Beniamino

Hi, is there any news about this bug? I have the same issue on lots of files. Downgraded to 2.5.7, but I am in trouble because I have to use 2.6 and 2.5.7 at the same time, and it's not easy... Thank you, ben

I’ve noticed the exact same issue. Essentially, when I open complex files created with version 2.5.7 in version 2.6, they become corrupted. Specifically, I had a master file and several queries that displayed the file in different states: the master file works fine in 2.6, but in the pages, when switching queries, entire sections of the master file are missing—they’ve disappeared. However, if I reopen the file in version 2.5.7, everything is fine. So, if I save the file with version 2.6, I’m in trouble—it gets irreparably broken. This is a huge, enormous problem. This is way too risky, even though I understand that new versions can have bugs. If we’re expected to do beta testing, please state it explicitly!

Hi, about the lag issues of Affinity Publisher, I've got lots of files on my Mac (on Win is the same) that can recreate the lag (on each system: 16 or 32Bg of Ram, 100 or 250Bg of free space on the SSD, each kind of GPU and CPU and OS). I think the problem is related to the heavy use of Data Merge. In one project, I've about 70 Excel files linked. And both on V1 and on V2, if I start the automatic update of all the linked files, the app will crash. I have to do that individually, by hand, waiting 30 to 60 seconds for each. It's a mess and a big loss of time. On another project, I have about 70 different pages imported from an external .afpub file. Both projects will start eating CPU time and SSD space only if I leave them open in Affinity Publisher. And if I try to work on them, the app start to lag in 10 minutes. So that I have to quit and lunch the app again. This happens both in V1 and in V2.

I don't know. I remember very well the times when InDesign was full of bugs and you had to learn how to work around them one by one. Those were different times, but the problem is more or less what I find myself facing again today with Affinity. I still have hope that the path will be the same, that is, it will take time to fix such professional software. So Affinity still has my trust (I bought three V2 licenses that I don't use, precisely for this reason, to give trust and subsidize further programming efforts). After struggling a lot to move away from Adobe and move a huge workflow to another suite, it would be a kind of failure for me to have to go back. And even the issue of money, at least in Italy, has its value, especially today. 25 years ago it made sense for 3 software products for 2D raster and vector drawing to cost 1500/2000 EUR (USD). I don't remember the price, at the time there was no EUR yet, but I think it was more or less that. Today absolutely not: such a figure no longer makes sense. Adobe has therefore moved to another system (which, however, as I said, has the disadvantage of not keeping the company on its toes: if there is no more competition and if you don't even have to create appealing updates to collect payments, because the customer pays only to be able to open his files, it is difficult to have the desire and the need to innovate). But apart from this, going back to the question of price, paying for 4 Adobe subscriptions or buying 4 Affinity licenses, within 10 years, makes a big difference. I am not willing to spend that kind of money on software of that type. I am sure that my company can invest that small capital in a more constructive and profitable way. Today we do 3D and composting in Blender (which we happily support with donations). We do video editing in DaVinci Resolve. We do 2D graphics with the Affinity suite. Let's hope they can evolve in a direction that is also appealing to professionals! Thank you, Ben

@KalThank you for your input. I also went to read the post you mentioned... it's a shame when people misunderstand the meaning of words. Often they don't read carefully and run the risk of not understanding. The concepts you expressed are very clear and absolutely agreeable. And it's also interesting how Affinity uses the term "professional"... I hadn't checked their homepage before writing. You're absolutely right, they are the ones creating the misunderstanding in the first place. In any case, yes, I have learned to work around all the obstacles I have encountered on my path (I define myself as a "professional" without hesitation), since in my studio, we work for companies of a certain importance and produce all kinds of graphic creations. It's frustrating to waste time working around bugs and unresolved situations. But, as you also say, the price factor makes the difference. I also don't accept Adobe's policy first. Before being a money problem, it was a concept problem: if I pay for the software every month just to be able to open my files, it will be difficult for the software company to have the drive to continue to innovate and update its product. And in fact, Affinity has made great strides compared to where Adobe. There are features in Affinity that I've been waiting for for 20 years on CC. And now, even Adobe seems to have understood that perhaps it's necessary to start programming new things, not just buying other programs and rebranding them with their own name. See you soon and thanks!

@LondonSquirrel I think they are both correct but I think that my poor English and the automatic translation have twisted the meaning. You seem to contradict yourself: There I'm saying that if you are not a graphic designer, you can achieve a bad result in printing using Indesign. And this is because what you see on screen is not what you're going to print. This is not just my opinion, it is a fact that concerns desktop publishing programs and offset printing in general. So I am not sure which is correct. Here I was talking about bugs and the big amount of bugs present in the Affinity suite, today, compared to the less bug of the Adobe Suite. I wanted to say that Adobe now as fewer bugs (even if it had important bugs when Indesign was younger).

