midsummer

As much as i love AP, i can't work with it if i'm not able to place client provided ads in there.
Also what i noticed, you can't set a stroke around linked documents...
So, yeah keep looking forward to those pdf features!

Well, I'll unfortunately have to be honest here too: this drops the Affinity suite out of the professional league, at least for now. I wish this information had been public earlier, I would have looked elsewhere right away. But a missing feature is not exactly a selling point, so I can understand the silence.
 
I can't use these apps in my ordinary workflow in their current state, and learning now that they will never work is a pretty big bummer indeed. I have bought the entire suite, after all. Feels like buying a fantastic new sportscar that's more pretty and aerodynamic than the competition, with nice upholstery and all, only to learn that one of the wheels is missing and will not be added in a later update. Now I need to keep riding my old Lada CS5. It gets me wherever I need to go, eventually. Not without technical problems of its own, but it works. Adobe of course only offers pricey taxi services nowadays.
 
1-bit export would be a good compromise. However that is not enough by itself, you'd have to be able to export PDFs from Publisher without downsampling the 1-bit image to 300 dpi, since that quite simply negates the advantages of using 1-bit in the first place. One resolution setting for an entire DTP document doesn't really make sense in many scenarios. 300 ppi for CMYK images, 1200 for line drawings.
 
And since there's always somebody wondering why 1-bit would be a big deal (Who in their right minds would ever want files with no possible color shades?): 
1-bit is a technical requirement when using images (mostly line drawings, like in comic books or logos) in many specialized print jobs. It's also used in a lot of product packaging stuff that's not printed in CMYK but as one or two spot colors. 
Say you're designing a CD or DVD label (which is what I often do) and you want to print a one-color line drawing that is too detailed to vectorize, and you want it to be printed straight on the silver surface of the disc without a white base disc colo (which is what you usually find hidden underneath the prints of disc labels). You can't use CMYK colors, because that's three colors more than you need, so you pick one Pantone spot color to print with. Using a 1-bit image that has been well prepared from a high resolution original you can have the printed result appear just as crisp as a vector drawing would. The image can be 1200 ppi (say 15000 x 15000 pixels, or something) without any problems. The file sizes aren't that big either, because there's just one bit of data to save per pixel. This is old technology, for sure. But it will continue to be relevant as long as physical products are made by applying ink to paper with various different printing methods.
If I design a newspaper ad for a client, why would I be ok with having the client's crisp one-color line art logo turned into 200 dpi mush on cheap paper stock when it could appear as sharp as the text? If I now design a CD cover with Publisher or Designer and send it to the CD manufacturer, their printers will send the file back to me right away with a note saying "please fix anti-aliased barcode". They are very strict about this stuff. Same goes for one-color T-shirt designs – "That's a very nice looking mockup you have there, now please send us the high-resolution final version". If you only ever do CMYK stuff, you'll never even realize that an important piece of the DTP publisher's toolkit is missing. But even then 1-bit has its uses. Illustrators often use 1-bit patterns for texturing vector art, for example, since they can be used for that fake old-timey comic book dithering or distressing patterns, for example.
 
If you can't produce files that your printer can work with, you need to change software. This, of course, is only a problem to people like me who have to struggle to shell out the 700 euros or whatever it costs nowadays to get a year of Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign. It's not Affinity's or Adobe's fault that I'm just a poor freelancer, stuck with ancient pay-once-use-forever software. I'd much rather get paid for work than pay to work. It's important to note that Serif has no responsibility to cater to my personal needs, and I'm in no position to make demands. I just feel that the product is crippled in a fundamental way, which is frustrating, because Affinity gets so much else right.
Long rant, sorry about that. And like I've said before, Affinity apps are fantastic for their price, Serif is a top-notch software company, and that's before even considering what incredile feats the iPad versions of these apps are. I wish Serif the best of luck, things are looking very promising for the company now indeed. 
I just hope the sportscar gets that missing wheel at some point. Even a battered old spare fished out of somebody's trunk would do. It's a tow truck race for now.
 
Ps. The "Unrivalled compatibility" part of Affinity's sales pitch sounds quite hyperbolic for now, all things considered.

1-bit support has been discussed here in the forums for several years now. Andy's statement about plans to never implement this is the only input I remember seeing on this matter from the developer side so far. I think that answers your question.
The Affinity suite seems to be first and foremost aimed at photographers, illustrators, and people who do stuff for the web. There are currently too many print-specific features missing (no separations preview etc.), so I suppose it makes sense for Serif to keep the focus on what they're already doing well. Real print pros are probably (and unfortunately) too married with Adobe's ecosystem of software, fonts, and stock photos to be won over at this point.

