HenrikM

Cross-references is the feature I have been waiting for. Will it be possible to set up cross-reference formats, so that you can have a cross reference that also generates prefix, infix and postfix text? In other words, can you create a cross reference that looks like this: See Section 3.2 Task-Switching Penalties on page 47. ...or, are the references limited to just page numbers? Will it be possible to automatically format cross-references differently depending on output format? For example: PDF for print: See Section 3.2 Task-Switching Penalties on page 47. eBook/HTML: See 3.2 Task-Switching Penalties.

I'll see if I can replicate it the next time I work on a picture. If I can, I'll send you a file sample and export settings. I do not believe it is the export settings though, because it was possible to see the overly large pixels of the linked layer when I had the file open in Affinity Photo.

Linked layers have significantly reduced quality when exported. See the picture: To the left, the model is on a linked layer. To the right, the model has been embedded in the main file. I can sometimes force an update by opening the linked file at the same time as I have the main file open, but that only increases the quality a bit. I do not get the full image quality. I am running Photo v2.0.0 on Windows 11. I use Google Drive, but all files are stored locally on the hard drive.

I have the same problem with DXO Photolab. I know Serif moved the files to the Windows 11 starting location. That location isn't available even as an administrator. Changing access rights so DXO can start Affinity does not work. This really needs to be fixed.

I think they have changed the name in the drop-down menu, but it is still in the documentation. What they are describing here is not a cross-reference.

Yes, Affinity Publisher is definitely lacking in book publishing features. The lack of footnotes, endnotes, and cross-references, are the worst omissions, but the more I work with the software, the more problems I find. Still, I do not know of any reasonably priced alternative. I do not want to rent Adobe products, and that makes Affinity Publisher the only game in town. On the other hand, with a bit of luck, Serif is working on fixing the current shortcomings. I hope they do it before I finish my book. 🙂

You are probably correct. What has me a bit worried is that they implemented hyperlink functionality suitable for eBooks, but not any sort of eBook export, and then named their hyperlinks "cross-references". Serif usually plan the functionality in their applications very well, but this time I am not so sure they are doing that.

Back in the day when I was a software developer, I designed and built a cross-reference system for XMetaL. It's not that difficult. Serif does not have to work out everything from scratch. They can borrow ideas from systems that work, like the FrameMaker cross-references, LaTex, Basser Lout, DocBook, XLink, or even Word.

I'm working on a book on photography, and the lack of cross-references is becoming a larger and larger problem the further I get. I'm hoping we'll get it in the next release. Preferably something at least as powerful and flexible as you get with FrameMaker.

I am working on a book on photography. The lack of footnotes and endnotes in Affinity Publisher is getting to be a severe obstacle. I keep hoping for that being added in the next version.

I have the same problem. Might have a solution. I took the advice earlier in this thread, and started Affinity Photo as an administrator. You can do that by right-clicking on the Affinity Photo icon and selecting "Run as Administrator" in the pop-up menu. That enabled me to start the login process. Unfortunately, the Affinity store was down for maintenance, so I'll have to try again in a couple of hours.

Thanks! Updating the driver helped a bit. The remaining problems I handle by updating pictures from the Resource dialog.

BTW, the reason I have hardware acceleration turned off, is that it used to cause crashes. I tried turning it on, and restarted AF, but it did not help. This is what a linked layer looks like, as I write this. Right now, I've been waiting about 5 minutes for the linked picture to update.

Hi @Dan C, Here are my preferences settings. The resources are stored on an internal SSD. Kind Regards, Henrik

Linked pictures in Affinity Photo are extremely slow to update. In the screenshot, the hand is part of a linked image. When I zoomed in, I saw only a low resolution version of the linked image. Image layers that were embedded updated normally. It took several minutes for the embedded image to update. I have noticed the same phenomenon with Affinity Publisher, so the bug is not unique to Affinity Photo.

I'm trying to set up master pages for an anthology. I need to set up different headers for left and right pages. Left header: The name of the author of the chapter. Right header: The chapter title The author name is in a paragraph with an Author paragraph tag. The chapter title is tagged with a Chapter Title paragraph tag. This is a pretty basic setup, and it drives me nuts that Affinity Publisher can't handle it. I understand that Publisher is currently targeted at short documents, like brochures, but if you list must-haves for longer documents, it's actually a very short list: Fields showing text in most recent paragraph with a specified tag (Yes, FrameMaker handles that too.) Cross-Reference support a lá FrameMaker Lack of the two functions above are the only show-stoppers for simple book layouts. Of course, an almost-necessary-to-have list would be much, much longer, but for the time being, I can do without that, if I could get the two functions listed above. So close, and yet, so far away.

