year or more ago, will not cut it anymore. Publisher on iPad doesn't really matter. It's just another platform, delivering lacking support for my needs. Why would I pay for that? Publisher is a dead end for me and my use cases, unless dramatically extended in capabilities. A primarily, if not only "print media/magazine" targeted tool, has the same value for me, as a film based "Super 8" camera for a Tik-Tok creator (in other words - a tool for yesterdays market, quietly vanishing into oblivion Regards

I have uninstalled my Photo, Designer and Publisher versions on Windows 10 and MacOS, and the Photo and Designer versions were also deleted from my iPads. There is no use for them any more. I don’t think, the licenses will be renewed. Affinity is too slow in its tracks - even making Adobe look like a sprinter at times I keep one ooold Windows installation alive for now, to handle old, existing material, if the need should turn up the next year or so. That machine is barely visited once every six months (purely for keeping the old system up to date and running). Except for maintenance and possible emergencies, it has no future use. Your mileage may vary, and if your needs are covered, good! In my case: Why continue to waste time on maintaining software no longer in actual use on several platforms? Software lacking key features for many if not most of my use cases.

Ah, still looking panicked for any excuse to not… Would you also prohibit the use of pdf file content, where life depends on the content, I.e. an embedded image (embeddable in ePub too), you’d have to ban pdf in all engineering, hospital, airline use. EPub is a file format. Just as pdf. The value is in content reliability and usability. If content has been reliably certified, it is usable. Otherwise even paper copies must be banned. Try to look at things this way: PDF is a special case of the very powerful postscript language packed into one file only. Epub is a special case of the very powerful html language packed into one file only. The latter is vastly more flexible and powerful, but both are logically similar in scope. They deliver a locally available media output packed in one, single and standardized content file. It’s a case of making ALL pertinent and important material available in a reliable format inside a single file locally on the device available for the purpose. Often, nay, nearly always an iPad. Support material in likewise reliable formats. It’s also a case of making additional, optional explanatory material available at the command of the user, if the user deems this important. Interactively, if required. And it is a case of creating a verifiable, interactive checklist of tests performed in an authorized order, to ensure a job correctly done and reliably finished. From “do this” over “how on earth is this connected” ending in “aha” and a final “test” followed by a series of “check”, “check”… followed by “finished”! No need to connect to anything outside the device, you have at hand. A device, that easily holds a very well assorted technical library down to details seldom required, but when they are… pure blessing! With or without media, animation or interactive content 🤪 Why’s that a problem for you? You do not loose the option to restrict yourself to pdf-only, if that’s your wish, but more modern requirements may be served by ePub support too. In large parts, the program will be similar, some parts even identical. Your personal needs may not be representative, and if Affinity plans on long term survival, planned, recent, current and coming requirements for users with widely varied use cases may be pertinent to plan for. epub is “just” a far more flexible output format. Not at all excluding pdf (really only a small subset of ePub capabilities), if that’s the only level required. You could in theory limit all Internet presentations to pdf only, but that would be rather restrictive, so why do that?

Because - for instance - instruction manuals often has to include animations or videos showing approach, placement and tools in a repair/mounting process. In other cases, it’s a html based “widget” controlled by the user, enabling the user to control views on an detail or construct in ways meaningfull to the user in the moment in the actual environment and space available in restricted spaces locally. Paper manuals are still produced today. Seldom used for anything but emergency backups. PDF format manuals or instructions, check lists etc. are widely used, but not always sufficient. If internet can be guaranteed to be available in a sufficiently high speed (!), a link within a PDF document will often do, but try using that from an iPad with mobile connectibility, in central, old parts of Rome (where even less than megabit speeds are often the only thing available, unless you carry a few hundred meters of Ethernet cable to a reliable Cabled connection - parts of that vanishing, before ends are connected, if you do not use “security heavies” to guard the cable run). Large parts of the world - even large parts of Europe - allow only periodical and “symbolic” mobile phone internet connection speeds. In many situations, you actually need to carry “the internet parts” on you (video, audio elements - e.g. playing the sound of to low or too high tension to aid a technician - or “operator controlled explanatory elements” - typically a html based widget). You can of course use “external files”, but now you run into a versioning problem, that worst case can cause loss of life, if files end up in “unintended mixes” or even files not present on a current device recently gone into use. One ePub3 file has the same benefits as one PDF file. The PDF file is one document, with a collection of elements within. Easily version controlled as a whole (no risk, that one image is showing a year old version by end user accident). The same is the case of an ePub file (whether fixed format or not). All elements are “packed” into one, single file, easily allowing reliable versioning, including fonts and whatnot. If you have an unencrypted/protected ePub3 file called “x.epub” and rename it to “x.zip”, you can unpack the content (as you have probably done a few times, if you work with epubs), and apart from a few, central definition and control files, you’re looking at mostly near standard html content, that could be used as an ordinary “website” element (and often is, during widget development). It is actually easy to add an “active element” to a fixed format ePub (in most cases, it looks decidedly similar to a html link in a PDF file A popular description is “to place the active element” within a given frame, similar to the “startup image size”. All the elements could be regarded as one, discrete package, with predefined options for display and control. In effect, it is a “local web presentation object” requiring no connection beyond the device, but as easily integrated into a specific, physically selected “displayframe” on a screen page. The manual, instruction or check list approach is simplified enourmously by using fixed format ePub3 “Books” (using the term book, is like using the term pdf to describe the freedoms of the internet). In most cases, the web widgets are actually constructed in tools, that may target output as a html-page for inclusion into a standard online webpage, a html-widget (with the interface required to be embedded as an ePub element) or simply to a video or audio rendering, if user interaction is not required. In short - seen from the outside - you could view fixed format ePub3 documents as PDF documents with options for embedded sound, video, animation and optional user interaction, if required (“if required” being the operational phrase). Initially Adobe had a simple, embedded flash swf script approach added to PDF’s in mind, but it never cought on (it was exciting news, when I was an Adobe Postscript device driver developer late in the last millennium). Maybe it is even possible to some extend today (haven’t checked within the last ten years), but you’d run into heavy play problems (our modern world use mostly anything but strictly Adobe endorsed tools for presentation html - and the derivative ePub3 - have completely replaced that option in real life. Regards

