Emilio Saliquet Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 I am a publisher and editorial designer. I've been working with In Design (before Quark X Press) for more than 20 years. Lately tried Affinity and bought the whole package, in order to replace adobe. Must say that every day gets better but I lack the possibility of creating books, in other words compilations of the single documents created separated in one only document, what in In Design is called indb formats (books). When designing magazines, normally we design each feature, reportage or editorial separately, but at the end is very helpful to create one single document, specially when the issue is finished, before print or digital publishing. Can I do that in Publisher, how? Also can I open indb formats (books)? I have tried with opening pdf´s but to does not keep a lot of things, like master pages, text boxes interconnections... Thanks for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulEC Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 Does this help? Merge documents From Affinity Publisher, you can add pages from documents to your current document. Affinity Publisher allows you to merge documents with your current document, adding all or just a selected number of specific pages at a location of your choosing within your document. This is extremely useful if you want to add a cover to a digital edition of a book, or for assembling book chapters. To merge documents: Do one of the following: From the Document menu, select Add Pages from File. Right click on a page from the Pages panel and select Add Pages from File. You will be prompted to locate the file you wish to merge. When you have selected your file, click Open. The Add Pages from File dialog will appear. From here, you can choose whether you wish to add all of the document's pages, or select a specific page or page range to merge. You can also select a location in your current document for the merged pages to be added to, or opt to overwrite existing pages in your document with the pages you are adding by selecting the Replace option. When you have filled in the options in the dialog, click OK. An additional Imported Text Styles dialog will appear. If master pages and text styles are identical between the two documents, then those of the current document are used (no duplicate pages or styles will be added). If master pages differ, the incoming master pages are imported and added and will still be assigned to pages as before. If text styles with the same name have different settings you can either overwrite the current document's text style or rename the incoming style. If there is a new text style then it will be added to the document. Quote Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz : 32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trichens Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 I'd really like to be able to link to other APub files - not merge - and although the merge process may perhaps work for a book, it doesn't work for me. I create matchday programmes for a local football club and I create each article as a separate APub file and then export as PDF. The final completed programme is assembled into a single APub file from the separate PDF files. Some pages like adverts don't have to be changed often, but others get changed for every programme I produce. For example a league table will change every issue, so I just remove the PDF for that page and drop in the new version. Page numbers exist only in the master pages for the combined file. I can then reorder pages or move things around as required, and apply or replace the required master page(s) for each section or page when I have finished. It seems to work OK; when we have matches rearranged I may have to produce three or four new issues in just ten days or so and the above allows me to do this quite quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emilio Saliquet Posted May 15, 2020 Author Share Posted May 15, 2020 Thanks Paul and Trichens for your comments. Ill try the merging mode, still I find more useful the books system, provide by In Design, I guess I will have to get use to. Have you tried importing Master pages from Indesign? Best Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Gibert Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 In our case we use indb for catalog production. Our typical catalog have around 11 product families, each a indesign file. Page numbering is coordinated by the indb file. This is important because it allows us for different people to work simultaneously on different families but getting the page numbering and styles coordinated. Merge is only a good option to reunite documents in a single one and then work only on that document, which is not a solution for a team edited project. The way indb works, means that we don't have to do nothing for each change in the independent documents. If we add pages in one document or modify styles, all documents are updated, which is pretty important. Merge is a do once, stay forever action and once done, the separate documents are no updated on the merged document unless you delete pages and re-merge again (And merge result will not go back to the original documents). I'd love to have this on Publisher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emilio Saliquet Posted June 16, 2020 Author Share Posted June 16, 2020 Thank you Daniel, fully agree with your comments. This funciona and the time line in Photo are two utilities I really miss. I keep working with affinity but when it comes to these always go back to Adobe. I Hope they take good note. Best Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan427 Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 The InDesign Book Function described by Emilio and Daniel ist the most important function for my work. As long this is not implemented in Affinity Publisher I am not able to switch from adobe to serif. Dear Affinity Team, do you plan to implement this function and if yes, when? Best Ryan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emilio Saliquet Posted March 17, 2021 Author Share Posted March 17, 2021 Totally agree, I´ve got the same problem, til book función is not available, i will have no time to switch and beleive me I tried a few months ago, but is too much work when you work on editorial publishing!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wessman Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 >>>The InDesign Book Function described by Emilio and Daniel ist the most important function for my work. This is my problem too, unfortunately. I've only started working with Affinity Publisher, published just one book with it so far, working with a single file because it was a relatively simple, small job, but realised in retrospect that it was the wrong way to work. Assumed a book function whereby you could add and rearrange individual files to make up a book would be a part of the software, until ... just a few minutes ago Misguided assumption lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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