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Michael Sheaver

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  1. Thanks
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from thomaso in Export from Publisher to PowerPoint   
    Holy cow! This Adobe tool is EXACTLY what I was hoping against all hope for! I am dumbfounded and speechless, actually. It not only brings everything into PowerPoint correctly, but it also provides the ability to make final tweaks and edits directly in PowerPoint. Many thanks for sharing this!
    EDIT: True to their colors, this service is only "free" for a very limited time; after that they require a subscription to use the convert to PPT service.
  2. Like
    Michael Sheaver reacted to thomaso in Export from Publisher to PowerPoint   
    According to this PPT Help page you can use an exported PDF to
    • insert as image,
    • insert as PDF object,
    • open as a linked slideshow.
    They also mention SVG as a file format in case you need vector data displayed with the PPT. Apparently this enables some editing options for the imported layout content if converted within PPT to an "Office shape".
    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/insert-pdf-file-content-into-a-powerpoint-presentation-5e7719d5-508c-4c07-a3d4-68123c373a62
     
    Alternatively you could try this free online-tool to convert PDF to PPT:
    https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/pdf-to-ppt.html
  3. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Reid Walley in Gradient to follow the shape of a line   
    Wow, wow, WOW! This is an unexpected surprise indeed! 
    @firstdefence, that lightbulb pop was definitely a flash of inspiration! The crazy thing is that I had tried the conical gradient in the beginning, but because I never did understand how it works, could not get it to work. So I looked for ways to do a gradient on a path and happened upon this post.
    Thank you for sharing your example work with the history with me! You might think I'm nuts, but I used it as my personalized tutorial and followed along with my own empty project. And man, I did learn a lot of cool things, including:
    Using the polygon-turned-triangle to get perfect spacing and proportions for the three curved arrows. Why you chose the polygon instead of the triangle tool for this, for it the alignment of the points with the outer circumference was perfect with the polygon tool. Aligning the center points of the arrow head (triangle) to be perpendicular to the center circle (I had eyeballed it before ). Using the erase blend mode for the overlap; I had never used. that one before. As an aside, I did set horizontal and vertical guides at the center of the circle to give me more precise placement of the focal points before transforming the duplicated arrows. I had a TON of fun with this little exercise. 
    @>|<, as soon as I saw your screenshot with the conical gradient, everything clicked for me, and it now makes perfect sense to me! I honestly don't think I could have understood the work of @firstdefence had you not posted that shot!  am so glad you did, and thank you deeply for that!
    I also like your use of the compound shape versus the union operation, and will definitely use it next time. And yes, I have used symbols quite a bit, and love them!
    Here is the result of my exercise:

    I do see that I need to be more careful of where to place the center guide circle, for the arrowheads look a bit off. Now that I have a good grasp of this, it should be no problem for me to redo it again. I just say that I absolutely LOVE the greater flexibility and control that this approach gives me!
    Again, my deepest heart-felt thanks to both of you!
     