Literally the very first thing I tried to do with Affinity Designer was to drop a 1-bit logo file into a blank document. It was a bit disappointing to realize that I'd just bought a graphic design app that can't handle company logos or barcodes.
In InDesign or Illustrator you can just drop a bitmap logo / drawing into a document and change its fill to any color (very handy for designs that require spot colors). The bitmaps keep their crisp 1200 dpi resolution (and don't get anti-aliased) when exported to PDFs. It's a very hassle-free and effective way of working.
Am I just old-fashioned? Is there some new way of dealing with this stuff in Affinity Photo / Designer / Publisher that I'm just not aware of yet?
Every alternative suggestion I've seen on the forums has been far too complicated for what needs to be done. Following those suggestions would also lead to losing the benefits of working with 1-bit bitmaps anyway, resulting in downsampled and lossily compressed images in PDFs. Adobe's software offers separate downsampling settings for color, grayscale, and bitmap images, Affinity squashes all and everything with equal measure. That makes Affinity apps simply unsuitable for some print workflows, despite all the fantastic features they have. 
I'm aware that proper 1-bit color support might be technically more challenging to implement than it sounds, as it comes with the requirement to treat different image files placed in the same document in a different manner. That would probably pose new challenges for drawing the images on the screen too. And the PDF engine is probably a big hurdle too, since it is a third-party solution (as far as I know), and not flexible enough?
 
It would be nice to hear the developers' view on bitmap support. What's the reasoning for leaving it off the roadmap? Is it going to be added later (together with better tools to work with spot colors, maybe), or has the decision been made that it's simply not going to be supported and old-fashioned geezers like me should look elsewhere? Affinity Publisher's release is going to attract even more people fed up with Adobe's pricing model looking for alternative software. The lack of bitmap support might be a decisive factor for many, more critical than the design tools themselves. Some software can't deal with CMYK. Affinity stumbles with 1-bit images.
 
(I probably sound like a broken record at this point, having written many posts about this subject already. Sorry about that.)

@Andy Somerfield  some more details regarding that statement would be great. Until now it's really hard if not impossible to understand why there shouldn't be 1Bit support in AF photo and AF publisher. I mean waiting for it would be ok. There are other priorities for sure.  But to dismiss it completely? Seriously?

And to further elaborate a bit, this is how I'd like 1-bit stuff to go in Publisher (as I'm sure others have noted also):
1) When placing a 1-bit image into the document, Publisher should render it correctly, making the white parts of the image transparent. 
2) It should be possible to colorize the bitmap image with any single (spot) color (doesn't make any sense to keep them just black, of course).
3) When exporting PDFs, it should be possible to control 1-bit resampling independently.
4) The user should be able to trust the exported pdf to have the correct color values for the bitmap, with no unexpected conversions.
I don't know if this would require just as big technical changes under the hood as full bitmap support in Photo. Probably it would.

Well, I'll unfortunately have to be honest here too: this drops the Affinity suite out of the professional league, at least for now. I wish this information had been public earlier, I would have looked elsewhere right away. But a missing feature is not exactly a selling point, so I can understand the silence.
 
I can't use these apps in my ordinary workflow in their current state, and learning now that they will never work is a pretty big bummer indeed. I have bought the entire suite, after all. Feels like buying a fantastic new sportscar that's more pretty and aerodynamic than the competition, with nice upholstery and all, only to learn that one of the wheels is missing and will not be added in a later update. Now I need to keep riding my old Lada CS5. It gets me wherever I need to go, eventually. Not without technical problems of its own, but it works. Adobe of course only offers pricey taxi services nowadays.
 
1-bit export would be a good compromise. However that is not enough by itself, you'd have to be able to export PDFs from Publisher without downsampling the 1-bit image to 300 dpi, since that quite simply negates the advantages of using 1-bit in the first place. One resolution setting for an entire DTP document doesn't really make sense in many scenarios. 300 ppi for CMYK images, 1200 for line drawings.
 
And since there's always somebody wondering why 1-bit would be a big deal (Who in their right minds would ever want files with no possible color shades?): 
1-bit is a technical requirement when using images (mostly line drawings, like in comic books or logos) in many specialized print jobs. It's also used in a lot of product packaging stuff that's not printed in CMYK but as one or two spot colors. 
Say you're designing a CD or DVD label (which is what I often do) and you want to print a one-color line drawing that is too detailed to vectorize, and you want it to be printed straight on the silver surface of the disc without a white base disc colo (which is what you usually find hidden underneath the prints of disc labels). You can't use CMYK colors, because that's three colors more than you need, so you pick one Pantone spot color to print with. Using a 1-bit image that has been well prepared from a high resolution original you can have the printed result appear just as crisp as a vector drawing would. The image can be 1200 ppi (say 15000 x 15000 pixels, or something) without any problems. The file sizes aren't that big either, because there's just one bit of data to save per pixel. This is old technology, for sure. But it will continue to be relevant as long as physical products are made by applying ink to paper with various different printing methods.
If I design a newspaper ad for a client, why would I be ok with having the client's crisp one-color line art logo turned into 200 dpi mush on cheap paper stock when it could appear as sharp as the text? If I now design a CD cover with Publisher or Designer and send it to the CD manufacturer, their printers will send the file back to me right away with a note saying "please fix anti-aliased barcode". They are very strict about this stuff. Same goes for one-color T-shirt designs – "That's a very nice looking mockup you have there, now please send us the high-resolution final version". If you only ever do CMYK stuff, you'll never even realize that an important piece of the DTP publisher's toolkit is missing. But even then 1-bit has its uses. Illustrators often use 1-bit patterns for texturing vector art, for example, since they can be used for that fake old-timey comic book dithering or distressing patterns, for example.
 