It's called Text Insets in FrameMaker, and it is a very useful feature. It is not the most important feature for book publishing, but it is pretty high on the list.

@GarryP I posted the original message some time ago. I went with PowerPoint in the end. I tried a bunch of other programs, but none of them measured up in terms of features, quality of transitions, and ease of use. Acrobat Reader is not very useful to me, I am afraid, except as a PDF reader, of course. As an example: The most recent animation I did was to illustrate the difference between vertically and horizontally sliced requirements for large scale software systems development in terms of the effect on multi-team process flows. I can't do that with Acrobat Reader, or any of the other solutions people have proposed to me, in this thread, and elsewhere. PowerPoint is not ideal, but it does the job, at least with fairly simple animations. The animation I mentioned above still has some kinks, due to the way PowerPoint handles morphing (it does not morph curves with connectors properly), but those kinks can be worked out, or worked around.

For a lot of things, a PDF would be sufficient. On the other hand, it would not work for me. My photography presentations are, for the most part, technically simple. I use a simple cross-fade most of the time. There are 2-3 exceptions in most presentations though, when I need a bit more than PDF can provide. Also, when I make presentations about systems and complexity thinking, I often need to show how things change over time, and then, animation tools are really handy. PDF would not do at all. So, it depends on what you want to accomplish.

Prezi is a good presentation program. Unfortunately, their pay-until-you-die ransomware subscription model eliminates Prezi as a contender no matter how powerful the software is.

I am afraid you are in the wrong thread, but yes, there is a lot of material on how to use Affinity Photo: Serif has videos on Youtube that are very good. Plenty of material made by others too. There are books available. Check out the Serif home page, or just the splash screen of your application. The online Help is actually helpful. Try it and see.

Thanks for the video. I downloaded the 30 day trial version of the program, and I do not think there was a Blend transition in it. The transition looks good, but all things considered, I'll go with PowerPoint this time around, despite its flaws. The information I got about the license server was from the text in the licence agreement. The hardware configuration of my computer changes several times a week, because I connect different devices depending on what I do. The changes I make probably do not trigger a search for the licence server, but then again, they just might. With PowerPoint, at least I know what I'll get: A presentation program with a paradigm so bad it contributed to two spaceshuttle crashes. Most of the other programs I have looked at try to emulate the program that made the spaceshuttles crash as closely as possible. One would think there would be room for better products in the market.

Thank you for the tip. I downloaded SoftMaker and tried it out. When I tried to do a fade between two slides, the screen first faded to black, then went from black to the second picture. That is a bug, plain and simple. A cross fade must not have a fade to black in the middle. I also tried a dissolve, and the picture dissolved into rather large pixels. Very far from the smooth transition you get with Keynote. The other transitions were a mixed bag. Some looked pretty good. However, the abominable cross fade is a showstopper. Cross Fade is the transition I use for nearly all slides in a presentation, and the reason for that is simple: It is the only one that does not look jarring when you watch a presentation. I have paying audiences. I will not show them anything that looks clunky or ugly (except when on purpose, of course). There are a couple of other problems too, like the software locking up if it cannot access a license server, which it tries to access at random intervals. That means if the company that makes SoftMaker goes out of business, the software will eventually lock up and become useless. It also means the software can suddenly lock up while you are about to do a presentation, if it decides to check for a license server, and cannot access the Internet. So, I am afraid this is not the presentation software I need or want. It looks to me like PowerPoint, despite its many flaws, is the only thing that comes close to a professional presentation program running on Windows. For now, that is probably the way I have to go. If Serif did a presentation program, as long as it has a working cross fade, I'd ditch PowerPoint in a second.

I did suggest that Affinity Presents would be part of the Affinity suite. I listed several reasons for why this would be a good idea in my original posting. Even so, creating a new app would require time, and quite a bit of work, and that would slow down development of the applications they already have, so whether it is a good idea, depends on how good the business case is. I believe there could be a good business case, but that is for the people at Serif to decide. If they add a new application, any new application, it would not have the same constraints as the existing applications. If it had, it would not be able to do anything new. Photo, Designer, and Publisher have a partially overlapping set of constraints, but it is not the same set for all applications. A new application in the suite would also have a set of constraints that are partially new, and partially overlap.

There is no good reason to add animation to the current suite of programs. However, a presentation program would be another matter. For a presentation, a simple animation feature would make sense.