  4. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Ulysses in Disappointed. No Multiple text columns in the next future?   
    One of the things I MOST respect about Serif is their persistence in staying true to their mission, and it becomes most apparent in situations like this. They have, by their actions, tried their best to stay away from the all-things-to-all-people paradigm that is endemic in the Microsoft ecosystem. This razor-sharp focus has enabled them to make arguably the BEST software out there, with a level of excellence in user experience that is woefully absent in most other software, at any price.
    Let us allow Serif to continue with their commitment to excellence, and accept that we will not get everything we might want. But what we do get is the creme de la creme of software. I just wish other companies would follow their lead on this.
  5. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Move Along People in Disappointed. No Multiple text columns in the next future?   
    One of the things I MOST respect about Serif is their persistence in staying true to their mission, and it becomes most apparent in situations like this. They have, by their actions, tried their best to stay away from the all-things-to-all-people paradigm that is endemic in the Microsoft ecosystem. This razor-sharp focus has enabled them to make arguably the BEST software out there, with a level of excellence in user experience that is woefully absent in most other software, at any price.
    Let us allow Serif to continue with their commitment to excellence, and accept that we will not get everything we might want. But what we do get is the creme de la creme of software. I just wish other companies would follow their lead on this.
  6. Thanks
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from pruus in Disappointed. No Multiple text columns in the next future?   
    One of the things I MOST respect about Serif is their persistence in staying true to their mission, and it becomes most apparent in situations like this. They have, by their actions, tried their best to stay away from the all-things-to-all-people paradigm that is endemic in the Microsoft ecosystem. This razor-sharp focus has enabled them to make arguably the BEST software out there, with a level of excellence in user experience that is woefully absent in most other software, at any price.
    Let us allow Serif to continue with their commitment to excellence, and accept that we will not get everything we might want. But what we do get is the creme de la creme of software. I just wish other companies would follow their lead on this.
  7. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from deeds in ¿HowTo: Convert between Art Text and Frame Text?   
    Twenty years is ancient history in technology, and yes, a LOT has changed since then. They built their system on Java, which, from a user experience perspective, is absolutely hideous. It is extensible and hackable, sure, but an awful pile of bolts to use. "Modern" alternatives like Chromium and Atom are following the same path, and it sucks. These platforms give dev teams the ability to quickly produce fancy systems with lots of bells and whistles, but just under the skin is a rat's nest of spaghetti code that nobody knows how they work. I use a major software built upon Chromium, and despite the devs best efforts to tweak it and fix bugs, is so bad that I cringe every time I open it. 
  8. Thanks
    Michael Sheaver reacted to R C-R in Use Curve Object for Mask   
    I suggest making the ring shape using the donut tool. To make the background show through the star, make sure the donut is above the star in the Layers panel, select both objects, hold down the alt/option key, & click the Subtract button on the toolbar (or use Layer > Geometry > Subtract). By holding down the alt/option key, instead of a "(Curves)" object, you get a "(Compound)" object, so the parameters of its two components (like the hole radius of the donut & the number of points of the star) remain adjustable.

    Sun compound.afdesign
  9. Thanks
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from lepr in Gradient to follow the shape of a line   
    Wow, wow, WOW! This is an unexpected surprise indeed! 
    @firstdefence, that lightbulb pop was definitely a flash of inspiration! The crazy thing is that I had tried the conical gradient in the beginning, but because I never did understand how it works, could not get it to work. So I looked for ways to do a gradient on a path and happened upon this post.
    Thank you for sharing your example work with the history with me! You might think I'm nuts, but I used it as my personalized tutorial and followed along with my own empty project. And man, I did learn a lot of cool things, including:
    Using the polygon-turned-triangle to get perfect spacing and proportions for the three curved arrows. Why you chose the polygon instead of the triangle tool for this, for it the alignment of the points with the outer circumference was perfect with the polygon tool. Aligning the center points of the arrow head (triangle) to be perpendicular to the center circle (I had eyeballed it before ). Using the erase blend mode for the overlap; I had never used. that one before. As an aside, I did set horizontal and vertical guides at the center of the circle to give me more precise placement of the focal points before transforming the duplicated arrows. I had a TON of fun with this little exercise. 
    @>|<, as soon as I saw your screenshot with the conical gradient, everything clicked for me, and it now makes perfect sense to me! I honestly don't think I could have understood the work of @firstdefence had you not posted that shot!  am so glad you did, and thank you deeply for that!
    I also like your use of the compound shape versus the union operation, and will definitely use it next time. And yes, I have used symbols quite a bit, and love them!
    Here is the result of my exercise:

    I do see that I need to be more careful of where to place the center guide circle, for the arrowheads look a bit off. Now that I have a good grasp of this, it should be no problem for me to redo it again. I just say that I absolutely LOVE the greater flexibility and control that this approach gives me!
    Again, my deepest heart-felt thanks to both of you!
     