If you can't produce files that your printer can work with, you need to change software. This, of course, is only a problem to people like me who have to struggle to shell out the 700 euros or whatever it costs nowadays to get a year of Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign. It's not Affinity's or Adobe's fault that I'm just a poor freelancer, stuck with ancient pay-once-use-forever software. I'd much rather get paid for work than pay to work. It's important to note that Serif has no responsibility to cater to my personal needs, and I'm in no position to make demands. I just feel that the product is crippled in a fundamental way, which is frustrating, because Affinity gets so much else right.
Long rant, sorry about that. And like I've said before, Affinity apps are fantastic for their price, Serif is a top-notch software company, and that's before even considering what incredile feats the iPad versions of these apps are. I wish Serif the best of luck, things are looking very promising for the company now indeed. 
I just hope the sportscar gets that missing wheel at some point. Even a battered old spare fished out of somebody's trunk would do. It's a tow truck race for now.
 
Ps. The "Unrivalled compatibility" part of Affinity's sales pitch sounds quite hyperbolic for now, all things considered.

Well, I'll unfortunately have to be honest here too: this drops the Affinity suite out of the professional league, at least for now. I wish this information had been public earlier, I would have looked elsewhere right away. But a missing feature is not exactly a selling point, so I can understand the silence.
 
I can't use these apps in my ordinary workflow in their current state, and learning now that they will never work is a pretty big bummer indeed. I have bought the entire suite, after all. Feels like buying a fantastic new sportscar that's more pretty and aerodynamic than the competition, with nice upholstery and all, only to learn that one of the wheels is missing and will not be added in a later update. Now I need to keep riding my old Lada CS5. It gets me wherever I need to go, eventually. Not without technical problems of its own, but it works. Adobe of course only offers pricey taxi services nowadays.
 
1-bit export would be a good compromise. However that is not enough by itself, you'd have to be able to export PDFs from Publisher without downsampling the 1-bit image to 300 dpi, since that quite simply negates the advantages of using 1-bit in the first place. One resolution setting for an entire DTP document doesn't really make sense in many scenarios. 300 ppi for CMYK images, 1200 for line drawings.
 
And since there's always somebody wondering why 1-bit would be a big deal (Who in their right minds would ever want files with no possible color shades?): 
1-bit is a technical requirement when using images (mostly line drawings, like in comic books or logos) in many specialized print jobs. It's also used in a lot of product packaging stuff that's not printed in CMYK but as one or two spot colors. 
Say you're designing a CD or DVD label (which is what I often do) and you want to print a one-color line drawing that is too detailed to vectorize, and you want it to be printed straight on the silver surface of the disc without a white base disc colo (which is what you usually find hidden underneath the prints of disc labels). You can't use CMYK colors, because that's three colors more than you need, so you pick one Pantone spot color to print with. Using a 1-bit image that has been well prepared from a high resolution original you can have the printed result appear just as crisp as a vector drawing would. The image can be 1200 ppi (say 15000 x 15000 pixels, or something) without any problems. The file sizes aren't that big either, because there's just one bit of data to save per pixel. This is old technology, for sure. But it will continue to be relevant as long as physical products are made by applying ink to paper with various different printing methods.
If I design a newspaper ad for a client, why would I be ok with having the client's crisp one-color line art logo turned into 200 dpi mush on cheap paper stock when it could appear as sharp as the text? If I now design a CD cover with Publisher or Designer and send it to the CD manufacturer, their printers will send the file back to me right away with a note saying "please fix anti-aliased barcode". They are very strict about this stuff. Same goes for one-color T-shirt designs – "That's a very nice looking mockup you have there, now please send us the high-resolution final version". If you only ever do CMYK stuff, you'll never even realize that an important piece of the DTP publisher's toolkit is missing. But even then 1-bit has its uses. Illustrators often use 1-bit patterns for texturing vector art, for example, since they can be used for that fake old-timey comic book dithering or distressing patterns, for example.
 
If you can't produce files that your printer can work with, you need to change software. This, of course, is only a problem to people like me who have to struggle to shell out the 700 euros or whatever it costs nowadays to get a year of Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign. It's not Affinity's or Adobe's fault that I'm just a poor freelancer, stuck with ancient pay-once-use-forever software. I'd much rather get paid for work than pay to work. It's important to note that Serif has no responsibility to cater to my personal needs, and I'm in no position to make demands. I just feel that the product is crippled in a fundamental way, which is frustrating, because Affinity gets so much else right.
Long rant, sorry about that. And like I've said before, Affinity apps are fantastic for their price, Serif is a top-notch software company, and that's before even considering what incredile feats the iPad versions of these apps are. I wish Serif the best of luck, things are looking very promising for the company now indeed. 
I just hope the sportscar gets that missing wheel at some point. Even a battered old spare fished out of somebody's trunk would do. It's a tow truck race for now.
 
