Publisher to InDesign

[WilcoDesign]

Hi , After 10+ years I recently switched from Adobe to Affinity but my client is still working in Adobe and they want to use InDesign.
So my problem is how do I get my documents created in Affinity Publisher to Adobe InDesign?
I found a lot of questions about how to open InDesign files in Publisher but not the other way round.

If this is not possible (yet) I still need InDesign so my client can work with my files, and I really want to switch completely to the Affinity software.
There must be other people with the same problem.
I hope there is a way to do this, love the software

 

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @WilcoDesign.

You could export to PDF, and have them import the PDF into InDesign, but that is not a great approach.

Your best approach may be to continue using InDesign. (Though, alternatively, you could buy a redemption code from Serif and gift your client a copy of Publisher, so they could work with your .afpub file.)

[wonderings]

There is no clean simple solution that will let you swap files back and forth between Indesign and Publisher. If you need to work on the same files you really should stick with Indesign. Every time you export as an IDML file for your client they will have to check it over and make sure nothing has changed (you would need to provide a PDF so they can see what you have created). Then it goes right around again when they send you an IDML file and you import it into Publisher. Not efficient and not recommended, sounds like a massive headache. 

[WilcoDesign]

Thanks for both your responses, I hope this will be resolved in the future, until than I keep a CS6 copy of InDesign installed.
Will try to get them over to the Affinity software, I really like how all 3 programs are intergrated in one, saves more time than I expected.

[wonderings]

What type of work are you doing in Publisher/Indesign? While Publisher is ok, it is not Indesign replacement at the moment. I would be very cautious recommending anyone leave Indesign for Publisher in its current state. You are comparing software that has been refined over many years and is an industry standard to software in its first version. Affinity has done a great job, but it has a long way to go before it is an Indesign killer or even competitor in the pro world. 

[Joachim_L]

3 minutes ago, wonderings said:

is an industry standard to software in its first version

You mean the very first version of Indesign? When my boss gave this software to me to play with, I was sure he was playing a joke on me. In its very first iteration Indesign was a mess, more a pre-alpha than a stable product, far from being an industry standard. If Serif stays longer at the market, we will see a more "competitive" APublisher. Right now, APu is an Indesign replacement for me (apart from few areas where I still need Indesign).

[wonderings]

13 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

You mean the very first version of Indesign? When my boss gave this software to me to play with, I was sure he was playing a joke on me. In its very first iteration Indesign was a mess, more a pre-alpha than a stable product, far from being an industry standard. If Serif stays longer at the market, we will see a more "competitive" APublisher. Right now, APu is an Indesign replacement for me (apart from few areas where I still need Indesign).

No, comparing the current release of Indesign fo the current release of Publisher. I do agree, the longer Serif stays in and improves the better it will be, both for the software and for us the users. 

You say it is a replacement but it obviously isn't yet as you said there are a few areas where you still need Indesign. There are a few things that would keep me from even attempting to use Publisher on any live jobs, one of them is the way Publisher handles PDF's. It is a good app, but as you even said you still need Indesign. 

[Joachim_L]

You are right and my answer was not precise enough. 99% of my work I am doing with Affinity, the last 1% are PDF forms which are much quicker to do with Indesign.

[wonderings]

27 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

You are right and my answer was not precise enough. 99% of my work I am doing with Affinity, the last 1% are PDF forms which are much quicker to do with Indesign.

are you making fillable PDF forms in Indesign or importing PDF's into Indesign?

[WilcoDesign]

1 hour ago, wonderings said:

What type of work are you doing in Publisher/Indesign? While Publisher is ok, it is not Indesign replacement at the moment. I would be very cautious recommending anyone leave Indesign for Publisher in its current state. You are comparing software that has been refined over many years and is an industry standard to software in its first version. Affinity has done a great job, but it has a long way to go before it is an Indesign killer or even competitor in the pro world. 

Most of the work I use it for (when working with that particular client) are small brochures, so I dont need to collaborate with others or use very advanced features that only InDesign has.
But the main problem is preservation of the files, so they can still use my files when we quit working together.
There are many examples of file formats that can't be openned because of discontinued software.

[Joachim_L]

Fillable forms in Indesign. Making the form element in Indesign is much faster than doing this in Acrobat. Partially this works even with PDF from APu, when you let Acrobat automatically detect the form elements.

[wonderings]

3 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

Fillable forms in Indesign. Making the form element in Indesign is much faster than doing this in Acrobat. Partially this works even with PDF from APu, when you let Acrobat automatically detect the form elements.

I do not do a lot of fillable forms, but the few I do I setup the design in Indesign then move to Acrobat to finish the rest. Guess when it comes to forms my head just seems to think like Acrobat.