  10. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from firstdefence in Gradient to follow the shape of a line   
    Wow, wow, WOW! This is an unexpected surprise indeed! 
    @firstdefence, that lightbulb pop was definitely a flash of inspiration! The crazy thing is that I had tried the conical gradient in the beginning, but because I never did understand how it works, could not get it to work. So I looked for ways to do a gradient on a path and happened upon this post.
    Thank you for sharing your example work with the history with me! You might think I'm nuts, but I used it as my personalized tutorial and followed along with my own empty project. And man, I did learn a lot of cool things, including:
    Using the polygon-turned-triangle to get perfect spacing and proportions for the three curved arrows. Why you chose the polygon instead of the triangle tool for this, for it the alignment of the points with the outer circumference was perfect with the polygon tool. Aligning the center points of the arrow head (triangle) to be perpendicular to the center circle (I had eyeballed it before ). Using the erase blend mode for the overlap; I had never used. that one before. As an aside, I did set horizontal and vertical guides at the center of the circle to give me more precise placement of the focal points before transforming the duplicated arrows. I had a TON of fun with this little exercise. 
    @>|<, as soon as I saw your screenshot with the conical gradient, everything clicked for me, and it now makes perfect sense to me! I honestly don't think I could have understood the work of @firstdefence had you not posted that shot!  am so glad you did, and thank you deeply for that!
    I also like your use of the compound shape versus the union operation, and will definitely use it next time. And yes, I have used symbols quite a bit, and love them!
    Here is the result of my exercise:

    I do see that I need to be more careful of where to place the center guide circle, for the arrowheads look a bit off. Now that I have a good grasp of this, it should be no problem for me to redo it again. I just say that I absolutely LOVE the greater flexibility and control that this approach gives me!
    Again, my deepest heart-felt thanks to both of you!
     
  11. Like
    Michael Sheaver reacted to lepr in Gradient to follow the shape of a line   
    .
  12. Like
    Michael Sheaver reacted to firstdefence in Gradient to follow the shape of a line   
    @Michael Sheaver Goooooooood Morning Affinity people,
    Had a play with the round arrow issue and its a non starter so, after some early morning doodling I had a lightbulb moment hahaha!
    Lightbulb moment = Conical Gradient  oh yeah!

    Arrows.afdesign: File saved with history so you can scrub the history back and forth to see what I did.
    I also wanted to get a good third spacing and get the arrows on the centre line so I used shapes as guides. I used a triangle for the thirds guide, and a third ellipse to mark the centre line, this helped with the arrow head positions, The only other issue was the overlap but I just duplicated one of the arrows and created a square and set its blend mode to erase to crop some of it off, the fill of the square is irrelevant so ignore that. oh I'd got a 0.3mm stroke on the arrows that I had to take off, don't know how that got there lol!
  13. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Sam Neil in Affinity Publisher - Sneak Preview   
    WWDC is just around the corner (next week), and I wonder...
    Shhh.....
    If Designer for the iPad might be announced?

  14. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Max Basok in Affinity Publisher - Sneak Preview   
    WWDC is just around the corner (next week), and I wonder...
    Shhh.....
    If Designer for the iPad might be announced?

  15. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Mithferion in Affinity Publisher - Sneak Preview   
    WWDC is just around the corner (next week), and I wonder...
    Shhh.....
    If Designer for the iPad might be announced?

  16. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Hanzz in Top Grossing in the Mac App Store!   
    Spoiler: This is not a question, but something MUCH better!
     
    I was in the Mac App Store to check for updates, and I was very pleased to see which apps are ranked #3 and #9 top grossing apps:
     

     
    It is so good to see this, that I could not NOT share it here. Congratulations!
  17. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from SrPx in Top Grossing in the Mac App Store!   
    Spoiler: This is not a question, but something MUCH better!
     
    I was in the Mac App Store to check for updates, and I was very pleased to see which apps are ranked #3 and #9 top grossing apps:
     

     
    It is so good to see this, that I could not NOT share it here. Congratulations!
  18. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from MEB in Top Grossing in the Mac App Store!   
    Spoiler: This is not a question, but something MUCH better!
     
    I was in the Mac App Store to check for updates, and I was very pleased to see which apps are ranked #3 and #9 top grossing apps:
     

     
    It is so good to see this, that I could not NOT share it here. Congratulations!
  19. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Mithferion in Top Grossing in the Mac App Store!   
    Spoiler: This is not a question, but something MUCH better!
     
