AllanP

If they say nothing people say "silence is very telling..!".
If they say something people say "dont believe them!"
Plus the amount of simply ludicrous ideas like that one about making our own software in India...
Plus outright insults towards devs, telling them to "f off".
Plus childish "change icon to cat to show devs how you feel".
I have never seen such overreaction, such hate towards devs of software you supposedly like. Even when ZBrush was acquired by Maxon and there was panic it didnt reached that levels.
Very few posts with even remotely positive attitude like that of @Rodi . Instead we have screaming mob that no matter what you say (or dont say), whatever you do (or dont do) - it will not be satisfied and will keep on chanting the same thing. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if in protest somebody sprayed some painting in museum with soup... Same energy.
Over the years this devs were always there to listen. I dont have a single post with problem here that wasnt answered by somebody from the team. At the very beginning of Affinity and recently alike. I dont know what future brings and none of those who claim that "THEY KNOW!!!" knows what will happen. However, if anybody of those screamers had some actual brain cells to use they might come to realization that Canva most probably didnt paid that much for Affinity to just kill it. Its not their direct competition. Neither they want to change Affinity into Canva - it makes zero sense. Their reasoning on the other hand makes perfect sense. Canva wants to expand into more professional area. People want that dreaded "AI" in Affinity. These companies complement each other. But noo, screamers will keep on screaming.
Silence is telling and when they tell you something - dont believe them.
Honestly its surprising how many outright stupid people exists on this planet and how so many of them purchased Affinity. Many here is quick to offend devs based on their imagination of whats going to happen, even if nothing of it happened yet. So dont be feely-touchy about being called stupid. Or be, doesn't matter really.
BTW - Canva bought two free photo stocks in 2019. Pexels and Pixabay. 5 years later - both are still there, both under same names, both still free - just button to canva tools was added...

Thank you Ash and Patrick O'Connor for taking the time to explain. This is much appreciated. I am a satisfied Serif user since around 2009 because Serif apps let me do what I like to do. They never failed me, and will not fail me in the future.
From the very first moment I saw this announcement, I was positive about the new union. I use both Affinity and Canva Pro and both complement each other. Canva has a huge library of images and drawings, the Affinity suite has the professional tools to modify them. Canva lacks the tools Affinity has. So the combination can only be positive.
In many circumstances, subscriptions are needed to cover the costs. I use Softmaker Office, WPS Office, Cyberlink and others. If chosing a perpetual licence, there is no AI feature. AI features come with all three programs with a subscription. So a user has to decide if the AI feature is worth the subscription. I can testify that none of the companies with which I have a subscription, are abusing their power. They are all an important part of our daily operations.
To be honest, something I criticise is the update model of Serif. I paid in 2016 for my Designer and Photo licences and it was up until november 2022 that I had to pay again for V2. I asked myself several times during those 6 years free updates, how can they survive? In my opinion, they should make at least the .5 and .0 updates paid. In that way, they should have a more stable cash flow. I am surely willing to pay for a 1.1, 1.2,1.3,... update if that secure the future of the Affinity apps.
For our company, it is not the cost of the application which is important but also how secure its future is. We put a lot of our eggs in the Affinity basket, so it is important that the basket keeps full. The communication of Serif, assures my partner and myself that the future of Serif/Affinity is secure and stable. We never lost trust in Serif/Affinity and will will remain loyal Serif users. I can understand that many users are pessimistic and that your opinion will be different than ours. We have to respect that. However, also respect the fact that as professional users, we make our own decisions, which are in favour of Serif/Canva. Thank you for your understanding. Chris

I agree with the sentiments re Xara - I'm an ex-user.
All we can do folks is take Ash on what he has stated. It's not for us to request/demand to view what was in the Sales Contract - it's priviliged for goodness sake.
Please can we chill out about this. It's a done deal and if you're uncomfortable about the future of Affinity, for whatever reason, then maybe it's time to move on. Okay, moving on is going to be more than an inconvenience but so be it.
I'll stay with Affinity and should I start smelling a rat then I'll move on. I have no wish for subscription or cloud based software. But for now I'll give Ash and the Affinity Team the benefit of some of our doubts albeit we all know that things can change.

