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Placing PDF File Will Interpret It


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Hi, I'm using Affinity Publisher both on Mac and Pc. I have this problem: when I want to place a PDF as if it was an image, Publisher tries to interpret it, and sometime it modifies its content. 

If I want to edit a PDF it is supposed to open it directly from the "Open File" function in the upper menu, or to edit it in Affinity Designer. Anyway this is not the point. The point is that if I only want to place a PDF as image, without editing it, I can't do it (I'm sorry, because I know that I'm comparing Affinity Publisher to Adobe InDesign). I'm working with PDFs made in other countries all around the word. They are edited in Word and exported into PDF. They use different languages and fonts, as arabic, chinese, or other. I've asked them to give me only PDFs, so that I will not have the need edit or modify them (without the need to install their fonts into my systems). 

When I was in Indesign I could place the PDF with foreign texts into my file and then export it to a PDF for the printer.

Now, with Publisher I can't, because it changes the appearing of the PDF, interpreting the content in a wrong way.

I attach here the original PDF, then the same file placed into Indesign and exported again into PDF, then the original file placed into Publisher and exported in PDF again, so that you can compare them. 

Am I doing something wrong in my pipeline? Is there a way to avoid this problem?

Thank you, Beniamino

pdf.jpg

File Placed Into Publisher and Exported again into PDF.pdf File Placed Into Indesign and Exported again into PDF.pdf Original File.pdf

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1 hour ago, Beniamino said:

Am I doing something wrong in my pipeline? Is there a way to avoid this problem?

You're not doing anything wrong; this is a limitation with Affinity. If you have installed all the fonts that are in use in the PDF, then often that will basically take care of the problem, though not entirely, and sometimes not without show-stopping errors.

Your other option would be to convert the PDF, either into a fixed image or by converting all text to curves. Either option will greatly increase the file size of the output file.

It is for good reason that you posted in the feedback part of the forum. What you are looking for is not currently available without suboptimal workarounds. Many people are talking about this limitation.

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3 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

You're not doing anything wrong; this is a limitation with Affinity. If you have installed all the fonts that are in use in the PDF, then often that will basically take care of the problem, though not entirely, and sometimes not without show-stopping errors.

Your other option would be to convert the PDF, either into a fixed image or by converting all text to curves. Either option will greatly increase the file size of the output file.

It is for good reason that you posted in the feedback part of the forum. What you are looking for is not currently available without suboptimal workarounds. Many people are talking about this limitation.

Thank you, now I know! Unfortunally I don't have the foreign fonts of the PDFs that I receive.
I'll have to stay in InDesign for this kind of works. Anyway, for all the other works, I've switched during the lockdown. And I'm very satisfied of Affinty.

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  • 3 months later...

There needs to PDF placing options to allow for Place as Image or Place as Open PDF. I like the ability to open and edit the PDF but I much prefer the ability to place it as a locked image only so it isn't 'destroyed'. I'm building presentations quite a bit at the moment and am placing PDFs sent to me with various fonts embedded. I place the PDF and ofcourse it become Lucida. Doh. The way around is to open the PDF in Preview and save eac page as a JPG.

An option on how the PDF is handled would be great. I put this forward a year or so ago when I first started using Affinity apps as it was a major issue than and remains so.

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11 minutes ago, JeremyTankard said:

There needs to PDF placing options to allow for Place as Image or Place as Open PDF. I like the ability to open and edit the PDF but I much prefer the ability to place it as a locked image only so it isn't 'destroyed'. I'm building presentations quite a bit at the moment and am placing PDFs sent to me with various fonts embedded. I place the PDF and ofcourse it become Lucida. Doh. The way around is to open the PDF in Preview and save eac page as a JPG.

An option on how the PDF is handled would be great. I put this forward a year or so ago when I first started using Affinity apps as it was a major issue than and remains so.

Yes, this is heavily frustrating.
The real workaround is to open each PDF into Inkscape (opensource) and use its internal Popples/Cairo interpreter. It never fails in my experience. Then you can export the file in SVG so it still remains a vector file.

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This is what stops Publisher being used in a professional environment. I really want to use it, I've paid for it, but simply cannot do what I need to do. So my money will unfortunately still be going to Adobe until Passthrough is implemented. 

In my opinion PDFs shouldn't be edited anyway. The whole point of PDF was to lock everything down so when it arrives at the printers there are no issues with missing fonts etc. Hence why its called 'Portable Document Format'. i.e. you can open it on anything and it will appear as it should. Now people start trying to edit them and all you get is issues with missing fonts etc. The document should be edited at source where all fonts, images etc are available to retain quality and control.