    I was in the Mac App Store to check for updates, and I was very pleased to see which apps are ranked #3 and #9 top grossing apps:
     

     
    It is so good to see this, that I could not NOT share it here. Congratulations!
  20. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Yesiam1996 in Photo Article on CultofMac   
    I just came across this wonderful article today, and could not keep it to myself!
     
    https://www.cultofmac.com/542177/the-best-apple-pencil-apps-that-arent-for-drawing/
  21. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Alfred in Photo Article on CultofMac   
    I just came across this wonderful article today, and could not keep it to myself!
     
    https://www.cultofmac.com/542177/the-best-apple-pencil-apps-that-arent-for-drawing/
  22. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from DWright in Photo Article on CultofMac   
    I just came across this wonderful article today, and could not keep it to myself!
     
    https://www.cultofmac.com/542177/the-best-apple-pencil-apps-that-arent-for-drawing/
  23. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from skiphunt in Affinity Publisher - Sneak Preview   
    Yes, yes, no, and YES!!! 
     
    I searched for years for a suitable replacement for Illustrator and InDesign, as the whole CS6 suite became less and less usable on macOS, and when I finally stumbled upon Affinity Designer about a year ago, I honestly thought I had died and gone to heaven! 
     
    I have used Designer for many multiple-page publications for print, and it is a powerhouse! The level of control it gives me is simply astounding, and the Export to PDF function helps you tailor it to exactly what your print shop needs for the final output, right down to the print marks and color samples. Other than the text flow handling, Designer has already got most of what you need for producing top-notch print documents. If you have any doubts about that, just buy the Affinity Designer Workbook, and you will see what it is capable of doing.
     
    But the best part about Designer is how intuitive and easy to use it is; it does not have many of those quirky "gotchas" that InDesign and Illustrator are infamously known for. In retrospect, it is ironically hilarious that there is a whole cottage industry built around discovering and mastering those quirks.  As a poignant example, I remember how I absolutely hated using the Pen tool in the Adobe suite, but now, in Designer, it is one of my favorite go-to tools!
     
    The Affinity team really does care about making their applications work and work well, and they have restored for me the absolute joy of creativity.  And when I first saw the video preview for Publisher, the way that the multipage text blocks fluidly adapted to the changes, well THAT blew me away!
     
    So once again, let me reiterate: yes, yes, no, and most assuredly YES
  24. Like
    Michael Sheaver reacted to MacGenie in Is Affinity Designer for iPad a plan for the near future?   
    What is already possible is to open and edit Affinity Designer documents with Affinity Photo iPad, thanks to the seamless compatibility between affinity designer (desktop) and affinity photo (desktop + mobil). So i can view and edit and output any affinity designer file. Missing fonts can be installed over AnyFont.app (or as a macOS user from Desktop with Apple Configurator 2.app free from Mac-Appstore).
     
  25. Like
    Michael Sheaver got a reaction from Fatih19 in Affinity Publisher - Sneak Preview   
    Did anyone else notice in that preview video, when they were moving an image block around the document, just how quickly, cleanly and smoothly the text flowed around it real time as it was moved? With this being in only alpha mode, I would say that is already an amazing feat! However, I will say that I am NOT surprised by this at all. The reason is that I have seen just how much attention the Affinity team pays to every little aspect of the UI and how it provides such intuitive feedback to the user. We have been spoiled in their impeccable design and performance of AD an AP for the Mac, and we have no reason to expect anything different in Publisher. I will even bet that the initial public release of Publisher will be way better than the initial releases of Photo and Designer, since they will use all of the lessons learned from those applications to guide and inform their design and engineering choices. The fact they keep pushing out the expected release date tells me that they truly are exercising an extreme level of discipline by not giving in to the pressures to release it before it's truly ready.
     
    And do you wanna know what the real irony is? If it were Adobe developing this software, the current alpha state, as we all saw it in operation, will already be good enough for them, and it would already be in general release. So kudos to the Affinity team for doing the right thing with all of their products! I am willing to wait patiently until they make it truly worthy of bearing the Affinity name, for I already know that the wait will have been worth it. Like I have shared here before, anything of exceptional quality always takes expert skill, patience, hard work, long hours and many years to produce. It is so refreshing to finally see companies like Serif that are dedicated to producing truly exceptional tools that not only work well, but they are pure joy to use!
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