@debraspicher Thank you for your contribution and for calling out Ash (I didn't know him, and it would be really nice if he could somehow give us more precise information than our assumptions). From my experience, I can guarantee that the printing problems with the Affinity Suite remind me a lot of those encountered with the early versions of Indesign, in the late 90s when the market leader was Quark Xpress and Adobe was trying to take its place with InDesign (successfully). In fact, even today, the Adobe Suite, if you are not technically skilled in printing, can lead to undesired effects and poor results. Unfortunately, Affinity has a few more problems. As I wrote in my post, it doesn't allow for any direct control (or the possibility to verify) of what will happen in print. And this, for applications like Publisher, becomes unacceptable. I have learned to work around all the bugs and problems I have encountered (although sometimes I still come across new problems I've never seen before). But the time lost in constantly searching for the right way to avoid bugs is sometimes really too much, especially for a professional studio, where time is money. With Adobe, this hasn't been a problem for a long time.

Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, today, after the enthusiasm of a few years ago, I feel discouraged. Like you, I have no idea if they are aware of the current technical limitations of the suite. In fact, if they target an audience other than professionals, then they do not risk stepping on Adobe's toes, which could prove fatal. I still believe in it and do not go back on my steps, after two years since I abandoned Adobe. However, even with them, you find yourself in a situation where the files you produce are not under your direct control, the moment you stop paying your monthly fee. We'll see if in the near future, Affinity will still be able to amaze professionals. I put a lot of hope into it!

@Stanley Hi, I wouldn't describe the Affinity Suite in such negative terms. In some ways, it's fantastic. Maybe I was a bit harsh in what I wrote in my post. For me, the problem is that after making giant strides initially to create an innovative Suite, they seem to have stopped just 100 meters before the finish line, when there was only the final effort left to create a top-level product. I know that the issues I listed are at the core of the Suite, so they are not easy things to address. However, I would love to be reassured in some way that the Suite will evolve in the direction of solving these problems. The arrival of V2 was disappointing in this regard because what it brought had nothing to do with the problems that, from my humble point of view, needed to be solved to give professional dignity to the entire Suite.

@Knorzel52 Thank you for your message and for sharing your case. I'm not entirely certain about the issue you are facing. However, I may have been able to resolve it with the attached PDF. Unfortunately, there is a significant problem with the Affinity Suite, as it is incapable of previewing overprints on the screen. Consequently, this PDF appears fine when viewed with software like Acrobat, but it is not okay when opened in Affinity. Nonetheless, I assigned overprint to the Blue Spot Color instead of using its level in multiply and then exported the PDF in X3 standard (it may also work in X4, but I haven't tried). This is because if you use multiply with a spot color, it generates a fake CMYK+Spot color ink value on the four separation colors. Please, check the attached file. I apologize for my poor English, and I hope I have managed to address your issue. Test_Briefschaft_01-03-233.pdf