Still not sure why Affinity don't implement this as it can't be a licensing issue as it was standardised years ago. Hence why other apps have no issue with PDF passthrough. I'm sure they have their reasons but until Passthrough is implemented Publisher is sadly not an option for professional use.

I keep checking back when an update hits to see if it's been added... still nothing.

 

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9 minutes ago, Nazario said:

In my opinion PDFs shouldn't be edited anyway.

Unfortunately, as Serif recommend using PDF as a way of transferring projects from their old "legacy" software to Affinity, sometimes there isn't much choice!  🙁 

 

"you can open it on anything and it will appear as it should"

That would be nice, pity it doesn't always work, because Affinity apps don't support embedded fonts!

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Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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4 hours ago, PaulEC said:

"you can open it on anything and it will appear as it should"

That would be nice, pity it doesn't always work, because Affinity apps don't support embedded fonts!

Obviously I meant apps that treat the PDF as it was meant to be treated. i.e. honour embedded fonts etc. This was all fine until some bright spark thought 'hey lets allow editing' and other developers didn't want to be left behind on feature set. Now its just a big bag of hurt again and a new 'PDF' format is required that can't be messed with so we're back where we started sending fonts and images back and forth.

As a publisher, if a client sends you artwork you want to know for sure that the file is exactly as they intended it to look. I can open a PDF in publisher and it may look 'ok' but you have no idea that its different to what the client intended. If you send the file back to the client it will look fine for them as they have the fonts installed so they will say yes the proof looks great. You then send off the file to print and the next thing you have is a client refusing to pay because the artwork they sent is not correct.

You can't convert to paths/TIFF if the font is not honoured. Its daft that you need Acrobat to do it which means you still have a subscription with Adobe and so you may as well stick with Adobe.

 

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  • 4 months later...

Is there still no proper solution to this?
It;s becoming a real pain especially having to buy postage online, download a PDF label to print out and stick. So placing the PDF in Publisher in order to crop and position for a sticky label results in major reflow of the official label. I don't know who to contact at the postal company in order for them to supply their fonts to me (sounds illegal). And placing an image is OK but another step in the process and can reduce bar code quality.

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This problem seems to be solved in the next versions of Publisher (you can try the beta for free). They have done the PDF passthrough (the same that happen when using InDesign), which works well. I'm waiting for the beta to become an official version because I really need this feature.

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3 hours ago, JeremyTankard said:

It;s becoming a real pain especially having to buy postage online, download a PDF label to print out and stick. So placing the PDF in Publisher in order to crop and position for a sticky label results in major reflow of the official label. I don't know who to contact at the postal company in order for them to supply their fonts to me (sounds illegal). And placing an image is OK but another step in the process and can reduce bar code quality.

I do quite a lot of printing of postage labels, but I never would have thought to pass them through a layout program like Publisher. That sounds like a lot of extra work (perhaps only a little per label, but it adds up if you have to do it for every label). I assume you must have some fancy design into which you are putting the label, for that "extra mile" look?

Anyway, this problem is indeed being addressed, and you can test it out for yourself if you download the latest 1.9 betas.

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41 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

I do quite a lot of printing of postage labels, but I never would have thought to pass them through a layout program like Publisher. That sounds like a lot of extra work (perhaps only a little per label, but it adds up if you have to do it for every label). I assume you must have some fancy design into which you are putting the label, for that "extra mile" look?

Anyway, this problem is indeed being addressed, and you can test it out for yourself if you download the latest 1.9 betas.

Sounds like he is positioning the indicia/postage label on a label sheet, may even be positioning it for an already kiss cut label, so manual imposition works here. Nothing fancy about it, just maximizes what you get out of a sheet.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/7/2021 at 2:39 PM, garrettm30 said:

I do quite a lot of printing of postage labels, but I never would have thought to pass them through a layout program like Publisher. That sounds like a lot of extra work (perhaps only a little per label, but it adds up if you have to do it for every label). I assume you must have some fancy design into which you are putting the label, for that "extra mile" look?

Anyway, this problem is indeed being addressed, and you can test it out for yourself if you download the latest 1.9 betas.

I know it sounds daft. But the online postage from Royal Mail is an A4 PDF. I only need the top two A6 elements (the label and the customs form) to print on a 4up A4 label sheet. One option is to drop it onto my label templates (I have various templates set up for labelling). The option currently is to open it in Preview draw a white box over the bits I don't want to print and print it from Preview.
 

But more importantly I place PDFs in Publisher quite a lot and if that PDF contains any typographic OpenType styling  (small caps, fractions, swashes . . .) then these are lost.

Will take a look at the 1.9 betas :)

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