4dimage

This applies to all bitmap export formats e.g. tiff, jpeg, webp, ... This applies to the standard "export" dialogs and the slice export in Designer too. EDIT: I'm currently facing a similar problem again with the layout of a very large advertising sign that has to be made from several individual parts. The incorrect behavior in the bleed area has been a known problem for years now. As users, we don't have time for constant workarounds that waste our time 😔 Use case To create final print data for a huge banner i need to export parts of my layout as a flatened bitmap with very high resolution. This is like manual transparency reduction. My target format is TIFF, cmyk, 1500dpi, ISOCoatedv2 (ECI). My bleed is 1 mm on all sides. The content exceeds the document format into the bleed areas. 1) If i export the whole document (current page), i can check the option "include bleed" and the bleed is rendered/exported like expected. 2) But if i choose the option "selected area" or "selected" the option "include bleed" is disabled and the bleed is rendered as a white outline. I don't know why the export was programmed like this. It is definitely not useful and the results are wrong! It often happens that when creating the final print data, parts of a layout have to be treated separately. In my case, for example, I have several very large banners (670 x 473 cm) that I can only create at a scale of 1:10. Otherwise, errors would occur in the final PDF/X-3 due to numerical values exceeding the range. In addition, Publisher also constantly crashes when trying to create such large PDFs. Another topic: Affinity export dialogs and large files -> Preview -> the certain program crash... In order to be able to render the layout at a scale of 1:10 as a PDF, in my case the bitmaps already have to be present in the layout with 1500 dpi, cmyk and the correct color profile, so that the resampling of the bitmaps can be completely switched off when exporting to PDF/X-3. The final PDF then contains exactly the bitmap data that was previously exported from the layout in a flattened format and then reimported. The alternative to this complicated process might be, to rasterize parts of the layout in Publisher itself and embed the whole "sh.." and get a 1 GB Publisher document. Don't try this at home... 😞 Another case was, for example, that I had to export part of a poster as a JPEG - WITH bleed - in order to be able to then integrate the bitmap as a background in Blender 3D and render it enriched with 3D objects. Here, too, the bleed was required in order to be able to process it correctly in the other program and then import it back into Publisher. Long story short In my opinion, when exporting "only selection" or "range of selection", EVERYTHING within the bounding box of the current selection (slice) should be exported. Regardless of whether and how far the selected elements lie outside the document boundaries. This opens up all the possibilities of treating parts of a layout separately. And that is part of prepress. Unfortunately, there is still room for improvement in this area in all three Affinity applications 😐 In Designer, the error also occurs when trying to export a slice that extends beyond the document boundary. Even if the "Include bleed areas" option is active, the bleed area is not rendered into the bitmap 😞 This slice is rendered with a white outline (thickness depending on bleed settings in document properties) instead of including all content within the bleed areas.

This is still not completely fixed in v2.5.3 I need to export parts of my Publisher layout as a bitmap to use it as background image in blender 3d. There i want to model some 3d objects and render the whole illustration INCLUDING the needed bleed in the same aspect ratio as the original Publisher layout. Then i finally want to import the rendering back into Publisher and everything would be in place. This was the plan. Since the background image (sky) covers only parts of the document, i want to choose "selection only" or "area of selection", to export only the distinct area. But if i do so, the option "including bleed" is deactivated in the export dialog. Furthermore the areas outside the document boundaries (bleed) are still rendered as a white frame. So i have to export the whole document including bleed, open the bitmap, cut the unwanted area away, re export it... All these workarounds are unnecessary waste of time 🙄 In my opinion, this behaviour is not correct, as the "Selection only" option(s) would always have to export the complete bounding box of all currently selected elements. Regardless of whether they are outside the document boundaries. When preparing documents for print, it is often necessary to treat individual elements separately. I recently had an example during prepress for a huge facade banner (670 x 470 cm). I had to create the layout at a scale of 1:10 (1500dpi) and export the entire background illustration as a bitmap with 1500dpi in order to import it again later as a ready compressed CMYK jpg image. This made it possible to avoid a further conversion during the final export to PDF/X-3. And in this case, I also needed the entire illustration including bleed!

