BofG

This is true. Especially as Affinity assigns profiles to every document (as it should). Proper conversion of colours between colour spaces needs to use ICC profiles on both ends of the conversion. It's not something you will be doing in a spreadsheet. @anon2 Have you deliberately blurred your user icon, or do I need to go to my optitions?

The OP only has a virutal PostScript dirver, which doesn't have any controls for separations.

I used an actual PostScript printer's driver, I don't see any generic/virtual PS drivers on Windows. In any case, as @walt.farrell pointed out, the Affinity print system will mess with your CMYK breakdowns. I think you are out of luck, saving to PDF and letting the printer deal with the separations will likely be the only usable solution if you want to work from Affinity.

It's a good point, given how much I've complained about that on here I really should have realised! The PS file does come out with the correct instructions for the separations, but yes the colour data will have gone through that "mystery rgb profile" conversion prior.

@Stokestack I'm curious to know, did your svg file specify a fill-rule?

I don't believe there is any way to directly do what you are asking in Designer. There's no native support to create a PostScript file, and there's no way to manage separations. The best you can do is generate a PDF in CMYK and let the people handling the print create the separations from that. EDIT - I had a check, and there is maybe a way to do this, however you will need a suitable PostScript printer driver. If you go to the print dialouge, select the PostScript printer and then in the driver settings enable separations output, then back in the print dialouge click "print to file" you will get a .PS file that has the command in it to print as separations.

This is unfortunately how Affinity handles fonts that are not on your system. Even if they are embedded in the PDF they get substituted.

An SVG can specify a fill rule, maybe Designer was honouring the rule as set, whereas Sketch simply discarded it and worked as default. If you open the SVG file in a text editor and search "fill-rule" you might find it's been set.

This is true in Designer, the issue was the fill mode was set to "Winding" instead of the default "Alternate". Probably as @anon2 says, something was imported into the document that way, hence the OP didn't know about it.

But that's a completely different context to what you were referring to: Whether the path has self-crossing lines is irrelevant. The test you've referenced is in relation to what lines a test ray crosses on it's way out from a reference point. Those are two different things. We have to remember that as vector software it operates on vector math - paths can end up with different directions (ie. clockwise/counter clockwise) and that can change the odd/even count or the winding number which is why something that looks visually wrong to the eye (like that circle being filled) is mathematically correct. The option for the two different methods is given so the output can be controlled by the user. On a more general point though, the boolen operations in Designer are often lacking, that I can agree with

Technically the subtraction "worked" but it's visual representation is determined by the fill rule, which was seemingly set to "Winding". That has nothing to do with crossing lines, it works based on how many times a path loops around a point. @Stokestack - did you set the winding rule yourself? I'm only seeing "Alternate (Even-Odd)" as default. Sometimes it does need changing, as both fill modes are affected by the direction of the vectors.

No, not possible. You'll have to use some other software (such as InkScape).

It's of course always good to work to the "best practice", but I'd bear in mind that the average person's monitor will likely be a budget laptop that can maybe hit 70-80% of Adobe rgb. Pretty much everyone will be seeing incorrect colours, it's just a matter of how incorrect. Oh, and then there is the joy known as "night mode" which has seemingly made the jump from phones to computers now too.

Click and drag an Artboard around the one you want to export.

Designer is a bit inconsistent with the way this is done - if you convert to curves THEN export you get the curves inside a group element, if you convert to curves UPON export you get the curves without the group. I assume the group is added because it keeps the text together in the layer panel, which isn't really needed when done upon export.

The best thing to do is ask the print shop, there's no one "right way", different shops have different requirements.

I think you've found a separate issue if that is consistent. The issue reported here is seemingly random, 1st try can fail and second attempt will print fine, no changes to the document at all. @stokerg is this intermittent print issue logged as something to be looked at?

I'd say it's down to your software not understanding the matrix transforms in your svg. Export like this:

I'd investigate the "Night Shift" setting.

In a fresh document scenario that is indeed the best approach, sadly the whole digital artwork world is built around Adobe..

Is that the other way round? An AI file can contain a PDF stream, I don't think a PDF can contain AI file data. You need to download the beta: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/60-affinity-designer-beta-forums/ (Follow to your OS, the download link is in the first sticky post). I don't think you'll be able to do this effectively in Designer if you have such a range of colours, any effect or adjustment layer will rasterise whatever objects it applies to so you would have to select and change each set of polygons. I guess AI must be smart enough to work the filter back to the objects' colour and is therefore maintaining the vectors.

I still think the pixel persona is the place for anything that will trigger rasterisation. This trips a lot of people up, and it's not unreasonable to assume that if you stay away from the pixel persona you won't get any pixels.

I think the issue is the layers work logically "bottom to top", so that's the way the export follows. I tried a few things and every time it exports the same way. If there is a workaround you'll need someone smarter than me to find it.

Maybe too simple, but have you tried reversing the order of your artboards in the layers panel?

I'd say yes still, it's not going to have the bells and whistles of Publisher but I think it will do the job. In your existing document (or more wisely a copy of it), select the Artboard tool, in the toolbar it should default to "size: Document", just click "Insert Artboard" and that will wrap all your current content in one. Now click it a second time and you'll have your new "page".