Zero Zero

Just as a brief follow up. I hate to say it but most people when they "lay-out" a word-processed document to look decent and "professional" do not even use the provided tools to do so. (I mean correct placement and use of Tabs, spaces, paragraph line indents and margins, paragraph spacing and the like.) I've regularly received documents by other company personnel who have clearly spent hours laying them out to look decent to impress their boss. When I have received them and opened them I am shocked at the complete layout mess that is revealed. I then have to strip-out all their messed up formatting so I can do a decent job my end. Unfortunately I have often had to convert the whole job to simple text format just to start again from scratch -- yes it's been that bad! Trained personnel who submit copy to publishing houses and design studios know about this and simply supply text without formatting except for paragraph returns. This makes it easy for them and easy for the designer to work very efficiently. Just flow it in and away you go. Yes I agree that decent formatting of word-processed docs, can be helpful, but unfortunately there is a HUGE difference between professionally designed layouts and those done by most untrained personnel. That difference is called "Typography" which, let's be honest, is not a word we hear much about these days. Clearly, I am a big supporter of Typography and will remain so, after all it's part of my job.

Agreed. I've had no end of problems importing supplied formatted text into linked text frames across multiple pages. It should flow like water with no issues. It used to be a joy to work with copy supplied by pro journalists, there was never any problems and saved me hours of time when up against a deadline. So it's swings-and-roundabouts, both formatted and unformatted text have advantages according to the job in question. But searching through formatted text looking for those rogue hidden characters that screw-up the layout is a real pain that's for sure.

I agree with this too. I used to design CD packaging artwork for record companies and this involved all types of CD booklet designs like multiple page fold-outs, and the like. A lot of the artwork I had to adapt originated in America and the contents were way beyond the normal two-page spread, including various versions of digi-pack packaging. For serious creative work I'm afraid to say that in this Beta release, at least, Publisher doesn't cut it. Unless Affinity allow for a far better creative Master Page/Page layout facility then they won't take the throne from the competition. It's really that simple. Serif -- are you listening?

Thanks for pointing that out and providing the correct link. I have just corrected my post accordingly so it works as expected.

Martin Brinkmann at https://www.ghacks.net/ has just mentioned Affinity Publisher on his excellent technical site which will no doubt spread the word to an awful lot of new people. The comments below the article are a bit disparaging, but hey these days the technical world is populated with a cynical bunch of world-weary people, so there you go. I find ghacks site a valuable resource for up-to-date technical info, and in passing I have to say I have discovered some excellent free and useful software too! And so my friends might you.

Thanks for the reply. Yes I checked the frames thoroughly but could see no eye icon. (I do understand what this means and it did work perfectly on a previous trial project). However after some more fine text adjustment work on the brochure project in question and doing a "Save As" to another version... when exporting to PDF there was no error warning about text overflow! How strange?

Congratulations on a cracking bit of software. Clearly the care and attention that has gone into this is self-evident. Well done, very impressed indeed. My first test-run was to produce a 58 page full-colour brochure that took 4 days of serious complex work. Publisher was rock solid and did not crash once. Wow and the great thing was I managed to achieve everything I wanted. OK a few comments: The Cursor is hard to see (too thin and too dark). An option to choose thickness and colour would be nice as well as an option/button to "Go to Cursor". When working with the Cursor in text frames, pressing V to select the Move Tool just adds unnecessary (and unwanted) "v" additions to the text! What would work very well would be when the mouse is moved outside the text frame and resumes the Text Frame Icon, then to press "V" to select the Move Tool. The Page Layout section to the left is way too big. (SOLVED: Just float the page layout menu onto my second display screen!) It is hard to see what pages are selected (the grey border is too dark and I'm using the Light Theme). It's too "clunky" it needs to be like QuarkXpress (going back 10 years!). That was absolutely perfect with the black line Spine. Dragging pages around worked perfectly too. Also often when I wanted to add a spread layout I inadvertently clicked on the "Duplicate" instead -- irritating. The ability to flip single master pages would be good (i.e. When the single Front Cover with guides/margins needs to be used for the back cover). It would be great to place the cursor in a paragraph text and right-click to select "Copy Style" and then click in another different formatted paragraph and right-click to "Paste Style". Fast and simple. I found the "styles" confusing. Maybe I just haven't investigated this fully yet? It would be nice to copy and paste object styles too. For example when I want to change a whole bunch of picture borders in one go. Should be able to multiply select them and copy and paste border styles. At the moment it's laborious to do so. I found some problems scaling pictures. Move a picture to a desired crop within a frame and then adjust the boundary frame handles and the picture jumps back to what it was. Endless hoop -- possible bug? Need to display Bleed Guides -- with snap to enable on/off. Pre-flight check required and print-preview. Need to be able to anchor graphics into text. Would be great to have a stand-alone floating menu for selecting special characters like Em spaces, and sticky spaces etc. which I tend to use all the time. Are there shortcuts for this? Can't see any -- (YES I've found them at last!) Bit confusing that leading in the Character Palette seems to be duplicated in the Paragraph palette and they don't seem to match? It would be nice to go to at leat two, or even three decimal points in the settings? -- (Found this hidden away somewhere so please ignore!) If you set for millimetres then the indents you should still be able to choose measured in points, as an option. I have a problem using the point size drop-down selection procedure, in that its clumsy to use and changes the text size on the fly (very fast too). Why not have the option to click up and down selection arrows to change point size up/down by one as in the Paragraph settings menu. Very precise and easy to use. Working more with Publisher and finding my way around a bit more I can say it is a joy to use and very rewarding and satisfying too. Again great work. I haven't done any serious typography, layouts since using QuarkXpress many years ago. Already I can see that Publisher is a serious contender to the DTP throne. Great work, I love it. THANK YOU.

