LostInTranslation

Dear Developers, the more I work with Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher, the more I like them. There is a bit of a learning curve coming from other programs, but it seems worth the effort. However, I am not completely happy with two things in particular. Those are the main reasons why I don't use AD exclusively by now. Before I bought Affinity Designer, I was working with Xara Designer for many years. Recently, I made myself use AD more, but when I need something done fast and intuitively, I still go back to Xara. And here is why: a) Vector drawing I do a lot of Vector drawing for logodesign and illustration. While AD has some superior tools - just the corner rounding tool alone is worth the purchase - it lacks basic usability compared to Xara, at least for me. Affinity Designer: Lay out nodes: Pen tool Bend curves: Switch to Node tool More nodes: Switch back to Pen tool Adjust curves: Switch to Node tool Reposition node: Switch back to Pen tool Xara Designer: Lay out nodes: Shape tool Bend curves: Still Shape tool More nodes: Still Shape tool Adjust curves: Still Shape tool Reposition node: Still Shape tool This makes working way faster and I really don't see why AD would need two tools for that. b) Applying Colors Honestly, I hate the way applying colors works in AD. Fiddling around switching fill- and line colors to apply them just does not work for me. In Xara left-clicking on a swatch changes fill color, right-clicking on a swatch changes line color. I can recolor multiple objects with different colors in a matter of seconds this way. AD feels way more complicated and tiresome. This is my subjective view and of course I am biased from using other software for so long. But I feel adopting those things would benefit AD greatly. If only as alternative options, so people who like the current way would not be affected. Please think about it, Cheers

Hi, I made a catalogue in Publisher. The print company needs a PDF with all text converted to paths (no embedded fonts). I swear I saw this option before in Publisher, but I just can't find it anymore. HELP me if you can, thanks! EDIT: I found it! Silly me, I did not see that you can scroll down the options.

I tried that already. It gives me the same bleed all around as when I uncheck "Facing pages". But you are right, it *should* work like that.

Using other software to split pages is couterproductive and not what I want to do. Flyeralarm is a major player in Austria, Germany and possibly other countries too. Eventually more people will have the same problem and it must be possible to do this in Publisher alone. On export I can chose between "Pages" and "Spreads". With facing pages exporting "Pages" instead of spreads should not give bleed in the fold.

I need help regarding a catalogue I am making. The printers my client uses need the PDF in the following way: - Single pages (!!) - 3mm bleed on the outsides - NO bleed where the pages join (in the fold) Publisher gives me only two options: - General bleed which is used for every page - Facing pages with no bleed in the fold, but it also exports as double-pages I really hope I am missing something here. I need: 1) Either different bleed settings for even/odd pages OR 2) Layout as facing pages, but export as single pages with NO bleed in the fold. Affinity Publisher /Windows I hope I made myself clear enough, English is not my first language. Please help! Note: No, it is not possible to use another printing company. This is a diagram of how it needs to be:

I have multiple of those drawings in one Designer-document, but I need them individually in different places in Publisher, so going over PDF seemed the most convenient way. I worked around it by unchecking Standard Ligatures. Just wanted to report what is most likely a bug. Can't post the complete file here, since it is the intellectual property of my client, but the detail I posted explains it well. When I just open the PDF it still looks good, only after importing the "ti" is gone.

I am working on a technical catalogue. There are a couple of technical drawings that I had to refine in Designer. From there I exported each one of them as PDF and then imported them into Publisher. To my surprise, the text was all scrambled up in Publisher. I investigated and found that I had "Standard Ligatures" on in Designer. If I turn them off, the import into Publisher works. But it should also work with Ligatures on, shouldn't it? See here:

Please bring back gutters! Why can't we have them?

Sorry, but this does absolutely nothing for the problem I described.

Hi, from before using Affinity, I am used to having my spread origin (0/0) in the bottom left with positive values going up and right. Designer has it's origin on the top left with positive values going down and right. I'd really like to change that to the way I am used to. I know that recently it is possible to grab the intersection of the rulers and drag them down to the bottom. But the y-axis then gets negative values when going up. Is there a way to really (and preferably permanently) changing the origin to bottom left? Explanation: If I have two objects with different heights and give them the same y-value, they should be on the same baseline. I know I could do this with alignments and stuff, but I'd prefer it this way. Cheers!

I am using Xara since 1997, back then called Art Studio / Xara Studio, up to the latest version of Designer X Pro. And I disagree with you. Designer has good, but very dated vector tools, subpar bitmap editing which is absolutely no match for Photo and none of the page layout tools of Publisher. Yes, I was using Designer Pro for layouting, even multipage catalogues, and it can be done. But Publisher has so much more functionality and possibilities for layouting. And all that for less than 50 bucks, since I was a beta tester.

I just tried again, but somehow Displacement does not give me very good results. Either the effect is almost unnoticeable, or I increase the slider and it sort of "breaks". However, while experimenting I found a method that works for me: 1) Do the displacement anyway 2) Set blend mode of texture to Overlay. this gives a very light and bland image. 3) Adjust levels and saturation until the result is pleasing. See example:

Hmm, interesting. I had tried exactly this already. But it looked very different from your screenshot, only a minor change from the original image. Maybe I missed something, will try again, thanks!

Here is the same thing with layers and the texture masked. comp.afphoto

Hi, I need a general pointer how to do this in Affinity Photo please. I have a rendering like the one below (metal_sheet), one each for every available color. Up until recently, there were only plain colors. Now there are two new "colors" which are wood textures. Sadly, the person who made the renderings is not available any more and I have to "simulate" it myself. I tried different blendmodes with either the texture or the rendering on top, but nothing is working really well. It needs to keep the same appearance (grooves and everything), but also the color should be as truthful as possible. Any ideas how to achieve this? Thanks!