Compatibility with Page Plus

[grahamm7]

I realised that most of Serif apps such as Page Plus, Draw Plus, Movie Plus that I use are now legacy products superceeded by Affinity products.  So I have just purchased Affinity Publisher.  But it doesn't seem to have any compatibility with Page Plus (latest).  I thought at least I could import my Page Plus documents?  It seems to import Adobe stuff.  Does this mean that I can't pull my Page Plus files into Affinity Publisher

[Move Along People]

-

[Patrick Connor]

@grahamm7

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums  

There is quite a comprehensive discussion on this topic here, and this and many others have been tagged "PagePlus". To save a lot of reading, haakoo has already given you the best work around.

[grahamm7]

I see all the Serif users have posted about the lack of import or compatibiity between Serif Page Plus and Affinity Publisher.  I stuck with Serif Page Plus for DTP.  As I have Office 365 I have MS Publisher.  So I think I will change over to MS Publisher . MS will probably at least have an import or compatibility between files.  So OK I have just wasted £23.99.  And I will increase my cynacism about Software Companies.  You also have no plans to move Movie Plus forward etc.  So I think my years with Serif are coming to an end.  It is not just the finacial cost but all the learning one has invested.  

[Patrick Connor]

4 minutes ago, grahamm7 said:

So OK I have just wasted £23.99

Well, as you bought from the Affinity store you have 14 days to try it, as explained in the order email. If this does not suit your needs simply email AffinityReturn@serif.com before that ends for a full refund.

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, grahamm7 said:

As I have Office 365 I have MS Publisher.  So I think I will change over to MS Publisher . MS will probably at least have an import or compatibility between files.

Though I do not use MS Publisher, and thus do not know for sure, I would be very surprised if MS Publisher could import your PagePlus files. You either need to stay with PagePlus if you need to work on those projects, or perform some kind of migration of them in order to use them with MS Publisher. The migration is likely the same in either case, assuming that MS Publisher can open PDF files like Affinity Publisher can.

As for learning curve, you'll also have one switching from PagePlus to MS Publisher.

[grahamm7]

I am going to have a learning curve whether I go from Serif Page Plus to Affinity Publisher or Serif Page Plus to MS Publisher.  I am not a large user of DTP but have self-published 2 books using Page Plus.  I don't see why Serif made this quantum leap to Affinity.  Maybe to satisfy Apple Mac usage who knows.  But I am not happy that what ever I do I am now having to learn - get used to new packages.  So I will have to make my decision but I don't think it will be Affinity.  

[PaulEC]

By far the easiest thing to do (like myself and, I suspect, many others) is to move over to Affinity Publisher for new projects, but keep PagePlus for editing old projects and for things like Mail Merge which aren't (yet) available in APub.

I can assure you that APub is MUCH better for serious DTP than MS Publisher!

[R C-R]

On 4/7/2020 at 1:48 PM, grahamm7 said:

I don't see why Serif made this quantum leap to Affinity.

That has been explained many times in many places but the short version is they wanted to:

• start with a clean slate, designed from the ground up to be
• as efficient as possible,
• run on multiple platforms,
  &
• to use a common "native" file format that all the Affinity apps could open & edit without conversion of loss of data.

It was revealed in the Affinity Live 2019 Keynote event that introduced StudioLink that at about 27:30 in the video the Affinity name was chosen to suggest the affinity the apps in the suite have for each other.