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Just wanted to share my recent experience. I've just laid out a full 250-page book in APu and overall it has been excellent to work with. I'm not a highly experienced graphics guy though I have done two or three books previously in InDesign. While acknowledging the advice not to work on important jobs in the beta, I couldn't resist the urge not to spend the money on an ID subscription again and also to give this software a proper go. The only significant headache I had was some instability when files got too big (about 30MB) so I ended up splitting the task into three parts and merging the PDFs at the end. This had obvious implications for the table of contents but it wasn't too onerous. Working with the smaller files there were no crash issues at all. My book wasn't overly complex though it includes quite a number of illustrations and a few tables. Import was from MS Word, with which I found it easier to simply copy and paste text across rather than importing the .docx file (that function was added about halfway through this project). Working with the basic design elements, with styles, text flow and so on was really a breeze. The interface is slick and much nicer to work with than Indesign. One thing I missed was anchors/cross-references, which I'm sure will arrive at some point so I no longer have to manually update references to other pages, but again this was a small issue. All in all I can't wait for the full release. Thanks team!

Yet another moment of, hey I didn't know I could do that: Today I did a PLACE with an .svg image and I was able to edit it in the manner of an Adobe smart object. I knew I could do that with Affinity files but I didn't know I could do it with .svg as well. Kudos Affinity!

Hi, I simply want to say how much I love Affinity Publisher, right from the start. A BIG pile of congratulations for… Having colour profile options right there in the document setup panel An intuitive pages palette and the ability to add guides to a master page Clear font menu with previews, favourites and recents Visual text pre-sizing A drag and drop assets palette - works a treat! Picture-in-text / picture-in-shape made super easy in the layers palette Kudos!

Please consider writing into your next forum website functions, the ability to use colored text and colored backgrounds & highlights.

Hi I just installed the new beta and gave it a bit of a whirl. so far the issues I`m seeing are as follows 1. using the square bracket keys to increase/decrease brush size is not working 2. redraw on blur, smudge etc brushes is very slow and resulted in a lock up 3.procedural texture needs sliders not equations. I can't figure out how to experiment with this at all! I suck at math and even simple algebra is very difficult for me but give sliders to visually experiment and this filter will become useful. as it is i can't use it at all. 4. Filter forge 7 works for me with the stable version but generates an error with the beta.

Hello guys, Thanks for developing this nice application. I have some issues merging stacked images from "new stack" option. I try merge 20 images and it doesn't start doing anything even after 15 minutes, but the RAM usage is over 30 GB, all JPGs only. Force quitting program from task manager is the only way to solve it. The stacking in any of the menu options takes too long in stable or BETA, almost 5 minute just for a simple stack process. I also have issues with Panorama and HDR stacking like in previous stable edition. Aligning HDR brackets will sometime lock to skies and move the landscape, you know how that story ends. The HDR noise reduction removes important details and replace them with big artifacts or just massive blotches of black/nothing. The "tonemapping" function - or your RAW converter - have a long way to go. I get the cringe every time I need to go in there, and the results I get can easily get better surpassed by cellphone apps. It feels like I'm pushing a JPG every time I'm in that converter and not a RAW file, the details instantly clip to black using "black point" setting, but you did some magic with the latest "highlight" and "shadow" slider, it feels better. Worst part is the crazy lagg I get from pushing any of the sliders, mouse and system freeze for seconds before slider jumps to "next" spot, even freeze my Spotify playing. This is a 12 core Threadripper 4 GHz with 32 GB RAM, 1080 Ti and NVMe SSDs, so it should be able to handle a basic RAW converter, I got CaptureOne Pro v11 and no problem there with a lot more tools and stuff. I don't find any way to tune the Panorama merge function like in PtGui, I wish it had more options like that program. I don't know if it is possible to tweek the perspective after the merge, but there should be more features while having the image as layers, thats when you got the most power to fix things. There is one function I miss from PS CC and I hope you can add similar function, because this is invaluable when using a Wacom tablet like I do. Just FYI, I replace mouse buttons on my pen, so this works great for me: In brush tool (PS CC), hold (Left Alt), Hold (Right mouse click), move mouse up and down to change size of any brush tool. Move mouse side to side to change the hardness. Don't take the critic too hard, I know you're not Adobe and I probably won't get any of the things I'm asking for, but I hope you guys spend more time on the features above. The stacking features and RAW converter/tonemapping should really be top priority for you to fix. I just left Adobe but I feel forced to go buy PtGui because this stacking you got going on never works for me. Best regards Aleksander