Hi, I am an advertising graphic designer with 25 years of experience. I have been using the Affinity Suite for 3 years (starting with Photo and Designer and then adding Publisher as soon as it was in beta). In Italy, I have created a course dedicated to Affinity Publisher and numerous Live sessions to help other users understand the differences between Adobe and Affinity workflows. I have helped some graphic studios to make the transition. Unfortunately, I have repeatedly highlighted the significant technical limitations present in both the V1 and V2 Suites, which, from my point of view as a Senior professional, are extremely frustrating and cause significant workflow time losses for graphic agencies. This text will be a bit longer, unfortunately, but I hope effective and understandable. These are essentially the points you will find below, primarily related to Affinity Publisher: • PDF export is not currently reliable. Depending on the values entered, there is a risk of obtaining terrible unintended effects without realizing it. This includes text rasterizations (which automatically transform a Black K-100 into a Rich Black in part of a text), knockout black instead of overprints, and unwanted effects when certain types of FX are applied at the layer. Not to mention what happens if I work with a text with an FX shadow on a Pantone color (the Pantone becomes a CMYK where the shadow is present, instead of remaining a Pantone and accepting the shadow in overprint). • Color management is terrible. If I assign Fogra39 to a file and then I have to print it at a printing company that uses a different color profile when I load the new color profile, all the colors in the file will have to be reassigned because they will completely lose their real composition (the K100 black will become a rich black again and so on, as if the entire color flow passes through RGB and then returns to CMYK). • There is no internal control system in the Suite that allows the user to understand in advance when these problems occur. Nor is there a tool to understand it after creating the PDF. An Export Persona is necessary for Affinity Publisher that gives the possibility to see exactly what happens in Color Separation when a certain combination of values is chosen from the PDF export menu. • Swatches management is too slow. On the palette, I have to build my Global Colors, otherwise, I won't be able to modify them intelligently later on. But what happens when I copy an object from one document and bring it to another document? Its color palette is not added to the existing palette (each color has to be manually added one by one), and this creates a considerable loss of time. • Why is there no way to transform a Global Color to which I have given the Spot value into a normal four-color process? It doesn't make sense. Often, in the workflow, the same color is changed several times, from Spot to Non-Spot, and only in the end is it decided what to do based on the printing. Here you cannot. The color must be remade and reassigned to each object. • Why is there no way to replace one color with another? A "replace color" function would be excellent. As well as a function that asks me if I want to replace it with another color when I delete a Global Color from the palette. These are the most important and limiting things for me. Although one could list a whole series of minor bugs that have existed for years and have not been resolved. After accepting that none of this was done in V2, my idea is that I am not part of Affinity's true target audience. I am a professional with extensive experience. I worked with Quark before, and then with Adobe for decades. Why should someone like me switch to an "economic" system like the Affinity Suite? My answer is that I appreciated the great effort made by Affinity to invent a new workflow that is non-destructive by default, more modern, and suitable for the hardware available today. I was bored of using Adobe. However, after this first step, made years ago, it seems to me that there has been a change of direction. Not surprisingly, most of the Affinity users I talk to are students, enthusiasts, or even mid-level freelancers, but not high-level professionals. This makes sense. It would be a bit absurd to go to war against one of the largest software houses on the planet, we would come out of it with broken bones. Yet I still hope. I hope I am wrong and believe that Affinity can make it. I have 3 copies purchased of V2 in the drawer. I don't use them because I don't need them, and my workflow now works well on V1, while on V2 I immediately ran into bugs that weren't present in V1. It also happened in Adobe, I'm not scandalized. But the question to Affinity is: do you plan to address the points mentioned above? Are you aware of them? Do you have any ideas on how to remedy them? Or is it not in your plans? The answer to these questions would certainly help thousands of professionals like me understand how to orient themselves. Thank you and sorry for the length. Sincerely, Beniamino (PS: translated from Italian with ChatGPT)

Hi, I think I have the same bug. But it's not due to hidden cells. I have the issue when I use cells with no content. Here is a video (I'm sorry, it's quite long and I'm not so good at managing the english language) that shows the problem. For me it is really important to find a way to solve this, because I ave about 2.000 cells with no name which worked in V1 and now don't work in V2. This kept me to stay in V1, and my client too. Do you think you're going to solve this? One more thing: I can see (in V1 as in V2) that the more I merge xlsx files, the more I have pages, the more the file eats really big portions of my SSD (tons of giga bytes each time that I update a linked xlsx files, and it gets extremely slow on each kind of system and harware specs). Is this normal or it can be fixed in the future? If you need I can provide files to make tests. Thank you, Ben

This version seems to be great! It solved a big issue that I had with different kinds of .afpub documents. These problems were related to enormous memory consumption and CPU usage. And also to stability. I've made some try, and now I can manage those documents without problems. Thank you, this is fantastic. I'm working on macOS Catalina (10.15.7) - 4,2 GHz Intel Core i7 quad-core - 16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 - Radeon Pro 580 8 GB

Please, you can close or remove this post... It's a duplicate of another post that I've done, sorry! Thank you

Hi, I'm experiencing this terrible bug since I have upgraded to Catalina 10.15.7 (I really needed it because of other apps). I was working in Sierra without a problem. I've made a clean install of Catalina and the software that I need: the Affinity Suite, Final Cut, and Blender, as usual. Here is a list of problems that I've found today. 1 - I've tried to double-click on a .afpub brochure that I was working on some days ago, and Affinity Publisher crashed after trying to open it. If I moved the file to another place, it opened in 1 second (I suppose because it doesn't find lots of pictures and ask me to relink them). You can find the Crash Report 1 attached. 2 - I've tried with another brochure, and it happened the same. So I've tried to open it from Affinity Photo: it worked (the previous brochure didn't open in this way), even if it opened only a spread page. But from there I moved it to Publisher (Modify in Publisher) and it opened. Then I've saved it and now it opens from Publisher. 3 - Then I've tried with some small labels and they opened (one by one). But if I select all of them (12) from the finder and press command+o, Affinity Publisher crashes immediately. You can find the Crash Report 3 attached. So I cannot open them all together. If I move them to another position and do the same, they open (and it asks for the linked pictures). What bug are these? Are they known or tracked? I'm afraid... I think that is related to the os because it never happened in an old os. But I can't stay in the old os... sadly. Can someone please help? One more info: I've tried to do the same with the last beta that I've found, but it's the same. Thank you, Beniamino Crash Report 1.txt Crash Report 3.txt