Ps. The "Unrivalled compatibility" part of Affinity's sales pitch sounds quite hyperbolic for now, all things considered.

Exporting files as 1-bit tiff files would do for me, I presume.
Part of my work is in the archaeological field. Drawings of finds are 99.9% drawn in ink on paper, scanned and eventually saved as 1-bit, 1200 ppi tiff.
In Photoshop work on these scans is done in greyscale mode as possibilities in bitmap mode are ever so limited. Then converted to 1-bit and saved. So working on files in APhoto in greyscale mode and exporting the finished image as 1-bit tiff would do for me, I presume.
 

And to further elaborate a bit, this is how I'd like 1-bit stuff to go in Publisher (as I'm sure others have noted also):
1) When placing a 1-bit image into the document, Publisher should render it correctly, making the white parts of the image transparent. 
2) It should be possible to colorize the bitmap image with any single (spot) color (doesn't make any sense to keep them just black, of course).
3) When exporting PDFs, it should be possible to control 1-bit resampling independently.
4) The user should be able to trust the exported pdf to have the correct color values for the bitmap, with no unexpected conversions.
I don't know if this would require just as big technical changes under the hood as full bitmap support in Photo. Probably it would.

And to further elaborate a bit, this is how I'd like 1-bit stuff to go in Publisher (as I'm sure others have noted also):
1) When placing a 1-bit image into the document, Publisher should render it correctly, making the white parts of the image transparent. 
2) It should be possible to colorize the bitmap image with any single (spot) color (doesn't make any sense to keep them just black, of course).
3) When exporting PDFs, it should be possible to control 1-bit resampling independently.
4) The user should be able to trust the exported pdf to have the correct color values for the bitmap, with no unexpected conversions.
I don't know if this would require just as big technical changes under the hood as full bitmap support in Photo. Probably it would.

This is presented elegantly in InDesign (I think other pro apps have it similarly). Default is that black is black and white is transparent. Selecting a fill colour colours white, removing transparency. Selecting a fill with content arrow colours black.

Well, I'll unfortunately have to be honest here too: this drops the Affinity suite out of the professional league, at least for now. I wish this information had been public earlier, I would have looked elsewhere right away. But a missing feature is not exactly a selling point, so I can understand the silence.
 
I can't use these apps in my ordinary workflow in their current state, and learning now that they will never work is a pretty big bummer indeed. I have bought the entire suite, after all. Feels like buying a fantastic new sportscar that's more pretty and aerodynamic than the competition, with nice upholstery and all, only to learn that one of the wheels is missing and will not be added in a later update. Now I need to keep riding my old Lada CS5. It gets me wherever I need to go, eventually. Not without technical problems of its own, but it works. Adobe of course only offers pricey taxi services nowadays.
 
1-bit export would be a good compromise. However that is not enough by itself, you'd have to be able to export PDFs from Publisher without downsampling the 1-bit image to 300 dpi, since that quite simply negates the advantages of using 1-bit in the first place. One resolution setting for an entire DTP document doesn't really make sense in many scenarios. 300 ppi for CMYK images, 1200 for line drawings.
 
And since there's always somebody wondering why 1-bit would be a big deal (Who in their right minds would ever want files with no possible color shades?): 
1-bit is a technical requirement when using images (mostly line drawings, like in comic books or logos) in many specialized print jobs. It's also used in a lot of product packaging stuff that's not printed in CMYK but as one or two spot colors. 
Say you're designing a CD or DVD label (which is what I often do) and you want to print a one-color line drawing that is too detailed to vectorize, and you want it to be printed straight on the silver surface of the disc without a white base disc colo (which is what you usually find hidden underneath the prints of disc labels). You can't use CMYK colors, because that's three colors more than you need, so you pick one Pantone spot color to print with. Using a 1-bit image that has been well prepared from a high resolution original you can have the printed result appear just as crisp as a vector drawing would. The image can be 1200 ppi (say 15000 x 15000 pixels, or something) without any problems. The file sizes aren't that big either, because there's just one bit of data to save per pixel. This is old technology, for sure. But it will continue to be relevant as long as physical products are made by applying ink to paper with various different printing methods.
If I design a newspaper ad for a client, why would I be ok with having the client's crisp one-color line art logo turned into 200 dpi mush on cheap paper stock when it could appear as sharp as the text? If I now design a CD cover with Publisher or Designer and send it to the CD manufacturer, their printers will send the file back to me right away with a note saying "please fix anti-aliased barcode". They are very strict about this stuff. Same goes for one-color T-shirt designs – "That's a very nice looking mockup you have there, now please send us the high-resolution final version". If you only ever do CMYK stuff, you'll never even realize that an important piece of the DTP publisher's toolkit is missing. But even then 1-bit has its uses. Illustrators often use 1-bit patterns for texturing vector art, for example, since they can be used for that fake old-timey comic book dithering or distressing patterns, for example.
 