First I apologize if I am repeating things already asked for. I like the way macros allow me to automate things but in the future it would make the feature much more usable if more actions could be recordable Such as 1. nesting items within the layers panel 2. setting a fill with the gradient fill tool 3. select multiple objects/layers.

Hi, I recently bought the Affinity Designer Workbook and have really been enjoying the practical examples and working my way through it. Just a minor error that I'm not sure has been reported or not (I don't have Facebook or Twitter to contact directly so posting on here) but I noticed a formatting error on page 109 - half of the words at the start of each line seems to be cut off a bit. I included a screenshot below. I have to say that the book is excellent so far, I've always found most design software to be quite intimidating and time consuming to learn but the workbook is getting me to grips with the software really quick and it's been surprisingly intuitive to use. If I notice anything else as I work through the book, I'll use this thread to continue posting.

Hi all. Thank you for your work on Affinity Designer. 1. Let's imagine that I am creating some vector art (see screenshot, below). 2. My goal is to remove the selected object's Fill color. The problem is that if I want to use the "/" hotkey (to remove the color) or "x", "/" (to switch from Stroke to Fill and then remove the color) ... I don't know whether the STROKE or the FILL is currently "Selected". (A**** Illustrator solves this by always showing the Stroke and Fill in the Tool Bar (see screenshot, below)). In my case, I have to first take my hand away from the keyboard to move my mouse, then open the Color Panel, to find out whether the Stroke or Fill is selected. This creates an extra 2-3 second, unnecessary step in my workflow. My recommendation might be to add a "Selected highlight" around the Fill or Stroke color in the Context Toolbar which is displayed far more frequently than the Color Panel (see screenshot, below). Thank you, again, for your work!

Hey Affinity people! First of all, Designer looks very nice. It could be my main program in the future. but it lacks here and there and this is what i would like to see. For me, as an illustrator in vector... i work with the pencil tool A LOT!. the pentool is okey, free drawing on my tablet / cintiq is 'tha best" So pencil power! Okey, i have tried this workflow and this is what is what happens for me when i do character vector work: Affinity Designer: - I draw my desired line with the pencil tool. - The tool doesn't know that i want to do a correction.If i draw on top of the line it creates a new vector. I need to delete the whole line and do it again also when its just a small part that needs an fix. - Press N to switch to pentool so node icons appear on top - press close icon and the object is now closed. - press N to switch to pencil tool - create new line. Adobe Illustrator: - I draw my desired line with the pencil tool - draw directly on top of the line to correct it. It will re-shape my previous action. Most of the time its just a minor fix. - simply hit the line somewhere, it will close. U see how powerful the pencil tool is in Illustrator vs the long and lack of workflow in Designer. In illustrator i stay in my tool an continue working non-stop where in Designer i need to switch tools and use icons. I hope this helpfull!

hello, I just update to ios 11, and some of the functions like drag and drop didn’t work. So I removed A.Photo and downloaded againt. Now I can’t export to camera roll. Here’s the screen recording:

