Affinity Support for InDesign-Created PDF Import with Bleed

[APEGamer 2]

I tried importing a PDF created with InDesign, but it doesn't include the document bleed. Instead, I need to export from InDesign as JPEG files and open them separately in Affinity.

Is this a bug?

Note that I'll use Affinity Publisher to build files in the future, but I have files created with InDesign before Publisher was released.

[MikeW 1,793]

When a pdf is placed, there is an option for the page box to use. Set it to bleed.

If that doesn't work, please upload a sample pdf.

[Lagarto 108]

On 11/10/2019 at 6:01 PM, APEGamer said:

I tried importing a PDF created with InDesign, but it doesn't include the document bleed. Instead, I need to export from InDesign as JPEG files and open them separately in Affinity.

First, please ensure that you have View > Show Bleed turned on in Publisher.

Do you actually need to "import" (Document > Place) the PDF in a Publisher document you already have, or would you rather want to open the PDF (File > Open)?

If you do the latter, you can specify the page range to be opened, and should have bleeds already correctly created (and possible inner breeds divided as separate object which can just be deleted if not needed, rather than needing to crop the art). After opening a PDF, you'd typically want to change the document units (File > Document) and ensure that the document has correct Facing pages setting. E.g., below a PDF with 3 mm bleed on all page edges has been opened, and the inner bleeds are separate objects (below the inner bleed objects has been selected, and the equivalent inner bleed of the next page is shown under the page).

If you do the former, then you should have a toolbox shown below, whenever you select the PDF placed in the document, and the possible inner bleed (shown below as yellow area), needs to be cropped with the Crop tool, if not needed in the layout. By default PDFs are imported cropped by the trimbox, so you'd need to choose "Bleedbox" from the list, and then typicaly reselect from the Spread box the page to be shown, to have the bleeds shown correctly. You can show additional pages from the same PDF simply by copying the selected layer, placing it in another location (e.g. on another page), and then select the page to be shown.

 

You can use the two InDesign created PDFs below to see the different bleed scenarios, and how bleeds are handled when you "Open" or "Place" these files in Publisher. Both PDFs have an A4 format, contain 4 pages, have 3 mm bleeds, and have initially been exported from a facing pages document.

ID_withinnerbleed.pdf

ID_noinnerbleed.pdf

[APEGamer 2]

I am using Photo for this, not Publisher. If you load either of your PDFs into Affinity Photo, the width is 210x297mm (no bleed for A4 paper). Note that it loads each page as an artboard w/o bleed.