IDML export

[uburoibob]

Long time Adobe user, I am in the trial period with the Affinity Suite. Liking it so far, but still trying to learn how to do things that InDesign can do. So, since my clients are using InDesign, for those rare times we have to exchange files, yes, an IDML export feature would be great.

[BobPublisher]

I would never trust the interoperability of different apps. Even Powerpoint and Keynote - rather simple compared to the exactness of DTP and very long in the market, will not ever produce reliable results when used together. So - even if I long for IDML export for publisher - I doubt if this will help in critical (=professional) circumstances.

I wonder if anyone has experience with the availability and willingness to use publisher on the publisher/printer side. Is flexibility growing on their side? It might even be more economical to spend them an license. 

[TomFish]

+1 for idml export. This is essential for me, as all my clients use InDesign and expect Indd or Idml files in return. I am editor and in the middle of the production process, so I get Adode files and need to hand these edited over to the final layout. Not able to provide these means Affinity is not an alternative for me. 

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, TomFish said:

+1 for idml export. This is essential for me, as all my clients use InDesign and expect Indd or Idml files in return. I am editor and in the middle of the production process, so I get Adode files and need to hand these edited over to the final layout. Not able to provide these means Affinity is not an alternative for me. 

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

In your situation, it is not obvious that using anything except InDesign would ever be satisfactory, even if Affinity provided IDML export. There would be no guarantee that Affinity provided all the functions of InDesign, or implemented all of them identically. If you were to use Affinity, and export IDM files, and give those to your clients, they might find areas that didn't transfer correctly.

Additionally, Affinity might implement some new functions that InDesign does not provide, and you might use them. Again, your clients would need to rework the files.

[ssssct]

+1 for idml export.

[Colin_Fredericks]

Yet another +1 for IDML export.

I am currently, as in right now, today, in the position of having created a file in Affinity Publisher and needing to entirely rebuild it in InDesign for a colleague. It's not a complex file. Honestly, all I need are the paragraph styles and character styles. But there's just no way to do it right now, which means creating things in Affinity has become a pain point for my operation.

[loukash]

11 hours ago, Colin_Fredericks said:

all I need are the paragraph styles and character styles.

Copy as text selection (not the frame) in Publisher, paste as rich text into an InDesign text frame. The style definitions may need to be cleaned up a bit, but the gros will be there.

[wonderings]

On 3/16/2021 at 3:48 AM, TomFish said:

+1 for idml export. This is essential for me, as all my clients use InDesign and expect Indd or Idml files in return. I am editor and in the middle of the production process, so I get Adode files and need to hand these edited over to the final layout. Not able to provide these means Affinity is not an alternative for me. 

If collaboration with those using Adobe is essential  to you then Affinity is not for you. All you are asking for is trouble if you are looking for any software to work with Indesign files. I can't see production being down because of a bad file that looked ok in Indesign but did something weird in Publisher and you are now trying to fix it. This seems to be missed by so many people asking for this. It sounds like people want Indesign but are not willing to pay for Indesign so are hoping someone will make a cheap version. Publisher is feature rich and an amazing product for the price but it is not Indesign or handle Indesign files (IDML) perfectly. I have done tests with simple business cards with placed PSD files and .AI files in an INDML file. Opened in Publisher and it was a mess. Not sure why anyone would want to go down this route of trying to work side by side with Indesign. I can see changing over and thus reworking files as needed, but never working back and forth with Indesign users while trying to keep using Publisher. 

[Petar Petrenko]

On 3/16/2021 at 8:48 AM, TomFish said:

+1 for idml export. This is essential for me, as all my clients use InDesign and expect Indd or Idml files in return. I am editor and in the middle of the production process, so I get Adode files and need to hand these edited over to the final layout. Not able to provide these means Affinity is not an alternative for me. 

Use IDML files only to convert ID files into Publisher ones and continue your work in Publisher. If you need to colaborate with ID users -- use ID only to avoid any problems.

[Colin_Fredericks]

2 hours ago, loukash said:

Copy as text selection (not the frame) in Publisher, paste as rich text into an InDesign text frame. The style definitions may need to be cleaned up a bit, but the gros will be there.

I regret to inform you that this does not work. Both "Paste" and "Paste in place" give me unformatted text, and all other Paste-related menu options are greyed out.

 

As for Wonderings and Petar, sorry, no.  Not sure why you felt the need to post in this thread at all if what you're here for is to tell people not to use the product.

 

 

[Petar Petrenko]

1 minute ago, Colin_Fredericks said:

As for Wonderings and Petar, sorry, no.  Not sure why you felt the need to post in this thread at all if what you're here for is to tell people not to use the product.

??????

[loukash]

3 minutes ago, Colin_Fredericks said:

this does not work. Both "Paste" and "Paste in place" give me unformatted text

This is dependent on an InDesign preference option. Don't know how they call it in the English localization, so here's a screenshot from the German version. You'll figure it out:

 

[loukash]

4 minutes ago, Colin_Fredericks said:

why you felt the need to post in this thread at all if what you're here for is to tell people not to use the product

Probably because they are not apologists?

