Affinity Designer 1.8.5.703 EMF and WMF export is broken

[mumbojumbo]

Hello developers,

Please fix broken EMF and WMF export in Affinity Designer 1.8.5.703 in Windows 10. The bug is there at least since 1.6 (that's when I started using AD). Bug is also present in Affinity Designer Customer Beta 1.9.0.864.

Steps to represent bug in EMF export:

1. Start Affinity Designer 1.8.5.703
2. Create New Document > Web > SVGA 800x600
3. Create grey circle 600x600 in the middle
4. Export file to Circle.EMF
5. Create new document in Word 2016 or 2019 (I cannot test in earlier versions)
6. Drag and drop Circle.EMF into Word document
   
7. Save Word docment as PDF using File > Save As > PDF
8. Resulting PDF should display grey circle, however there's nothing displayed in PDF (white space)!
   

Steps to represent bug in WMF export:

1. Start Affinity Designer 1.8.5.703
2. Create New Document > Web > SVGA 800x600
3. Create grey circle 600x600 in the middle
4. Export file to Circle.WMF
5. Create new document in Word 2016 or 2019 (I cannot test in earlier versions)
6. Drag and drop Circle.WMF into Word document
7. Expected Word should display grey circle. The circle is displayed but it is 1/2 smaller and has a lot of extra white space around it.
   
8. Save Word docment as PDF using File > Save As > PDF
9. Resulting PDF has grey circle but it is still small
   

Steps to represent  correct behavior when exporting to EMF/WMF using Inkscape 1.0:

1. Start Affinity Designer 1.8.5.703
2. Create New Document > Web > SVGA 800x600
3. Create grey circle 600x600 in the middle
4. Export file to Circle.SVG
5. Open Circle.SVG in Inkscape 1.0
6. Save Circle.SVG to Circle.EMF using Inkscape > File > Save As > Circle-Inkscape.EMF
7. Create new document in Word 2016 or 2019 (I cannot test in earlier versions)
8. Drag and drop Circle-Inkscape.EMF into Word document
9. Save Word docment as PDF using File > Save As > PDF
10. Resulting PDF shows grey circle correctly
    
11. Same accepts (works correctly) to WMF export using Inkscape 1.0

I'm attaching source files (.AFDESIGN, SVG, EMF, WMF) mentioned in steps to this post in 7z archive — Broken EMF-WMF Export Bug Report Source Files.7z

Black lives matter,

mumbojumbo

[Mithferion]

Just wondering, have you tried by copy & pasting your content from Affinity Designer to MS Word? When I need some graphics there, I simply do that and I don't have any issues.

If there is another requirement that needs the image to be in that exporte format, please ignore my suggestion.

Best regards!

[Sean P]

Hi Mumbojumbo,

Thanks for the post, however if an issue affects both retail and beta then just create a single post in the Non-Beta bugs forum and just make a comment that it affects the beta also. There is no need to create two identical threads.

However I would contact Microsoft regarding the issues as I don't believe they're a fault of our export. Whilst I could recreate the issue you was getting using your Word Document, I was unable to reproduce the issue on a new document using your EMF file - see attached video. That was exporting fine for me out of Word.

The WMF issue also looks to be another Microsoft one as dragging and dropping gives different behaviour over using Insert - again see attached video.

[mumbojumbo]

I can see you're using current version of Word 2019, I'll double-check EMF claim regarding 2019. My file was created using Word 2016 and there is EMF bug in this case. However I can assure you everything works correctly when using EMF generated using Inkscape and Word 2016. I also have tried opening Circle.EMF generated by AD in Inkscape and the file is just white space. So it's still better to look into EMF export, it's broken!

You are also completely wrong regarding WMF issue. I saved my circle from Circle.AFDESIGN to Circle.SVG using Addinity Designer 1.8.5 & 1.9.0, opened it in Inkscape 1.0 and saved to Circle-Inkscape.WMF. Circle-Inkscape.WMF works absolutely correctly when inserted in Word 2016, no extra white space. So WMF export is broken 100%!!!

I've added 3 files mentioned above [Circle-Inkscape.WMF; Document (Word 2016 with Circle-Inkscape.WMF).DOCX; Document (Word 2016 with Circle-Inkscape.WMF).PDF] to 7Z archive and re-upload it here as Broken EMF-WMF Export Bug Report Source Files (Updated).7z

Black lives matter,

mumbojumbo

[Joachim_L]

If an application offers an export to a file format, this file format has to work. This does not need to be discussed I think.

But is here anyone that aside from mumbojumbo uses WMF / EMF on a not-only-once-a-year-basis? If yes, what is the use case? I used WMF / EMF back in the early 90s for a short period and very quickly I educated our customers to refrain from these [//censored//] file formats. Perhaps Serif should concentrate to develop export / import options for more modern formats or even better fix / advance the current mainly used ones or those who have a future.