Some issues I've been facing on the Export persona in AD (1.5.3.6x public and beta): Slices don't always get the name of the artboard. If you rename the artboard the slice will keep the old name. If you're duplicating artboards this causes an issue where many slices have the same name and they'll be overwritten upon export I have a document with over 10 artboards (each one gets a slice). If I zoom out and select them on the Slices panel I can't tell which one is selected or not. Due to the naming issue above it's really hard to tell which of the artboards is selected since some have the same name and you can't see the selection border. The selection border gets hidden behind the slice blue border. There needs to be a way to completely hide (toggle show/hide) the slices markings In the Layers panel (back in Vector Persona) if you double-click a layer AD will zoom it in to fit the viewport. This would be very, very useful in export persona too, in the Slices panel. Double clicking a slice in the listing would zoom into that slice. Using the Slice tool sometimes selects an existing slice and sometimes it tries to create a new slice over an existing one. The behavior changes depending on zoom level and it's hard to replicate. The Slice Selection Tool selects objects within the artboard instead of the slice Selecting a artboard-slice by its name only works at greater zoom levels (100% or larger) There needs to be actions (buttons or kbd shortcuts) to select all/select none slices Selecting a slice highlights it on the Slices panel listing but does not scroll to it Thanks for reading :)

Hi, I'm finding use of the crop tool really frustrating, sorry! I've just used Affinity Photo whilst at an event. I was taking portraits and then customers immediately viewed their images and purchased their favourites. Invariably a few of the images needed extra cropping, for which I used Affinity Photo. i was printing 6x8 inches, so I set up a preset for a 3:4 ratio crop (why is there not one already? This is a standard print size). However, whenever I opened a new image in AP the crop tool had reset to the default option (freeform crop). I had to select the 3:4 preset everytime. Could there be an option for AP to remember the previously used crop option? Also, the crop interface overlayed the image boundaries outside of the image. The image was filling my screen, and I had to scroll up and out of the image to find the crop tool handles in order to bring them back into the image - this was REALLY annoying and took up a lot of time. Either: 1. Set the crop tool handles to fall within the boundaries of the image and let the user drag outside the image if required. Or 2. Once the crop tool and crop ration/preset has been selected, let the user drag the crop boundaries over the image so they can select the crop region straight away. I really liked the speed of AP, I need to adjust to the interface still but that is a matter of time. Having used PS for 20 years I'm very used to that way of working. I like the fact many of the shortcut keys are the same in AP and PS. Kind regards, Charles

My name is Reda Lazri, I’m a freelance designer from Algeria. I specialize in UI/Web design and branding, with a minor focus in print design. I’ve been using Inkscape since I started vector drawing many years ago, and continued to do so though my switches to Linux and then MacOS along with Sketch for UI design, but recently I decided that it’s time for me to move on to something better than Inkscape since it was lagging on the Mac so I purchased Affinity Designer after using the trial version for some time. Even though I think that I have made the correct choice by moving most of my work to Affinity Designer now, I thought I’d share a list of the most annoying aspects about it, coming from non-Adobe software. Of course, this goes without saying that I like a lot of its unique features. The Interface I wish there was a light mode for when I’m not in the mood. Waiting for 1.6. ;) The Studio The most annoying thing for me in this aspect was the inability to collapse the right panes into icons to save space and declutter the workspace, especially since I work from a 13” Macbook without an external monitor. :\ The Keyboard Shortcuts One major annoyance was the default shortcuts that are so similar to Photoshop and yet do not make much sense (why can the Node Tool be selected by both V and A while the Artboard tool doesn’t have a proper shortcut?,) I was really hoping that AD would have had shortcut profiles and included a PS preset while providing better, memorable shortcuts. I think Sketch nails this with (O)val, (V)ector, (L)ine, ®ectangle, (S)lice, (A)rtboard by default. There is also the “Return-to-convert-text-to curves-without-noticing” I wasted a lot of time doing Ctrl-Z for this one. And I just wish the shortcut to duplicate objects was Cmd-D like everything else. Also, there are no shortcuts for geometric operations (add, divide, subtract…), which is weird since they’re the most used in vector drawing. Artboards Multiple Artboards can't be selected and moved around, and they are treated like normal objects when they’re duplicated. The duplicated Artboard should be created next to the original not on top of it. Guides (Limitation) I miss the guides from Inkscape, you can even rotate them. AD really lacks in this area. The color pane(s) I’m spoiled by the way Inkscape does it as well as the quick Ctrl-C picker in Sketch. AD really lags behind with its weird way of working: I can’t quickly set a fill or a stroke without toggling them first Using the picker doesn’t assign the color, but instead keeps in a circle next to it and I have to click on it again. There is no HEX values UNLESS I select “RGB Hex Sliders”, what if I want HSL instead? :| There is opacity slider when I click on the Fill/Stroke. There are no Swatches, noise, Hex when I use the ‘Color’ pane on the right. The ‘Save’ Dialog (Bug) If you try to close a document without saving it asks you to save; if you do, you’ll have to click ‘close’ again. Text (Limitation?) A created line of text can’t be converted to a text frame, or can it? Strokes (Bug) Joining two lines increases the width of their stroke! Will there be PART 2? Probably, this is just a list I made after using AD for three projects, I think there is a lot to be discovered. Please let me know what you think and whether you have suggestions to minimize the annoyance.