Thanks again @Ash (and @Patrick Connor), the comment about being relieved of financial pressures setting the schedule is so important. If this enables Serif to release smaller, more frequent updates then I'm hoping we'll soon start to see both many of the long standing features requests being delivered upon, but also an increased focus on bug fixes, UI/UX issues, and stabilization.
I have to admit, the more I look at Canva the more I'm seeing lots of possibilities with the Affinity suite — especially having access to their extensive font library. Also, the idea of optional cloud storage is actually quite enticing, especially if that were to be able to be tied into various client Canva accounts.
--
BTW I've been playing with Canva a little more over the past few days, and I've actually come to quite like it for what it is (I'm even thinking of adopting it for social media content). An extremely accessible application that enables anybody to quickly (and cost-effectively) create effective content and messaging without the steep learning curve and overhead of traditional design apps. I also love the idea that the Affinity suite will be available to education and non-profits at no cost, which is really exciting as Canva is used extensively in both verticals, and while there is increased complexity with the Affinity Suite, it is still far more approachable than the competition.
Exciting times. 👍

To address some of what is being said on this thread...
Firstly to be clear I'm not a founder, but have been with the company for 25 years. I'm officially appointed as Managing Director of the company, but also use CEO as my title as that is my role in terms of how other countries would view it.
Both Canva and us have made 100% clear we are committing to perpetual licences always being available. That will include V3 or any other future major upgrade of our apps which are released. What's more I will say with Canva's backing we are not under the same financial pressure we would have been to release a V3 anytime soon, meaning those of you using V2 will actually benefit from more features as free updates which may previously have been held back for a V3 if that makes sense. This is of great benefit from an engineering standpoint too as we are far better testing and releasing features in smaller chunks than saving them up to package up as a sellable upgrade. 
https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity-canva-pledge/
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/27/24113423/affinity-canva-acquisition-pledge-license-price-subscription
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/affinity-and-canva-pledge/
As we have made clear there will at some point be a subscription option also which people can take if they choose to. I'm sure there will be additional benefits to that subscription in the future such as asset and document sync, sharing and collaboration and other things which naturally require a subscription as they are features which incur ongoing cost. It may also include other things which can be leveraged with a Canva subscription such as greater stock libraries of images, graphics and fonts. Hopefully that would just be considered reasonable and understandable. There will certainly not be any cynical cutting down of features or limitation of ongoing support in our existing apps just to force a subscription play.
I understand examples of previous acquisitions can make some of you fearful, but they are just historic examples - it has no bearing on what will happen in this case and we are genuinely doing something here which is very different and special. Everything I said on Tuesday, and what both Canva and us pledged yesterday, is 100% true and we are going to stand by it. That includes keeping our entire team here with no layoffs, and continuing to be based in Nottingham. 
If you want to believe this or not is up to you, I'm not sure what more we can say at this point to convince those who doubt it. We'll deliver on this over the coming months and years so whatever is being said right now I know it's going to be all good and assuming you are still using Affinity apps you will be happy with how they have developed and that we have continued to be fair and inclusive with our pricing.
Also to follow on from Patricks point - I can take some of the personal attacks on me, but I have to say some of the conduct on this thread with some of you being very quick to attack other community members just because they hold different opinions is really disheartening to see. You can absolutely give your opinion on this deal for sure, and we are happy to leave this as an open forum within reason, but that does mean being courteous to other forum members and not just repeating the same points over and over.
Thanks,
Ash
 

Thank you so much Patrick ☺️

Good luck everyone! I'm presuming that, despite shock all round, this is good news for the business, customers, and importantly, employees. And please don't forget the volunteers, like many of the people on this forum. Personally, I've created over 900 videos on YouTube in my InAffinity channel and learned a huge amount about photo editing in the process. Affinity Photo (and I presume the other apps) is a brilliant product and I am in awe of how you have created this.
Well done also on the four commitments. Wisely thought out and should help calm nerves all round.
I can empathise significantly. I was a sofware engineer in small and large companies, UK and global. I moved to marketing and general business and eventually managing mergers and acquisitions in Agilent Technologies (the $10B spin-off from HP of its original businesses), where I was the Workplace Services (facilities, security, H&S, etc) global M&A manager. The most critical element of this, amidst all the IT, HR, Finance, WPS, etc, was cultural integration. One thing we found was that when acquired, people in a company will go along with many changes for the first 100 day, but will want to settle down soon after that.
Canva sounds like a good fit with Serif but there will be differences and how these are handled is so important. Australian and UK cultures have a lot of overlap, but they are not the same. Key will be leadership, which is often misunderstood. The first layer of understanding for this is followership. Without followers, you may be a manager but you are not a leader. Leaders also need to understand psychology, a subject I studied while writing the many pages on the changingminds.org website.
I could ramble further, but you've probably had enough by now and I have a photo competition to judge and potatoes to plant.
Best wishes to all the wonderful Serif, Affinity and Canva people
.. Dave ..
 

Regarding the purchase of Affinity by Canva all I can say is I have not seen a reaction like this since Tom Cruise was cast as Jack Reacher.
And some advice (from a different movie); could we all just "Chill, Winston".

It's weird that some people don't understand that not everyone is artistic even more weird when you see some of the efforts posted online, you would think they would understand!

Can we please stop being so condescending and dismissive of others. I'm not a fan of Canva, but I know many individuals, business, non-profit orgs, and large brands who absolutely love it, as it enables them to create effective communications/media without having to hire (and wait for) a professional, which they often can't afford anyway. As for large brands, it enables their marketing departments to move at pace assembling their own brand assets and scheduling the publishing of social media campaigns in a much faster, and more coordinated manner than was available to them before.

