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iPad editing of linked docs in Publisher


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I'm using Publisher to compose a graphic novel. So, my pages are a series of panels that contain linked files, usually originally created in Designer. Previously, I was trying to lay out the book as a series of artboards in Designer, so this is a huge improvement, especially because I am pulling in existing, highly worked documents built in programs better for the kinds of creative work a graphic novel is.

But what makes a very big difference is to overlay a paint layer (shading and colouring of panels), and that is best done on the iPad. I will generally create a Publisher document for the spread I'm on, so I can easily link it and get the updates flowing through to the master document: When I want to edit these single-spread documents, I'd like to do those overlays in Photo. But I can't choose "edit in Photo" and have that happen on the iPad.

What I can do is edit in Photo, and then share with the iPad via airdrop, make my edits, and then share it back. I can then open it as a new file in Publisher, then save that over the original single spread publisher file. But that's a bit crazy. Why can't I at least, when selecting "edit in Photo", have a "open on iPad" which allows me to select an iPad, then an app, and cut out at least that?

It's obvious that there's a great workflow waiting to happen, and the apple pencil and iPad are just miles ahead of my Wacom tablet – it's why I bought it, and getting the Affinity products as full status editors is amazing. (as an aside, Publisher is the one app I don't want to use on the iPad, unless a much bigger version arrives). 

If my mac was more recent, I could use Sidecar to deal with this, I can see that. But I often want to do this work where I don't want to bring my laptop (I'm pretty mobile). So that's no a universal solution at all.

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3 hours ago, urbanistica said:

But I can't choose "edit in Photo" and have that happen on the iPad.

If you save you afpub file on iCloud, you can open the publisher file in iPad, makes edits, save, close then reopen the file on the desktop. No need to use desktop photo to edit then share to iPad.  If that what you want to do?

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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I'm trying to figure this out... I can do that

On 6/9/2020 at 3:21 PM, DM1 said:

If you save you afpub file on iCloud, you can open the publisher file in iPad, makes edits, save, close then reopen the file on the desktop. No need to use desktop photo to edit then share to iPad.  If that what you want to do?

SO, the problem seems to be that iPad apps are rasterizing linked files that are part of the afpub file. These images show what I'm seeing... First, a section of the original Publisher file. The blue tables and the books are separated: the tables and their linework are vectors in the actual file:

1853394076_ScreenShot2020-06-13at9_48_41PM.png.1207f17e9d58945dbac469f2b8d3ee80.png

 

944318538_ScreenShot2020-06-13at9_27_51PM.png.bd8d0a0ac4b4ead06605293c35344bf7.png

This one is the same file, open in Designer on Mac (file is saved on iCloud)

944318538_ScreenShot2020-06-13at9_27_51PM.png.bd8d0a0ac4b4ead06605293c35344bf7.png

Here's the same section of the same file, open in Designer on iPad. Notice that the blue table is rendering as vector, because those shapes were placed in the file, but the books on the table, which are also pure vectors in an afpub file linked in to the original afpub master file, are rasterized.

IMG_AEEED0C36F98-1.thumb.jpeg.124b1c432cb730e8181dabb569fe3243.jpeg

Here's the same file, opened from iCloud on the iPad in Photo. Now the vectors that are in the tables are also rasterized, at a different resolution from the books.

IMG_21F3EA317F00-1.thumb.jpeg.66cd790d55a220b2813592915c1bf236.jpeg

Here's the same file again, opened in Photo on Mac. The rasterization resolution is the same for both the table and the books.

529445538_ScreenShot2020-06-13at9_44_19PM.png.431e9eae3ad8e644eba5e8e5b2b1ab81.png

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on reflection, I could just put all the composite files into the afpub file for the single page or spread. There are some advantages to keeping them linked that I'll lose, and it seems like this should work. Here's what happens when I change one of the files to embedded, and open it from iCloud in Designer.IMG_EAAF06A8A4D7-1.thumb.jpeg.aead4cec03f09dd0c3448d8f039f38ad.jpeg The comparison to the other components makes it clear: the problem is with linked files... at least if Designer and Photo on iPad had some way to relink, this might be manageable... I think they're going to have to deal with that as a feature.

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Interesting, maybe mods can explain why.
Hopefully publisher will be released for iPad this year. It will be interesting to see if the issue will persist given all affinity file type formats are the same, (ie. files and apps are interchangeable) though it seems the iPad currently doesn’t know how to handle files 'linked' to a Publisher doc.

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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On reflection, I think this should be treated as a bug, so I posted in Photo Bugs on iPad: 

As far as Publisher on iPad goes – I don't see that as a solution. As much as I love the iPad with Affinity apps, large screen, reduced need for pencil/gesture interaction, and the dependence on a full-status filesystem seem to be basic needs in Page layout, especially at book scale. I absolutely admire the matching feature set between platforms for Designer and Photo, and after initially dislking it, I've made a comfortable transition to Designer on iPad. But I think that trying to make all features match for that task across platforms would simply hurt the desktop. 

Affinity has an understandable but unfortunate tendency to omit important features that their Adobe correspondents have. If there was a real commitment to allowing a developer community to create full status add ons and extensions, that would be one thing. But I would really rather see their development roadmap actually followthrough on the many basic features (proper warping and distortion for vectors, for example: object morphing) that are missing than chase quixotic platform equality.

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2 hours ago, urbanistica said:

But I would really rather see their development roadmap actually followthrough on the many basic features (proper warping and distortion for vectors, for example: object morphing) that are missing than chase quixotic platform equality.

I understand your viewpoint (and agree for pro users), personally I ditched desktop pc long ago, so the more affinity can add to iPad the more I like it. I look forward to Publisher on iPad, preferably with few limitations. Hurry up Affinity! 😀

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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