ROBING

I regret to say I must agree with you. Since using Page Plus right from the very first version when Serif was based in the US apart from some glitches in some upgrades, it was a sheer delight to use, intuitive, versatile. Sadly after purchasing V1 one then 2 of publisher I just find it hard work, frustrating and sometimes totally unintuitive. I suppose it is partly because I have used PagePlus for so many years and knew it inside out. There are just silly things in publisher. Just now I wanted to stop the curser stop moving my main text frame around so I set it to lock. result it locked the whole thing so I cant even edit the text. Another annoying lack is whereas PP had an asset windows to store pictures, clipart, picture frames etc that could be dragged in when required (admittedly it was not always easy to find you had to look for the right arrow on the edge of the left hand tool bar, I have yet to find thus useful feature in Publisher Help has no search facility except online. For me its been one of those program's that the more I use it the more I dislike it. Some programs become a real delight to use. Getting a project done now which has hardly got anywhere would have been nearly finished if I had used PagePlus. In fact I forgot I had PP on this laptop so have yet again given up on publisher, copied the text I was able to salvage from publisher and taken it to PP to start again. I have a deadline for it so cant afford to waste more time. Maybe when I have a LOT of spare timer I can try publisher again and see if I can get to grips with it. Who knows in a year or so I might actually get to like it yet! I suppose the only answer is to ditch publisher and go back to PP or ditch PP and try to struggle through Publisher and see if I can get to the place where it is usable. Photo editing is another case in point. I have tried to like it but gone back to a different product where it is easy to get done what I need - and quickly. Designer is the only one I have used and actually don't get frustrated with it.

Hello For many several years I have produced an monthly calendar using my trusty PagePLus. Although I purchased Affinity Publisher when it first came out sadly I didnt really get to grips with itt. With vers 2 I| thought its about time I started to make the switch and my first project will be this calendar. As there is no import facility to use the old ones from PP I need to start from scratch. PagePlus used to have a really good calendar template/wizard. However I just cant find anything similar in Affinity publisher. I can do it all manually from creating a table but even then that doesn't seem to have the facility to have a header row (ie one cell the whole width) to put the title of that month. Does anyone know of a similar calendar template/wizard in Publisher. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Robin Thank you

Comments about interface - initial impression have to agree with some comments. Start up I needed A4 landscape. No option only portrait . Had to change dimension manually to get to portrait mode. Tried to zoom to get page to fill working space. Zoomed in but using H & V sliders just went all over the place other than being in centre. Early days yet but opening up should be as easy as PagePlus (which I still use a lot because of needing to use PP files which wont import into Affinitty) One of these days I will get to grips with the quirks in Affinity but opening up a new project shouldn't be this confusing).

Hi CRG Thank you for that very helpful suggestion. Like you I tried the PDF route but it really didn't work out well. I will try your suggestion. Unfortunately though a lot of my old documents rather that being mostly texts also have a lot of graphics and some uses tables as well so a bit more complicated. Hopefully one day I will make the transition to the Affinity range. For new users that are really great software tools. Its a shame though that Serif turned its back on a large group of loyal users. Apart from promotional e-mails I never hear a peep out of them. Their salespeople could be a bit annoying when they phoned to pressure you in to buying stuff BUT they also used to come up with some really good deal nots just in Serif upgrades but add on and 3rd party software that were extremely useful and at a good price. Bu I will give your suggestion a try. Thank you for taking the time to respond

Yes I have been doing a Google search on this and you are right they just didnt do any conversion utility and (according to the post I saw) alienated a LOT of loyal users. I suspect a lot of them either looked elsewhere (but apart from Microsoft publisher there are not a lot of choices) or like myself still kept with their old versions of PagePlus/DrawPlus/PhotoPlus For the latter although I have Affinity Photo I have switched to a rival product for photo editing which came bundled with video editing software. I might get to use my Affinity photo at some time but to be honest the failure to provide a conversion facility for PagePlus other than converting to PDF did not sit well with me. (nor it seems many of their loyal customer base) probably when I need to start new publishing projects I will start using Affinity Publisher As an aside one rather interesting side effecting of dumping XXXPlus customers is that I now no longer get phone calls from their sales reps trying to flog upgrades or add on 3rd party software. Although sometimes a nuisance, there were many times I found it genuinely helpful and I purchased quite a number of really useful extra software products or add- ons especially to PhotoPlus. I know their in house ones are available to purchase from their web site but the phone reps although pushy did at times come up with some really useful stuff at usually good prices.