If you can't produce files that your printer can work with, you need to change software. This, of course, is only a problem to people like me who have to struggle to shell out the 700 euros or whatever it costs nowadays to get a year of Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign. It's not Affinity's or Adobe's fault that I'm just a poor freelancer, stuck with ancient pay-once-use-forever software. I'd much rather get paid for work than pay to work. It's important to note that Serif has no responsibility to cater to my personal needs, and I'm in no position to make demands. I just feel that the product is crippled in a fundamental way, which is frustrating, because Affinity gets so much else right.
Long rant, sorry about that. And like I've said before, Affinity apps are fantastic for their price, Serif is a top-notch software company, and that's before even considering what incredile feats the iPad versions of these apps are. I wish Serif the best of luck, things are looking very promising for the company now indeed. 
I just hope the sportscar gets that missing wheel at some point. Even a battered old spare fished out of somebody's trunk would do. It's a tow truck race for now.
 
Ps. The "Unrivalled compatibility" part of Affinity's sales pitch sounds quite hyperbolic for now, all things considered.

Well, I'll unfortunately have to be honest here too: this drops the Affinity suite out of the professional league, at least for now. I wish this information had been public earlier, I would have looked elsewhere right away. But a missing feature is not exactly a selling point, so I can understand the silence.
 
I can't use these apps in my ordinary workflow in their current state, and learning now that they will never work is a pretty big bummer indeed. I have bought the entire suite, after all. Feels like buying a fantastic new sportscar that's more pretty and aerodynamic than the competition, with nice upholstery and all, only to learn that one of the wheels is missing and will not be added in a later update. Now I need to keep riding my old Lada CS5. It gets me wherever I need to go, eventually. Not without technical problems of its own, but it works. Adobe of course only offers pricey taxi services nowadays.
 
1-bit export would be a good compromise. However that is not enough by itself, you'd have to be able to export PDFs from Publisher without downsampling the 1-bit image to 300 dpi, since that quite simply negates the advantages of using 1-bit in the first place. One resolution setting for an entire DTP document doesn't really make sense in many scenarios. 300 ppi for CMYK images, 1200 for line drawings.
 
And since there's always somebody wondering why 1-bit would be a big deal (Who in their right minds would ever want files with no possible color shades?): 
1-bit is a technical requirement when using images (mostly line drawings, like in comic books or logos) in many specialized print jobs. It's also used in a lot of product packaging stuff that's not printed in CMYK but as one or two spot colors. 
Say you're designing a CD or DVD label (which is what I often do) and you want to print a one-color line drawing that is too detailed to vectorize, and you want it to be printed straight on the silver surface of the disc without a white base disc colo (which is what you usually find hidden underneath the prints of disc labels). You can't use CMYK colors, because that's three colors more than you need, so you pick one Pantone spot color to print with. Using a 1-bit image that has been well prepared from a high resolution original you can have the printed result appear just as crisp as a vector drawing would. The image can be 1200 ppi (say 15000 x 15000 pixels, or something) without any problems. The file sizes aren't that big either, because there's just one bit of data to save per pixel. This is old technology, for sure. But it will continue to be relevant as long as physical products are made by applying ink to paper with various different printing methods.
If I design a newspaper ad for a client, why would I be ok with having the client's crisp one-color line art logo turned into 200 dpi mush on cheap paper stock when it could appear as sharp as the text? If I now design a CD cover with Publisher or Designer and send it to the CD manufacturer, their printers will send the file back to me right away with a note saying "please fix anti-aliased barcode". They are very strict about this stuff. Same goes for one-color T-shirt designs – "That's a very nice looking mockup you have there, now please send us the high-resolution final version". If you only ever do CMYK stuff, you'll never even realize that an important piece of the DTP publisher's toolkit is missing. But even then 1-bit has its uses. Illustrators often use 1-bit patterns for texturing vector art, for example, since they can be used for that fake old-timey comic book dithering or distressing patterns, for example.
 
If you can't produce files that your printer can work with, you need to change software. This, of course, is only a problem to people like me who have to struggle to shell out the 700 euros or whatever it costs nowadays to get a year of Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign. It's not Affinity's or Adobe's fault that I'm just a poor freelancer, stuck with ancient pay-once-use-forever software. I'd much rather get paid for work than pay to work. It's important to note that Serif has no responsibility to cater to my personal needs, and I'm in no position to make demands. I just feel that the product is crippled in a fundamental way, which is frustrating, because Affinity gets so much else right.
Long rant, sorry about that. And like I've said before, Affinity apps are fantastic for their price, Serif is a top-notch software company, and that's before even considering what incredile feats the iPad versions of these apps are. I wish Serif the best of luck, things are looking very promising for the company now indeed. 
I just hope the sportscar gets that missing wheel at some point. Even a battered old spare fished out of somebody's trunk would do. It's a tow truck race for now.
 