Use the tool that does the job best for you, if you need it now.
Perhaps Serif may implement some extended export options eventually, but you better don't hold your breath that it will happen anytime soon.
Having an IDML import option is already miraculous*) enough!

*) Frankly, likely not really since IDML is human readable XML tag structure. I don't think there's much reverse engineering necessary, if at all. All they likely had to do is to translate the plain text instructions and coordinates to the internal Affinity functions, if available, and ignore instructions that are not available.

[wonderings]

6 hours ago, Colin_Fredericks said:

I regret to inform you that this does not work. Both "Paste" and "Paste in place" give me unformatted text, and all other Paste-related menu options are greyed out.

 

As for Wonderings and Petar, sorry, no.  Not sure why you felt the need to post in this thread at all if what you're here for is to tell people not to use the product.

 

 

I would say it would not be a good idea to be collaborating with a team and using different software than they are. This is not a knock against Affinity, it really is a logical approach and will make life much easier then constantly fixing back and forth when Indesign opens the saved IDML file from Publisher and when Publisher then opens the IDML file saved from Indesign. It makes no sense if you truly do want to work on projects collaboratively. I speak highly of the 3 apps Affinity has made, they are an amazing value and feature rich. I would not replace Adobe with them yet but they are off to a great start. 

[Aphelon]

On 3/16/2021 at 1:33 PM, walt.farrell said:

There would be no guarantee that Affinity provided all the functions of InDesign, or implemented all of them identically.

The same counts for newer InDesign projects that are opened in older Versions of InDesign via idml export. It works rather well, because the idml-Format actually isn't that complicated...

[uburoibob]

I'd say even if it got close, it could save hours. To get a project from Affinity and a PDF indicating what it's supposed to look like, via IDML imported into ID, I'd think that one would be a LOT closer to being able to use the file with some tweaks for whatever isn't looking right. Yeah, there may be some issues with the more obscure and specialized ID functions, but for most things, it'd be a handy tool.

[Mark Oehlschlager]

@wonderings is correct to say that it's a bad idea for two parties involved in a collaborative engagement (sharing files back and forth) to use different software. It would be awkward and inefficient to have to repair details in the file translations.

On the other hand, @uburoibob is correct to point out that an IDML export that correctly translates 99% of a Publisher file to InDesign, supplemented by a PDF proof, would be a welcome time saver for those who need to convert a Publisher file, and would remove a barrier for those prospective customers who would like to move to Affinity but are afraid of not being able to share their work outside of an Affinity workflow.

Really, there's no good argument against Affinity developing, or licensing a good IDML export engine.

[emarillo]

24 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

Really, there's no good argument against Affinity developing, or licensing a good IDML export engine.

I totally agree.

[garrettm30]

26 minutes ago, Mark Oehlschlager said:

Really, there's no good argument against Affinity developing, or licensing a good IDML export engine.

I think the only main argument against it is just the enormous development time, that, at this point anyway, might need to be devoted to other weaknesses in the software.

[uburoibob]

36 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

I think the only main argument against it is just the enormous development time, that, at this point anyway, might need to be devoted to other weaknesses in the software.

A fair argument. I'd say that the success of the overall product will increase as Adobe continues to raise its subscriptions rates and people are looking for an alternative that can provide them an affordable way to edit older ID projects and deliver current ID projects that can continue to be worked on by ID users. I bought it with that idea in mind. And I am learning the Affinity way of doing things slowly. One thing I'd LOVE to be able to do is limit the infinite pasteboard. I spend way too much time trying to wrangle that with my Magic Mouse 2 and scrolling. But that's a topic for a different thread.

[Grga]

+1 for idml export.

[m.vlad]

On 4/1/2021 at 5:51 PM, garrettm30 said:

I think the only main argument against it is just the enormous development time, that, at this point anyway, might need to be devoted to other weaknesses in the software.

For a publishing app that most likely needs the entire creative flow to use the same app at the moment, I would say interoperability between the two platforms is definitely the biggest flaw with Publisher at the moment.

[Tom Jung]

Hello, we produce a PIM system which exports and updates print products from a database. For this process we need the ability to attach data to an idml file. A one way tooling (only import) is not sufficient for this process, because layout documents has to be updated after creation and modification by a designer. Therefore, a usage of Affinity Publisher is only possible if im- and exports works

.

+1 for idml export

[collinsworth]

+1 for IDML export. I freelance for clients who only have access to Adobe. Affinity has such good cross-format support that I just assumed I could share Affinity Publisher files with those clients, and put several hours into a project before realizing this is, disappointingly, not the case. I'm not sure how else I could build templates for my clients in a way that's compatible.

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, collinsworth said:

+1 for IDML export. I freelance for clients who only have access to Adobe. Affinity has such good cross-format support that I just assumed I could share Affinity Publisher files with those clients, and put several hours into a project before realizing this is, disappointingly, not the case. I'm not sure how else I could build templates for my clients in a way that's compatible.

If your clients use InDesign, you should also use InDesign. Else convince them to use APub. But if you attempt to convince them to use APub, be prepared to find a new client.