Text Is Not Editable in Affinity Photo PSD Export

[John-B]

When I export a document in Affinity Photo in PSD format, text layers are no longer editable.Text layers are not exported as text at all, they get converted to pixel layers. It makes no difference if I select "preserve accuracy" or "preserve edibility." Is there any way to export to PSD while maintaining editable text layers?

[Alfred]

11 minutes ago, John-B said:

Is there any way to export to PSD while maintaining editable text layers?

Unfortunately not. The Affinity apps can optionally import PSD text as editable text, but there is currently no such option when exporting to PSD format.

[sebdub]

I am also waiting for this function (since 2018), unfortunately I think it will never happen

[John-B]

On 1/12/2021 at 11:30 AM, Alfred said:

Unfortunately not. The Affinity apps can optionally import PSD text as editable text, but there is currently no such option when exporting to PSD format.

That makes it a bit challenging to exchange files with PS users. Seems like if editable text can be imported, there'd be no reason it could not be exported. Maybe it's a copyright issue, PS's file format is proprietary?

[lacerto]

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[Alfred]

8 hours ago, John-B said:

That makes it a bit challenging to exchange files with PS users. Seems like if editable text can be imported, there'd be no reason it could not be exported. Maybe it's a copyright issue, PS's file format is proprietary?

It seems to be a text composition issue.

It’s tempting to think that something would be better than nothing, and that we should therefore be offered an option to export uncomposed text, but that might not give us text output that’s reasonable to work with.

The only answer at present is to choose a different export format such as SVG, PDF, or EPS.

[John-B]

4 hours ago, Alfred said:

The only answer at present is to choose a different export format such as SVG, PDF, or EPS.

Are you saying I can export in one of those formats, then open in Photoshop and be able to edit the text?

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[Alfred]

11 minutes ago, John-B said:

Are you saying I can export in one of those formats, then open in Photoshop and be able to edit the text?

I only have an old version of Photoshop Elements, and I’m not sure whether even a recent full version of Photoshop can read the  SVG format, but as far as I’m aware you should be able to open PDF or EPS files and edit any text contained therein.

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[Alfred]

Just now, Lagarto said:

Text in PDF will become rasterized when opened in Photoshop 22.1.1.

That’s bad news — and quite surprising, too!

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[John-B]

23 hours ago, Lagarto said:

The best interchange of compositional information seems to happen when opening a Xara exported PSD file in Photoshop:

Looks like Xara is an subscription-based online graphics app. Are you suggesting using Xara as a go between? That is, subscribing to another app to translate Affinity Photo files?  A $12.95 per month subscription doesn't seem like a great solution. Or are you suggesting using Xara instead of AP? That's not an option for me, as I don't use subscription-based apps.

As far as I'm concerned, formatting is not as important as edibility. Even if all formatting is lost, it would at least save the time of re-entering all the text, which is time consuming and error prone.

[lacerto]

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