Ps. The "Unrivalled compatibility" part of Affinity's sales pitch sounds quite hyperbolic for now, all things considered.

You would think that preserving the look and content of a PDF file would be the greatest priority for a DTP app... Treating all PDFs as editable files doesn't make any sense whatsoever, preserving the look of the original PDF should be Publisher's default behaviour.
I'm starting to feel that Publisher's beta stage ended a few months too soon. Support for embedded fonts is simply DTP core functionality, I don't really know who Publisher's target customer group is at this point?

You would think that preserving the look and content of a PDF file would be the greatest priority for a DTP app... Treating all PDFs as editable files doesn't make any sense whatsoever, preserving the look of the original PDF should be Publisher's default behaviour.
I'm starting to feel that Publisher's beta stage ended a few months too soon. Support for embedded fonts is simply DTP core functionality, I don't really know who Publisher's target customer group is at this point?

And to further elaborate a bit, this is how I'd like 1-bit stuff to go in Publisher (as I'm sure others have noted also):
1) When placing a 1-bit image into the document, Publisher should render it correctly, making the white parts of the image transparent. 
2) It should be possible to colorize the bitmap image with any single (spot) color (doesn't make any sense to keep them just black, of course).
3) When exporting PDFs, it should be possible to control 1-bit resampling independently.
4) The user should be able to trust the exported pdf to have the correct color values for the bitmap, with no unexpected conversions.
I don't know if this would require just as big technical changes under the hood as full bitmap support in Photo. Probably it would.

Well, I'll unfortunately have to be honest here too: this drops the Affinity suite out of the professional league, at least for now. I wish this information had been public earlier, I would have looked elsewhere right away. But a missing feature is not exactly a selling point, so I can understand the silence.
 
I can't use these apps in my ordinary workflow in their current state, and learning now that they will never work is a pretty big bummer indeed. I have bought the entire suite, after all. Feels like buying a fantastic new sportscar that's more pretty and aerodynamic than the competition, with nice upholstery and all, only to learn that one of the wheels is missing and will not be added in a later update. Now I need to keep riding my old Lada CS5. It gets me wherever I need to go, eventually. Not without technical problems of its own, but it works. Adobe of course only offers pricey taxi services nowadays.
 
1-bit export would be a good compromise. However that is not enough by itself, you'd have to be able to export PDFs from Publisher without downsampling the 1-bit image to 300 dpi, since that quite simply negates the advantages of using 1-bit in the first place. One resolution setting for an entire DTP document doesn't really make sense in many scenarios. 300 ppi for CMYK images, 1200 for line drawings.
 
And since there's always somebody wondering why 1-bit would be a big deal (Who in their right minds would ever want files with no possible color shades?): 
1-bit is a technical requirement when using images (mostly line drawings, like in comic books or logos) in many specialized print jobs. It's also used in a lot of product packaging stuff that's not printed in CMYK but as one or two spot colors. 
Say you're designing a CD or DVD label (which is what I often do) and you want to print a one-color line drawing that is too detailed to vectorize, and you want it to be printed straight on the silver surface of the disc without a white base disc colo (which is what you usually find hidden underneath the prints of disc labels). You can't use CMYK colors, because that's three colors more than you need, so you pick one Pantone spot color to print with. Using a 1-bit image that has been well prepared from a high resolution original you can have the printed result appear just as crisp as a vector drawing would. The image can be 1200 ppi (say 15000 x 15000 pixels, or something) without any problems. The file sizes aren't that big either, because there's just one bit of data to save per pixel. This is old technology, for sure. But it will continue to be relevant as long as physical products are made by applying ink to paper with various different printing methods.
If I design a newspaper ad for a client, why would I be ok with having the client's crisp one-color line art logo turned into 200 dpi mush on cheap paper stock when it could appear as sharp as the text? If I now design a CD cover with Publisher or Designer and send it to the CD manufacturer, their printers will send the file back to me right away with a note saying "please fix anti-aliased barcode". They are very strict about this stuff. Same goes for one-color T-shirt designs – "That's a very nice looking mockup you have there, now please send us the high-resolution final version". If you only ever do CMYK stuff, you'll never even realize that an important piece of the DTP publisher's toolkit is missing. But even then 1-bit has its uses. Illustrators often use 1-bit patterns for texturing vector art, for example, since they can be used for that fake old-timey comic book dithering or distressing patterns, for example.
 
If you can't produce files that your printer can work with, you need to change software. This, of course, is only a problem to people like me who have to struggle to shell out the 700 euros or whatever it costs nowadays to get a year of Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign. It's not Affinity's or Adobe's fault that I'm just a poor freelancer, stuck with ancient pay-once-use-forever software. I'd much rather get paid for work than pay to work. It's important to note that Serif has no responsibility to cater to my personal needs, and I'm in no position to make demands. I just feel that the product is crippled in a fundamental way, which is frustrating, because Affinity gets so much else right.
Long rant, sorry about that. And like I've said before, Affinity apps are fantastic for their price, Serif is a top-notch software company, and that's before even considering what incredile feats the iPad versions of these apps are. I wish Serif the best of luck, things are looking very promising for the company now indeed. 
I just hope the sportscar gets that missing wheel at some point. Even a battered old spare fished out of somebody's trunk would do. It's a tow truck race for now.
 