Like many I was shocked at yesterday’s announcement. These pledges are reassuring and dare I say it, they give me a tiny bit of optimism for what might be possible with greater funding and different skillsets.
More than anything, I hope the Affinity suite stays lean and fast. I’m all for carefully implemented new features, but I hope we don’t get Adobe style bloat.
Congratulations on the merger. I will reserve judgement for now, but there’s a huge opportunity for ‘Canva’ to prove us all wrong and to empower a community that Adobe lost many years ago.

Thank you! I appreciate that you've come together with canva to clarify the future of affinity. I hope to continue being an affinity customer, especially since an affordable perpetual license for some quality apps is what made me a customer in the first place.
 

But panic spreads most easily through constant repetition of half-truths, assumptions and hypotheses 🙂

We are not, we are all very excited about what has been said and the future for Affinity. This thread is about your response not ours. As an employee of 24 years I am personally very pleased about what Ash has announced and the Affinity and Canva pledge.
https://affinity.serif.com/press/newsroom/affinity-and-canva-pledge/

Glad to see this pledge being made. It's a step in the right direction.
I have to say I am quite surprised that nobody thought such announcement would generate backlash. How was this pledge not included in the acquisition announcement? The wording regarding the future and pricing model was suspiciously vague in the FAQ.

Given all that I understand that most are quite upset, and I still feel somewhat doubtful about all this. A png pledge is nice but there's no accountability to it in the end. I really hope this won't the turn out like story we've seen happen so many times, despite all the alarm bells ringing.
The affinity apps are absolutely amazing, the design is intuitive and ergonomic, I would truly hate to see all this go to waste. The userbase is built on the quality of the product, and its user first approach to monetisation. I hope Canva understood that because if it happens to change I don't think many will remain loyal to affinity.
I wish you all the best, stay awesome.

The vitriolic nature of the conversation in this thread is characteristic of a greater problem in the Affinity community. I just don't see how saying things with your full chest like "you sold your soul to the devil" and "I hate Serif!!!" and "Ashley is a crook!" is conducive to progress or getting your message across.
Ash and Canva have made a statement about the biggest concern (the subscription model), and there's really all we can ask for. The die is cast, and we just have to wait to see what happens in the future. Hopefully, Canva doesn't pull the rug out from under us.

The pledge to offer Affinity free to schools and non-profits is amazing. It will enable so many kids to learn with Affinity, and they will go on to use Affinity in their professional careers. This is something that would have been hard for a small company to offer but which the acquisition enabled. Bravo.

@MikeTO - belated thanks for the 2.4 update to your great user manual resource. I really appreciate what you've done here.
I particularly like the clear section on Books and Chapters, explaining the limitations regarding the merging of sections/chapters where consideration needs to be given to the presence (or not) od blank pages between sections/chapters. 
regards,

I appreciate that the OP's question has been resolved, but I thought it would be appropriate to note a couple of newsources of assistance:
Elaine Giles produced a tutorial video "Perfect Page Numbers in Affinity Publisher" (Desktop): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P24I7CdlbP4a
and "Perfect Page Numbers in Affinity Publisher for iPad": https://youtu.be/j0yn_8gM6Ik

I think the problem here is that the master page that's being applied is "None" as shown in the box at the top ( the curved corner box with the label "None" beneath it.) You have to create a master page which will then be selectable from this screen. In the desktop version the master page creation option is in the Master page section of the Pages panel, I'm guessing that's where it is on iPad

Those of us with long memories of using Serif's "Plus" range of software will recall the manuals that came with that range. I still have the impressive bundle of manuals that came with my PagePlus 3.0 suite - 0ver 700 pages of information both in using the software together with DTP guidelines.
I van appreciate why Serif don't produce printed manuals these days, but I am sure a PDF Manual/handbook would be useful and give more room for ecamples.

Thanks for the first updated version of the manual, Mike.
And thanks for all the support you've given here ion the forums.

Thanks all for the positive feedback. I've updated the manual with corrections and improvements suggested by those in this thread as well as a lot of feedback from @walt.farrell.
I've also added 30 more pages on printing, exporting, colour settings, and more.
To keep it simple, the updated version is available from the first post in this thread.
Cheers,
Mike

@MikeTO - Thank you for this great informative guide.
The Serif/Affinity Help pages and video tutorials are good, but your Expert Guide really delves in and puts things inbto perspective and details the process of using AfPub's Books feature. and associated techniques.
Well done!!!

@MikeTO - Thank you for this great informative guide.
The Serif/Affinity Help pages and video tutorials are good, but your Expert Guide really delves in and puts things inbto perspective and details the process of using AfPub's Books feature. and associated techniques.
Well done!!!