[mumbojumbo]

EMF is the only way to insert scalable vector object in Microsoft Office applications, especially (in my case) to Word and Excel. We heavily use this to provide company style templates for Word/Excel that would print flawlessly. Nobody can argue you should respect market share of Microsoft Office products and provide a proper compatibility with them. EMF is a really powerful file format for scalable images which is often overlooked by users. Only SVG is better.

Black lives matter,

mumbojumbo

[Patrick Connor]

We are having trouble replicating your exact problem, so I would ask you to try something. Please create a document with a transparent background (on the colour tab) and  see if the exported EMF does not have the white box that gets misinterpreted in Word, it may be the background.

[Joachim_L]

3 hours ago, mumbojumbo said:

We heavily use this to provide company style templates for Word/Excel that would print flawlessly

Thanks for your explanation. But why using it, when SVG is better? 🤔

[Jowday]

 

[Jowday]

Far, far from all programs support SVG. Especially software purchased years ago with a perpetual license licence you guys love so much. 😄

Back in the day that was the to go format in many workflows including software that pretty much used wmf/emf as the only vector or one of very few formats.

Also huge libraries of such files from the era exist in companies. Supporting them is key.

[mumbojumbo]

On 12/9/2020 at 9:50 PM, Joachim_L said:

Thanks for your explanation. But why using it, when SVG is better? 🤔

According to support article, Office 2016 SVG only works with paid Office 365 subscription - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/edit-svg-images-in-microsoft-office-365-69f29d39-194a-4072-8c35-dbe5e7ea528c?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us&fromar=1

On 12/9/2020 at 7:26 PM, Patrick Connor said:

We are having trouble replicating your exact problem, so I would ask you to try something. Please create a document with a transparent background (on the colour tab) and  see if the exported EMF does not have the white box that gets misinterpreted in Word, it may be the background.

I will double-test Office 2019 compatibility and report later today.

On 12/9/2020 at 10:37 PM, Jowday said:

Far, far from all programs support SVG. Especially software purchased years ago with a perpetual license licence you guys love so much. 😄

Back in the day that was the to go format in many workflows including software that pretty much used wmf/emf as the only vector or one of very few formats.

Also huge libraries of such files from the era exist in companies. Supporting them is key.

Correct! We also use EMF & WMF format for legacy engineering programs. Such programs are not going to be updated ever again to support SVG because developers are mostly in graves. The best thing about Windows computers is legacy support. This is very important to do business!

Black lives matter,

mumbojumbo

[mumbojumbo]

OK, I have double-tested the EMF bug in Microsoft Word 2019 and Excel 2019 16.0.13328.20128 without subscription and everything is fine. Office 2019 products do import SVG files as well, and no subscription is required.

So the issue appears to happen in Microsoft Office 2016.

However I had an opportunity to test EMF created with Affinity Designer latest customer beta 1.9.0.something in Adobe Illustrator CC 2021 25.0.0.60. And EMF appears to be broken:

Inkscape 1.1 beta (and 1.0 release) cannot read Affinity Designer-produced EMF file and display white page. However Inkscape reads Illustrator-produced EMF file perfectly. You should really stop moderating me because of my bug report! Or I will have to ask my money back . I'm attaching files for my bug report with this post in 7z archive.

Black lives matter,

mumbojumbo

EMF bug previewed in Adobe Illustrator CC 2021 25.0.0.60.7z

[Patrick Connor]

Your posts will continue to be moderated as long as you fail to keep to the forum guidelines. This latest post has had content unrelated to your report removed, and also some of the post before that was inappropriate and removed.

Moderating posts does not stop you getting support, it simply slows the time between you posting and them appearing. Many users are under permeant moderation for the same reason, and not for the spurious reason you gave. You can get a refund for any purchase in the last 14 days.

[Sean P]

19 hours ago, mumbojumbo said:

However I had an opportunity to test EMF created with Affinity Designer latest customer beta 1.9.0.something in Adobe Illustrator CC 2021 25.0.0.60. And EMF appears to be broken:

Inkscape 1.1 beta (and 1.0 release) cannot read Affinity Designer-produced EMF file and display white page.

Thanks for that - I've been able to reproduce that and will get it passed on, however we cannot give time scales on fixes as issues are not always easy or simple to fix. 

 

[Tim.Zhu]

yes,  I have same problem, I design graph in the Designer, then export WMF format, then insert to docx file, but some charactors disappeared. 

Affinity Designer version: 1.10.4

draw in Designer:

Then insert to docx, the image size not correct ,smaller

then resize the size, something disaapeared

 

Thanks.

[Tim.Zhu]

when can fix it? I cannt export wmf format, some texts and lines will be missing.