Ps. The "Unrivalled compatibility" part of Affinity's sales pitch sounds quite hyperbolic for now, all things considered.

Well, I'll unfortunately have to be honest here too: this drops the Affinity suite out of the professional league, at least for now. I wish this information had been public earlier, I would have looked elsewhere right away. But a missing feature is not exactly a selling point, so I can understand the silence.
 
I can't use these apps in my ordinary workflow in their current state, and learning now that they will never work is a pretty big bummer indeed. I have bought the entire suite, after all. Feels like buying a fantastic new sportscar that's more pretty and aerodynamic than the competition, with nice upholstery and all, only to learn that one of the wheels is missing and will not be added in a later update. Now I need to keep riding my old Lada CS5. It gets me wherever I need to go, eventually. Not without technical problems of its own, but it works. Adobe of course only offers pricey taxi services nowadays.
 
1-bit export would be a good compromise. However that is not enough by itself, you'd have to be able to export PDFs from Publisher without downsampling the 1-bit image to 300 dpi, since that quite simply negates the advantages of using 1-bit in the first place. One resolution setting for an entire DTP document doesn't really make sense in many scenarios. 300 ppi for CMYK images, 1200 for line drawings.
 
And since there's always somebody wondering why 1-bit would be a big deal (Who in their right minds would ever want files with no possible color shades?): 
1-bit is a technical requirement when using images (mostly line drawings, like in comic books or logos) in many specialized print jobs. It's also used in a lot of product packaging stuff that's not printed in CMYK but as one or two spot colors. 
Say you're designing a CD or DVD label (which is what I often do) and you want to print a one-color line drawing that is too detailed to vectorize, and you want it to be printed straight on the silver surface of the disc without a white base disc colo (which is what you usually find hidden underneath the prints of disc labels). You can't use CMYK colors, because that's three colors more than you need, so you pick one Pantone spot color to print with. Using a 1-bit image that has been well prepared from a high resolution original you can have the printed result appear just as crisp as a vector drawing would. The image can be 1200 ppi (say 15000 x 15000 pixels, or something) without any problems. The file sizes aren't that big either, because there's just one bit of data to save per pixel. This is old technology, for sure. But it will continue to be relevant as long as physical products are made by applying ink to paper with various different printing methods.
If I design a newspaper ad for a client, why would I be ok with having the client's crisp one-color line art logo turned into 200 dpi mush on cheap paper stock when it could appear as sharp as the text? If I now design a CD cover with Publisher or Designer and send it to the CD manufacturer, their printers will send the file back to me right away with a note saying "please fix anti-aliased barcode". They are very strict about this stuff. Same goes for one-color T-shirt designs – "That's a very nice looking mockup you have there, now please send us the high-resolution final version". If you only ever do CMYK stuff, you'll never even realize that an important piece of the DTP publisher's toolkit is missing. But even then 1-bit has its uses. Illustrators often use 1-bit patterns for texturing vector art, for example, since they can be used for that fake old-timey comic book dithering or distressing patterns, for example.
 
If you can't produce files that your printer can work with, you need to change software. This, of course, is only a problem to people like me who have to struggle to shell out the 700 euros or whatever it costs nowadays to get a year of Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign. It's not Affinity's or Adobe's fault that I'm just a poor freelancer, stuck with ancient pay-once-use-forever software. I'd much rather get paid for work than pay to work. It's important to note that Serif has no responsibility to cater to my personal needs, and I'm in no position to make demands. I just feel that the product is crippled in a fundamental way, which is frustrating, because Affinity gets so much else right.
Long rant, sorry about that. And like I've said before, Affinity apps are fantastic for their price, Serif is a top-notch software company, and that's before even considering what incredile feats the iPad versions of these apps are. I wish Serif the best of luck, things are looking very promising for the company now indeed. 
I just hope the sportscar gets that missing wheel at some point. Even a battered old spare fished out of somebody's trunk would do. It's a tow truck race for now.
 
Ps. The "Unrivalled compatibility" part of Affinity's sales pitch sounds quite hyperbolic for now, all things considered.

Well, I'll unfortunately have to be honest here too: this drops the Affinity suite out of the professional league, at least for now. I wish this information had been public earlier, I would have looked elsewhere right away. But a missing feature is not exactly a selling point, so I can understand the silence.
 
I can't use these apps in my ordinary workflow in their current state, and learning now that they will never work is a pretty big bummer indeed. I have bought the entire suite, after all. Feels like buying a fantastic new sportscar that's more pretty and aerodynamic than the competition, with nice upholstery and all, only to learn that one of the wheels is missing and will not be added in a later update. Now I need to keep riding my old Lada CS5. It gets me wherever I need to go, eventually. Not without technical problems of its own, but it works. Adobe of course only offers pricey taxi services nowadays.
 