How to add new file type associations for Affinity Apps in Adobe Bridge 2024. IMPORTANT: the method suggested here will probably only work if the Affinity applications were installed under Windows via the MSI/EXE installers! PROBLEM The basic problem with Bridge is that, depending on the order in which Affinity Apps are installed under Windows, the wrong file associations are started when you double-click on a thumbnail in Bridge. This also applies to context menu "Open with..." Basically, Adobe Bridge 2024 only shows general graphic types in the Preferences -> File type associations dialog that can also typically be processed by Adobe Apps. And of course the own file types (.ps, .ai, .pdf,...). In my case, I had installed the Affinity v2 beta apps as the last programs and Bridge then always opened an .afphoto file with the beta version instead of the current 2.5.3. The way to change this suggested by Adobe in the help and in the forums is to find the correct .exe on the thumbnail via Context menu -> Open with -> Browse... and then open the file with it. However, Bridge does not remember this permanently, so the next time you double-click on an .afphoto file, the beta version will be started again. A permanent change to the file type association in Bridge would be required via the context menu -> Open with -> Change associations... You get to the Bridge program preferences and see a list with lots of file extensions. Unfortunately, the Affinity file types are not listed there, so you cannot make a permanent reassignment here. And of course Adobe has not built in a function to add foreign file types to this list. Typical Adobe... SOLUTION There is a way to add the three Affinity file types to this list manually. All you need is a little experience with code editors and, if necessary, administrative rights when saving the Bridge configuration file. I tested this with actual Windows 11 (2024) but it might also work with Windows 10? A) Add new entries to the Bridge Konfiguration 1) To be on the safe side, close Adobe Bridge and restart Windows completely. 2) Use Windows Explorer to search for the Bridge configuration file for its file type associations in the system. This is an XML file and there are two of them in the system. We edit the file that contains settings for us as Windows users. This is typically located under: C:\Users\[your_user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Bridge 2024\AdobeBridgeOpenerPreferences.xml 3) First make a backup copy of the AdobeBridgeOpenerPreferences.xml file!!! 4) Open the AdobeBridgeOpenerPreferences.xml file with a code editor. You can use the free programs Notepad++ or VSCode, for example. You can even use the Windows notepad.exe program. It is IMPORTANT that the XML document is retained in its character encoding when you save it later. I use Notepad++ here. If you are familiar with XML files, you will quickly find your way around, as the code is human-readable. 5) Go to the end of the XML-code in the SECOND TO LAST line and insert a line break and a few blank lines. 6) These three file type entries are now added here: <item description="Affinity Designer" extensions="afdesign" app_name="Affinity Designer"></item> <item description="Affinity Publisher" extensions="afpub" app_name="Affinity Publisher"></item> <item description="Affinity Photo" extensions="afphoto" app_name="Affinity Photo"></item> It is important to copy and paste the code EXACTLY as it is shown here, as XML has a very strict syntax. The XML-Code in Notepad++ should now look similar to this: 7) Save the file and close Notepad++ 8 ) Start Adobe Bridge. A look in the program preferences (Edit -> Preferences -> File Type Associations) now shows our three new Affinity entries at the bottom of the list. You can also filter for the keyword "af" in the search box at the top. As you can see, the three entries in the selection box on the right do not yet have a file association ("None") B) Assign Affinity file types to the correct applications 9) To assign the desired application to a file type, select "Browse..." from the dropdown selection box. A dialog will open with which you can search for the corresponding executable Affinity program file in your system. As already mentioned, this method will only work this way when the Affinity apps where installed via the MSI/EXE installers. Then you will find all Affinity apps in this Windows System directory: C:\Program Files\Affinity\ For example the Affinity Photo app is located under: C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo 2\Photo.exe Select the Photo.exe and confirm the dialog with "Open". The Bridge file association now shows the new application for the file extension ".afphoto". 10) Perform these step for the Publisher and Designer as well. We have now configured the correct association for the file extension in Bridge for all three Affinity applications. C) THAT'S IT If you now doubleclick on a thumbnail in Bridge list, the correspondingly configured Affinty application will be started. You can also see this if you right click on the "Open with" context menu on a thumbnail. The correspondingly configured application is at the top of the list. It should also be noted that these manual changes to the Bridge settings file could be lost during an Adobe program update - so it is best to save a copy of the modified AdobeBridgeOpenerPreferences.xml somewhere outside the Adobe program hierarchy as a backup copy. Hope that helps 🙂