I purchased Affinity publisher a year or so ago and installed it. Apart from playing around a bit sadly I just haven't used it much) The main reason is I have used Page Plus ever since it first came out. I had the very first version of it and have continued with every version since. Herein is the problem. Even though Affinity was brought out by Serif it seems Affinity publisher & PagePlus are ontotally incompatible. I have a huge number of files done in PagePlus some of which I still use but theI cant find any way to bring in or convert PagePlus files to use in Affinity. It has either meant continuing with PagePlus X9 or recreating them from scratch. So far because of time coinstrains I have had to stick with the first option. It seems rather strange that there is no provision at all to do this. Most software even when they bring out a totally new version do at least have some tools to provide a conversion from old formats to new. I really would like to get in to using Affinity and if anyone could suggest a way of importing or converting PPP files into Affinity Publisher I would be very grateful. The same goes for the other 2 products I purchased. Still sitting unused so any helpful hints on those would also be appreciated. Maybe there are some conversion tools around but I haven't found them yet so any pointers to them or suggestions would be very appreciate. I really would like to get stuck in to using Affinity publisher Robin Griffiths

I am really at my wits end with ALL of my AFFINITY softare. I use (and tested) the beta verses. I have since purchased all 3 (Photo designer & Publisher) However I have never really got to grips white them so they have been sitting on my PC waiting to be used. (I have been using the old Serif software ) I stated up publisher - and it asked to update itself - i ran it - it got almost to then end then came up saying update failed. Not only that it has completely wiped out the original! the same thing has happened I then tried running the other 2 and exactly the same thing happened update failed - and installed versioned wiped away. I left it for a while and went back to good old tried and tested (and usually reliable) Photo Page Plus Draw plus. the other desktop PC that has (or did have) Affinity ran into some problems (Windows latest update causing havoc) so i went back to a drive backup from a few months ago. The earlier install of all 3 Affinity prodcust there but one couldn't work. Tried the updates - now same thing has happened. Has anyone else had this problem? I am at my wits end to get any of these to ever work properly . So far they have been an absolute waste of money (and time faffing about trig to get them to work. I have been a LIFE LONG user of Serif products right from the very earliest Page Plus that was set up as a competitor to the mainstream product at the time. In all my years of using Serif software I have never ever come across one as bad as this. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated

I haven't used publisher for a little while. I was prompted to update to 1.8. Following instructions I opened up publisher- it prompted me to update to 1.8. This download fine. I ran the update - it got almost to the end then came up with error message update failed. As if that wasn't bad enough, when I clicked on the Designer Icon in Windows I got an error message Item referred to in the shortcut cannot be acessed When I looked at the folder under program file affinity publisher Windows refused to allow me to open it. A right click on properties showed a 0 files content. It seems this 1.8 update has managed to totally trash my installation. What in the world is going on??? I now have to waste time finding the original installation files and start again = Not a happy bunny to say the least!

Could I suggest that the Affinity home page clearly states that Affinity products are ONLY for 64 bit versions of Windows. I cant see anywhere where this is stated. I purchased both designer and Photo but my main desktop PC is 32 bit Windows so sadly they wont work. Fortunately I do have a 64 bit PC that is used for video editing so they will work on there. However as my 32 bit one is the one I usually use for photo and graphics I still am using legacy Serif software. Its just fortunate have 2 PC's (the 32 bit version is needed for an older laser printer that annoyingly doesn't have 32 bit drivers. However my point is I think it should be more clearly stated on the website that neither products works in a 32 bit environment. Has anyone else run into this problem? One major upside to Serif abandoning its legacy range or at least not developing further is that I know longer have salesmen phoning me to persuade me to buy upgrades I don't really need! Serif/Affinity dont seem to be marketing the 2 products much