Creating a document template

[just1morething]

Is there anyway to create a template or master document that can be downloaded as a new document and overwritten? I have a specific brand/look for my knitting patterns that I want to use in every document I create.  It would be nice to set up a master page and document layout once and then just copy and paste info into the template without needing to re-create everything in a new document each time.  I've created a document with all of the settings I want but can't find a way to import this framework to a new document without changing the original.  I hope that makes sense.  Basically I want to create document A, duplicate document A as a new file and rename it document B so I can then edit B without changing A.  Any advice? 

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums.
It sounds like the “Save As...” function would do what you say you need – Open the original document, Save As under a new name, edit the newly named document, original isn’t affected – but I have a feeling that’s not the whole picture.
Templates are apparently something that are coming to Publisher soon(ish) so they might be a better solution in the near future, but there’s no real information regarding what the eventual functionality of these templates will be.
If you have specific requirements – what exactly are you wanting to keep between versions of the document and what you don’t want to keep – then saying what they are might help someone to give more specific advice.

[just1morething]

Thanks, Gary, 

I'll try the "save as".  I write knitting patterns so I want to keep the overall layout of the pages the same (font, colors, page layouts) and just edit the text with each new pattern.  

[PaulEC]

I don't know if this helps, but if you want to design individual page layouts to keep as "templates", you can design the page as you want it, group everything on it, then you can save it in the "Asserts" panel. (If you don't group all the elements, they will be added as individual items.)
When you want to reuse and edit the page, just drag it onto a new page and ungroup it, so that you can edit individual items.
(This obviously only works for individual pages, not for a multi page document.)

[Old Bruce]

20 hours ago, just1morething said:

Is there anyway to create a template or master document that can be downloaded as a new document and overwritten? I have a specific brand/look for my knitting patterns that I want to use in every document I create. 

 

20 hours ago, just1morething said:

Basically I want to create document A, duplicate document A as a new file and rename it document B so I can then edit B without changing A.  Any advice? 

On the Mac I would use the OS feature of locking the Document A and then open that do what ever I want with that and then when I try to save it I am prompted to give it a new name. Because the original document is locked I can't save it.

I would think that the various flavours of Windows must have a similar feature.

[walt.farrell]

43 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

On the Mac I would use the OS feature of locking the Document A and then open that do what ever I want with that and then when I try to save it I am prompted to give it a new name. Because the original document is locked I can't save it.

I would think that the various flavours of Windows must have a similar feature.

Yes, on Windows you can mark a file as read-only.

I thought that Mac had an even better feature, though. Stationery, perhaps?

[Old Bruce]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I thought that Mac had an even better feature, though. Stationery, perhaps?

Stationary was a wonderful thing but it is crippled now from what it was when it was first introduced. Worse than useless now in my opinion. Oops, there goes my blood pressure. Think about laughing babies.... much better.

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Stationary was a wonderful thing but it is crippled now from what it was when it was first introduced.

How is it crippled now?

[Old Bruce]

Saves a copy then opens that. Used to be I could choose where to save my newly opened untitled document, now it is saved in the same folder as the Stationary item. There goes the pressure again.. 

[R C-R]

23 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Used to be I could choose where to save my newly opened untitled document, now it is saved in the same folder as the Stationary item.

The old behavior was a feature of the 'classic' Mac OS (like OS 8 & 9) that never made the transition to OS X. I think there was some obscure technical reason for that but I do not remember what it was.

Anyway, you can get almost the same as the old behavior by using the Lock option, the only difference being the default name for the "Save As..." step is the same as the Locked version.

[Eddie Aguirre]

For anyone who may have lots of InDesign Template files (.indt) that they'd like to move to Affinity Publisher, IDMarkz could be a viable solution to move those over. IDMarkz works with the Publisher v1.8 beta to convert the .indt files to IDML before opening in Publisher. Here's an 86 second video showing the process (the video shows the conversion through PDF, but if you have the Publisher v1.8 installed IDMarkz converts using IDML instead), IDMarkz Open In Affinity Publisher Feature.

Does anyone have an InDesign Template (.indt) that they'd like to have converted as a test/example?