Publisher and placing PDFs

[rongittings]

I have some tables sent to me for inclusion in a document that I'm preparing, the sender has sent them to me as PDFs. When saved they are good and all of the text and numbers is contained within the boxes. However, when I try and place them in my document some of the words and text flow over two boxes. Why is this and how do I stop it happening?

 

 

 

 

[Catshill]

It could be Affinity’s lack of pdf pass through. My workaround is to covert imported PDFs to png .

[rongittings]

Thanks, that's something I'm not familiar with. How would it work?

[AlanPickup]

If you use the image tool instead of place it puts an "image" of the pdf in publisher, I have used this when I have not had the fonts in the pdf.

[walt.farrell]

23 minutes ago, AlanPickup said:

If you use the image tool instead of place it puts an "image" of the pdf in publisher, I have used this when I have not had the fonts in the pdf.

Not in my experience, Alan. File > Place and the Place Image Tool operate identically on PDF (and other) document types.

[rongittings]

This is actually quite frustrating.

Firstly I just can't understand why a program as sophisticated as Publisher just won't 'import' a PDF document without altering it, annoyingly it only alters some 'imports' and not all of them. I have found that by 'opening' a PDF document and checking the box that enables some editing the problem can be resolved to a certain degree, although when editing the text within the boxes it still does really strange things that I can't alter. Once I've got the table to be as good as I can get it, again it's never perfect, and saving it as a JPG, I can then place it where I want it. It does work but it's very long winded and the result is never really as good as the original PDF.

I seem to remember that there was never this problem until Version 8 was launched, I think that Serif have got this update seriously wrong as it's not the first problem I've encountered that has required a lot of unnecessary work to produce a good result.

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

 

[Dan C]

Hi rongittings

1 hour ago, rongittings said:

Firstly I just can't understand why a program as sophisticated as Publisher just won't 'import' a PDF document without altering it, annoyingly it only alters some 'imports' and not all of them.

Unfortunately PDF 'Passthrough' is relatively difficult to add to the Affinity apps due to our file structure - we're working on this feature as we're aware many users are awaiting this, but we have not provided any guarantees here currently, my apologies.

1 hour ago, rongittings said:

I seem to remember that there was never this problem until Version 8 was launched, I think that Serif have got this update seriously wrong as it's not the first problem I've encountered that has required a lot of unnecessary work to produce a good result.

In regards to version 1.8, the main changes to our PDF importer were bug fixes for specific documents, so this update should not provide any different results from importing the same PDF into version 1.7.3 - however we are aware that specific styles and layouts for PDFs are less than ideal and we're still working hard to improve this.

I suspect the issue you're encountering is specific to the PDF document, however I cannot confirm this without seeing the file, could you please provide a copy of the PDF you're importing?

Many thanks in advance!

[Catshill]

To convert PDFs for use in Affinity software I use pdf2png which is freeware.

[rongittings]

Thank you for that insight. I have 11 of these PDF pages that I want to put in a document, 1 has imported correctly, the others haven't. The fault is always the same, the text in column 5 crosses into column 4:

[AlanPickup]

21 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Not in my experience, Alan. File > Place and the Place Image Tool operate identically on PDF (and other) document types.

Thanks Walt for the correction 

Just remembered I printed the pdfs using Microsoft print to pdf before placing. As all pdfs I have in my files for use in newsletters etc had already been done this way for those where I do not have the resources like fonts etc., I forgot this part of the process before testing using the image tool to reply to the posting.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, AlanPickup said:

Just remembered I printed the pdfs using Microsoft print to pdf before placing. As all pdfs I have in my files for use in newsletters etc had already been done this way for those where I do not have the resources like fonts etc., I forgot this part of the process before testing using the image tool to reply to the posting.

Thanks for the explanation, Alan.

[Dan C]

Thanks for your screenshot, I can certainly see this issue and I apologise for the inconveniences caused.

Can you possibly upload a sample PDF that doesn't import correctly, so I can forward this to our development team?

[wonderings]

On 3/14/2020 at 8:54 AM, rongittings said:

This is actually quite frustrating.

Firstly I just can't understand why a program as sophisticated as Publisher just won't 'import' a PDF document without altering it, annoyingly it only alters some 'imports' and not all of them. I have found that by 'opening' a PDF document and checking the box that enables some editing the problem can be resolved to a certain degree, although when editing the text within the boxes it still does really strange things that I can't alter. Once I've got the table to be as good as I can get it, again it's never perfect, and saving it as a JPG, I can then place it where I want it. It does work but it's very long winded and the result is never really as good as the original PDF.

I seem to remember that there was never this problem until Version 8 was launched, I think that Serif have got this update seriously wrong as it's not the first problem I've encountered that has required a lot of unnecessary work to produce a good result.

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

 

This problem, though I think they call it a feature, has been around since the beta before release. It makes the program completely unusable for anything with PDF placements in my opinion as I could never trust it and who knows what could be missed when looking it over to find its problems. 

If you have Acrobat Pro you could outline all fonts which should then in turn let you place the file safely in Publisher and keep the outlined text vector. In Acrobat Pro (latest release) you go to "Print Production" and in there "Preflight" Select "Convert Fonts to Outline". You can overwrite the original file or resave. Once this is done you have a PDF with no fonts and again should have no issues (where fonts are concerned) when placing in Publisher. 

Personally not something I would do for a job but if you are set on using Publisher in its current state it will get you through.