Good idea, but tell that to my boss when he asks me for a design for a newspaper ad shortly before the editorial deadline

I guess all dialogs should be resizeable (fixed min size) to meet these localization problems. If so, please remember the last used size | split points and do not fall back to the same layout errors after each app restarts. I am "happy" every time I open the palette for "Fields" and all the labels on the left are cut off again

Hi, support for variable fonts ist great 🙂 Since then I almost always use variable fonts when available for a font (i love Roboto flex). In practice, however, it is annoying that when writing/editing text, there is no constant indication of how the most important text parameters are set on the text cursor. For me, this is usually weight and width. I often use combinations of light/bold or different widths in a text block. To find out which settings are actually currently active on the text cursor or text block, you constantly have to open the variable fonts dropdown panel in the character palette or from the context command line. That's dozens of clicks per hour just to open the dropdown. It would be a huge time saver if we had a separate floating palette for the variable font parameters that you could always see open, like the character or typography palette. This is not only clearer, but would also speed up the input when fine-tuning the text layout. Much fewer clicks.

The third button on the right hand is cut off. Maybe "Neu berechnen" ? This also applies to 2.5.5.2613 beta.

Hi Dan, thanks a lot! Switching off the clipboard history in the Windows settings solved the problem 🙂 Hope the devs can fix the underlying issue.

@Dan C Thanks for your feedback. I don't know what the Windows Clipboard History is. I work on Windows 11 for just a few month and didn't setup anything regarding clipboard on purpose 😐 May you please tell me where to find these Windows 11 settings to disable Clipboard History to test this. Or is this the right parameter: Thanks 🙂

This seems to be a Windows 11 specific problem (.NET version) ? Here is a simplified document (300 x 200 cm) with only one rectangle in it. test-300x200cm_1-1.afpub A) On my actual Windows 11 Pro workstation (see specs in signature): if i copy|cut this by CTRL+C|X or via contextmenu commands, Publisher allways crashes immediately. Here is a crash report for the copy operation on the test file: aa8622ae-1c26-4847-b71f-5b5da800fc44.dmp B) If i do this with Publisher 2.5.3 on an older Notebook with Windows 10 everything works fine.

Hi, i have a large poster 300 x 200 cm (CMYK, 300 dpi, document units Zentimeter, bleed 2 cm). The design has several huge rectangular shapes (simple base shapes - not bitmaps) that cover the whole document. If i try to copy one of these base rect this size, Publisher crashes immediately in 100% cases. I turned OpenCL of, same behaviour. Same with "copy elements as SVG" on or off. STRANGE: If i first shrink the reactangle, e.g. to half size 150 x 100 cm and then copy it CTRL + C everything works as expected. If i then resize the same rect to it's orignal size 304 x 204 cm and then copy to clipboard the app crashes again. This is 100% reproducable. Here is the latest crash report: dc433add-318b-4d6b-80bb-2bcff8525c8a.dmp I guess my machine has sufficient resources to handle such rather simple actions 😐

I can replicate the error with muiréns provided test file in 100% tests. Select the 4. rectangle an hit CTRL + C. Designer 2.5.2 instantly crashes. 70aff2a1-64de-49b5-9da5-c30c543937e9.dmp

@Dan C Problem solved in retail 2.5.2 😁 There is no more freezing when zooming in/out fast with CTRL + mousewheel. No matter if OpenCL on or of. This applies to all three apps. Thanks 👍

I was too quick to celebrate 😞 Publisher now almost always freezes when zooming in, even though I have deactivated OpenCL. Especially when I zoom in on the images/logos in the upper part of the layout with CTRL + mouse wheel. This layout is really not that complex! The beta 2.5.2.2486 still doesn't seem to show this error. Even with OpenCL active. You can't work like that! Please bring the fixes from the last beta quickly as a regular release. I don't like starting to do my regular daily work with beta versions 😐

Hi, i can't reproduce this exactly on Windows 11. I use the MSIX version. Publisher does NOT crash but the preview shows a "correct" error message (not freezing). The final export generates the PDF file and opens it in Acrobat. publisher-2.5.0-empty-4000x4000mm-test_1-1.afpubpublisher-2.5.0-empty-4000x4000mm-test_1-1.pdf