I would like to see a simpler way to visualize which pages will print on the left or right sides of a booklet. I understand there is a multiple page view, but it woud be faster for me to determine which is a left facing page or a right facing page if there was some indicator in the pages view (e.g.: a small dark marker of some sort in the bottom left or right corner of each page shown; could be an option shown along with changing the name of the page window). Or it would be helpful to see a two-page spread screen to see which pages will print to face one another. Alternately, it would also be helpful to have an option to force a master page to appear on the left or right face when using a booklet fold (and have it automatically place an extra page before or after in order to accommodate this transition). This would come in handy when creating booklets if you prefer the chapter title page to always begin on the right side (or left). Thanks for listening... Looking forward to seeing what Affinity Publisher 2017 beta has to offer!

Dear Affinity staff, I am an Affinity Photo and Designer user in China. I found most of your tutorials were on the Vimeo and Youtube. However, it is very hard to open the video on Vimeo, because the network speed is very slow. Certainly, everyone knows Youtube is blocked in China. Even I can use VPN to watch the video, but it is still very inconvenient. Could you please create an official account on Youku, or other Chinese video website and upload the tutorials ? I introduced Affinity to a lot of my friends because Affinity is really a fantastic picture editing and design software. I hope we can have resources that we can learn how to use Affinity as much as other countries' people. Thank you for creating Affinity. Sincerely, mrteapot

[i'm German, excuse me if I write something wrong, I will try my best) Hello Guys, I did started with: https://pixlr.com/editor/that is very very simple, then I did get into Gimp ~2months ago. And I learned more and more. So today I saw your Software and I did just try it out. But... I can not really handle it. I am a photo remodeler, I try to give images a new taste, a new view or simply improve the quality. And sometimes I create a image on my own work, but I can that better in Real Life :D So, I started and got really stuck. I will edit this or answer to the thread if other people response to it. Lol... okay... My Client is on German and I did just right now click on "Hilfe" (Help) and... it did close the software :D (Okay, it is still a beta) The first thing I miss, is that the software do not add an entry to the windows "right click menu", so i can not say on an Image "Open with Affinity" I can select "open with Gimp" but that is not what I want at this time. Add this soon please. Uhm okay, why is it not allowed to save the example images from the affinity examples as .jpg or whatever? if I click export it say it is not allowed. I have so much more to say but it is hard to say that all in English. Is it possible to write it down in German or maybe make a Video with feedback? Greetings Dracken