1-bit export would be a good compromise. However that is not enough by itself, you'd have to be able to export PDFs from Publisher without downsampling the 1-bit image to 300 dpi, since that quite simply negates the advantages of using 1-bit in the first place. One resolution setting for an entire DTP document doesn't really make sense in many scenarios. 300 ppi for CMYK images, 1200 for line drawings.
 
And since there's always somebody wondering why 1-bit would be a big deal (Who in their right minds would ever want files with no possible color shades?): 
1-bit is a technical requirement when using images (mostly line drawings, like in comic books or logos) in many specialized print jobs. It's also used in a lot of product packaging stuff that's not printed in CMYK but as one or two spot colors. 
Say you're designing a CD or DVD label (which is what I often do) and you want to print a one-color line drawing that is too detailed to vectorize, and you want it to be printed straight on the silver surface of the disc without a white base disc colo (which is what you usually find hidden underneath the prints of disc labels). You can't use CMYK colors, because that's three colors more than you need, so you pick one Pantone spot color to print with. Using a 1-bit image that has been well prepared from a high resolution original you can have the printed result appear just as crisp as a vector drawing would. The image can be 1200 ppi (say 15000 x 15000 pixels, or something) without any problems. The file sizes aren't that big either, because there's just one bit of data to save per pixel. This is old technology, for sure. But it will continue to be relevant as long as physical products are made by applying ink to paper with various different printing methods.
If I design a newspaper ad for a client, why would I be ok with having the client's crisp one-color line art logo turned into 200 dpi mush on cheap paper stock when it could appear as sharp as the text? If I now design a CD cover with Publisher or Designer and send it to the CD manufacturer, their printers will send the file back to me right away with a note saying "please fix anti-aliased barcode". They are very strict about this stuff. Same goes for one-color T-shirt designs – "That's a very nice looking mockup you have there, now please send us the high-resolution final version". If you only ever do CMYK stuff, you'll never even realize that an important piece of the DTP publisher's toolkit is missing. But even then 1-bit has its uses. Illustrators often use 1-bit patterns for texturing vector art, for example, since they can be used for that fake old-timey comic book dithering or distressing patterns, for example.
 
If you can't produce files that your printer can work with, you need to change software. This, of course, is only a problem to people like me who have to struggle to shell out the 700 euros or whatever it costs nowadays to get a year of Photoshop + Illustrator + InDesign. It's not Affinity's or Adobe's fault that I'm just a poor freelancer, stuck with ancient pay-once-use-forever software. I'd much rather get paid for work than pay to work. It's important to note that Serif has no responsibility to cater to my personal needs, and I'm in no position to make demands. I just feel that the product is crippled in a fundamental way, which is frustrating, because Affinity gets so much else right.
Long rant, sorry about that. And like I've said before, Affinity apps are fantastic for their price, Serif is a top-notch software company, and that's before even considering what incredile feats the iPad versions of these apps are. I wish Serif the best of luck, things are looking very promising for the company now indeed. 
I just hope the sportscar gets that missing wheel at some point. Even a battered old spare fished out of somebody's trunk would do. It's a tow truck race for now.
 
Ps. The "Unrivalled compatibility" part of Affinity's sales pitch sounds quite hyperbolic for now, all things considered.

This is a very large bummer. I need a bitmap mode with editing because I need to regularly touch up 20000 — 14000px size 1-bit 1200dpi line art files. Mostly it is just taking off a scrap that was in the original, and using an external software for that takes a lot away from Affinity's great concept of having everything instantly on hand in one screen.
I think opening a 1-bit .tiff received from the scanner, converting it into a grayscale document and editing it, for example, with a soft eraser, will give too many chances for weird things to happen on export (even if 1-bit export is possible). However, the above-mentioned colour enforcing layer limitation with 1-bit tiff export could work, if the .tiff's file size stays in the same class as in import (this is important, hundreds of pages stack up a lot of space if the size multiplies).
I think if this is documented well, and the output is reasonable, I think at least the comic-making workflow wouldn't suffer too much, even if this "cheats" a bit. Hopefully it will not break anything. The fact that Publisher retains 1-bit .tiff files is a small silver lining, I can at least lay out my pages with it.

I'll be honest here - we will never implement 1bit document support..
However, we would be happy to implement support for *exporting* 1bit TIFF etc. - would that be enough?
Thanks,
A

Preflight persona will be essential for professional high-end work

You would think that preserving the look and content of a PDF file would be the greatest priority for a DTP app... Treating all PDFs as editable files doesn't make any sense whatsoever, preserving the look of the original PDF should be Publisher's default behaviour.
I'm starting to feel that Publisher's beta stage ended a few months too soon. Support for embedded fonts is simply DTP core functionality, I don't really know who Publisher's target customer group is at this point?

Pass-through will be coming as Serif has stated. As will be the option to convert text runs to curves in imported pdfs.
They are using the same maker's library (PDFLib) that they used for the Plus line of software.