Pure balloney! Utterly, decidedly uninformed opinion (which you are entitled to have, but that does not make it right per se ;-). Even the very much simpler standard Apple Pages program allows producing fixed format, intricately designed ePub books/documents. Including multimedia content, like audio , video etc. I guess, this several years old extension to the ordinarily office solution, did not turn up on your radar on "what the world uses or can use" to produce more or less standard output for general use world wide. If you assume only "novel type books", you are (mostly) right, but when we're talking instruction material, manuals, safety manuals and vital check lists, embedded video into fixed formatted manuals, can - and will sometimes - do wonders. Pages is not ideal for that, but it can be done, both simply and to a large degree reliably. When lives may be involved, Pages is not the most obvious solution, alas, there are lots of cases, where the fixed format ePub may be the most obvious solution (iPad's are standard reader devices for a lot of professional use cases - including piloting, engineering, electronic or mechanical repairs etc.) Try animate anything in a 200 page PDF manual or in in a 25 page safety check list (exploding into hundfreds of illustrations required to produce a less clear instruction in PDF only, if even an inkling of freely oriented 3D is involved). It doesn't hurt, that you can design for fixed format ePub (which is displayed without any problems on iOS, iPadOS and macOS, as well as the usual contenders for hi-quality Android machinery) and export to PDF, if animations/videos can be linked to multi gigabyte files online, but that's of no use, when e.g. in doubt on how to mount a special gasket on a bespoke emergency solution natural gas switch in a secure, non-lethal way in 50C in the desert somewhere in the Arabian peninsula. A a similar intricate task on the Altiplano between Arequipa and Puno, in large regions above 4km up, topping out at 4.910 meters, with Wonderfull views of the "Vulcan alley" hundreds of kilometers from nearest mobile connection of even the most inferior or unreliable type. You can of course elect to design tools restricted to produce only material targeted for use cases within the confines of the City of London, but the world is far larger, than that If you have no knowledge, it is OK to say so, but just rejecting usability - even critical usability in some cases - due to lack of insight and vision, is really no way forward. Do you speak for Affinity in any official capacity?

Woaaa!! Soon four years and counting! I remember the early days of UK home computers and PC clones. The UK was leading for a few years, then… suddenly… fell off a cliff due to lack of innovations and customer support. They insisted on being the best; even while the world decided otherwise. Now, is Affinity aiming at repeating this old sad state of affairs? Regards P.S. I have practically stopped using designer (nice app, but integrates rather badly with other software). Photo is relegated to handling old material. I’ve returned to using Lightroom Classic and Photoshop again. And as far as Publisher goes, the still lacking support for docx material import (including styles), lack of foot/endnotes support and especially no real export to ePub usage (especially galling, now that Amazon/Kindle seems to be about to make peace with the format). I’ve even used Word as a Publisher replacement in one recent case, since Publisher seems to have become a dead end, and word at least is supported by most serious environments - still! It’s not a case of pricing. It’s a simple case of lack of even the most basic features, supported in most serious environments. Nearing four years of non-solution of significant omissions to the product feature list is rather telling in my view. Your mileage may vary, but all my licenses for iPad, Windows and Mac has fallen out of use the last 12-18 months. Maybe a secondary machine will be relegated to supporting legacy solutions, like Affinity Designer, Photo and especially Publisher. It all looked so enticing many years ago, and look now on all the good will squandered by inaction or persisting non-solutions to relatively basic needs.