Error message pops up as soon as I select "Export" from the file menu. "Overflow Text: One or more text frames have overflow text." Choose ignore to continue to export to PDF. Happens every time. Of course I have checked ALL my text frames in the project for overflow but cannot find any to report. So could be a bug?

I hate to moan but honesty the Tabs in Designer make it completely unusable for professional purposes when using text frames. It has to be like Word, Libra Office and Quark Xpress. We NEED to see the tabs in a ruler above each frame box, otherwise it's simply unusable as it is. Very disappointed, feel totally let down. We also need to apply Tab leaders too. Come on Serif this is essential stuff for pro text design! Cannot use this software, in it's current form for any real accurate pro work. Sorry to be a party pooper here but this needs some serious attention. Over & out.

​+1 It would be ideal if the bounding box would automatically vanish when, and only when, applying effects or at least an option to activate an auto feature and perhaps set the time of duration of disappearance. Rather like the opposite of timed help pop-ups. -- Just ideas.

Thanks, I missed that one but did check out the Affinity Road maps first before posting. Good to know it's on the "to do" list. Thanks for pointing it out.

​This applies to both Designer & Photo. It would be more efficient when working with fonts if the drop-down display window was longer to display more fonts at any given moment. It might be worth considering the ability for the user to drag & drop extend the lower boundary of the font display panel to suite. Thanks.

​As in CorelDraw it would be so helpful to click and drag in the ruler left corner and drag into position on the page. And then simply double-click in the left ruler corner to reset them. Thanks.

​Firstly congratulations on both Affinity Designer and Photo. I love what Serif is achieving here which is why I bought them both. I started using Designer for a project (instead of Corel Draw) and enjoyed using it. However I found using the Guides awkward and unfriendly. Clicking on a guide to select it should change its color immediately, a numerical readout should be available on screen (this happens only when it's moved), also with the "Guides Manager" open onscreen, clicking on a Guide does not highlight it in the Manager. With many guides in a project this is most annoying and needs some loving attention. Thank you. ​ ​

SOLVED! THIS WORKS! You have to use the "Styles" Tab to save the fx as as "style" (like in Photoshop). You then can create another (text) layer and apply the style to that layer. The great thing is that it is applied as fx and all the various aspects of the fx are then available for individual editing if required. FANTASTIC Serif. This is now a no-brainer. WOW great stuff already done my next job using Affinity -- Affinity Photo all the way forward now Thanks from a very happy customer. ​

​Good point. Could be combined with my suggestion here: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/34628-ability-to-copy-and-paste-fx-between-layers-in-photo/ ​

​Second this!

​Good point, like to second this.

​It would be very useful to be able to right-click on the fx in the layer and a drop-down list appear offering the ability to copy and paste just the layer fx. Then to be able to select another layer and right-click on the fx and select paste to apply. This is extremely useful to apply all the text fx on artistic text to another text layer to maintain design efficiency. This is available in PhotoShop through "layer styles" and is something I use all the time. Thank you. I have bought both Photo and Designer and I am very pleased with Photo. I have been looking/waiting for a Photoshop replacement I can use for years. Well done Serif! ​ PS: ​Someone also mentioned the option to remove fx too which is an excellent idea and could be part of the above options? ​ ​ ​ ​