The focus stacking is great: - Question: Can I use New Stack > Live Alignment > focus merge? I can't seem to focus merge a live group. If not then: - Feature request: Live alignment option for focus stack. QoL: Adjustment sliders: - Question: How do you reset an individual slider quickly, rather than the whole panel? - Feature request: Double clicking the slider header (lightroom) or right clicking the up/down arrows on the number entry box (3DSMax) resets the slider/number entry to default. Detail Refinement in the Develop Module: - This is sharpening, right? - Feature request: Unsharp mask/threshold for sharpening. Without this it's mostly useless on any photo that has blurred and sharp areas (dof/panning/etc). QoL: After selecting a menu with drop down options you can't transverse the options in the menu with the up and down arrow keys. Eg. Blend mode drop down menu. The Export Module: I understand the use of slices for advanced users, but most people just want a nice big simple export button. It should probably default to the slices pane rather than the layers pane when entering the export module and the export all slices button might need to be a bit more obvious. Just a few thoughts, feel free to disregard.

Hi I'm completely new to Affinity, and downloaded the Beta hoping that Affinity Designer for Windows might be able to replace my ageing copy of Illustrator. Plus points: Ease of use, and I loved the concept of the same software having two "identities". But here's what I would need to know/see as a consumer to feel confident about using this instead of illustrator: 1) Unless I missed it, it looked like this software has no autotracing function. (I trace my own artwork to turn into design motifs). 2) Can I be confident that everything designed in the programs's raster identity transfers seamlessly into any saved vector files? 3) I would be very, very good to have some kind of "tiling" function. Other than that, I should say I did love this software, and would love to use it more than Illustrator (which I actually don't much enjoy using) if the above could be included. Hope this makes sense and gets to whoever needs it as feedback-apologies if I've posted this in the wrong place. Many thanks for the chance to be part of the beta. Clare

Hi affinity Im really happy to see that a software to replace Photoshop for my workflow is coming to windows but I would like to make one crucial feature request: Please make affinity support Quixel applications or the other way round. This would be great and i can then fully utilise affinity as my main workflow and say good bye to Photoshop.

Hello All, I'm new to Affinity. Using the beta for Windows. I've already some feedback. I've seen the features request forum, but is there something like UserVoice? This way the team could see which features are the most important for users, without spamming topics with +1's. Affinity looks really good, nice work! Regards, Andreas F

I'm making this post to throw few problems I'm experimenting while testing Affinity Designer on Windows. So far I've been found those problems in a common daily work: - Opening some AI files causes the program to crash. - Changing color profiles: After closing AD they revert to their default profiles. - No server support. - Arrows does not work when changing values in parragraph and character. - Saving a .psd file does not update it on AD. - € symbol does not work using "Alt Gr + E". - Changing language does not work. So far I've found those problems. My workflow feels slower as contextual menus are always minimized, extra clicks for everything. I'm using Windows 10 x64. Affinity Designer looks promising, keep the good work!

First off, thank you for this awesome product! It's been quite smooth sailing so far (CPU-use is minimal, interface looks sharp on high-DPI screens and I could finally create something in a few mere minutes where on Illustrator I was wasting hours on finding the correct menu and tool). I only had some small suggestions: - It would be quite handy to have an option to snap an item to certain positions (for instance: at every 90 degrees when rotating an item or when making a perfect rectangle). Of course this should be easily be turned off too, for when you don't want that to happen. :) - Make it so when you use the app on a pen-enabled device (for instance; a Surface Pro 3) that when you use your fingers on the screen it'll automatically change to the select tool. I drew something with my pen and then tried to change the shape with my hand, but it would end up drawing another one! :P Such a small feature would make working with an pen/touchscreen combination even more intuitive. ;) Anyways, keep up the good work! :)

Hi, Last month I finished my course as UX Designer. At the same time I launched my portfolio website using Semplice (some sort of WordPress tool). After two or three weeks I needed my website to be more professional with UX in mind, so I stripped most of its elements. But now it's too empty, bland, ugly. You can find my website here. So, while that ugly piece of crap is up and running I'm redesigning its looks. But now I'm running in circles and I need some feedback on the sketches that I made last week. Could you guys/girls gimme some? Obviously it needs more content, better photos and the text is just some copy/paste stuff. You are appreciated.