how can I export from affinity publisher to indesign

[Old Bruce]

IDML was (and still is) designed by Adobe to work with InDesign. At any time Adobe can change the IDML format.

If you do not want your work to be locked into proprietary file formats you would be best served using .TXT, .RTF, .HTML, .TIFF, .SVG. Those are open and documented.

[MikeW]

1 minute ago, Old Bruce said:

IDML was (and still is) designed by Adobe to work with InDesign. At any time Adobe can change the IDML format.

If you do not want your work to be locked into proprietary file formats you would be best served using .TXT, .RTF, .HTML, .TIFF, .SVG. Those are open and documented.

Adobe may, and does, add to the .idml spec, but to my knowledge does not (has not) taken parts of the spec out. Further, they (Adobe) generally have enabled newer features to gracefully degrade (be skipped if there is no correlation) when an .idml is opened in older versions of ID.

I believe this is all that is being asked for. This ability is a good thing for several reasons. It would simply be Serif playing nice with others...

[AaronShep]

48 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

IDML was (and still is) designed by Adobe to work with InDesign. At any time Adobe can change the IDML format.

If you do not want your work to be locked into proprietary file formats you would be best served using .TXT, .RTF, .HTML, .TIFF, .SVG. Those are open and documented.

I agree it's not ideal, and it does concern me. But it's still more than Publisher allows.

As for those other formats, try laying out commercial publications in any of them. I don't do this as a hobby.

[Leaving-Adobe]

Do Affinity's programmers / deciders really think that Adobe would alter its .idml-specs as soon as Publisher is able to export into it? And even if they did: Isn't the hassle to adapt to eventual changes in .idml worth it - comparing to the trouble we professionals have NOT BEING ABLE AT ALL to share our work with the rest of the world who still mayorily uses Indesign? Isn't that ignoring facts? To let us Publisher fans force or at least convince service providers or collegues to "also buy, install and learn" Affinity isn't nice. To say "Well then you're better off staying with Adobe"s subscription trap hell, neither.

To be honest: I just realice Affinity Publisher is a dead end road concerning colaboation – i would have never though that and it annoys and saddens me.

😞 Sebastian

[Leaving-Adobe]

It's already embarassing to ask my service provider "Sorry dude, my Affinity Publisher could read your kindly provided .idml file but isn't able to export one. Could you please use this and that (add on / work around etc.) in order to..."

But even if we were willing to handle that problem by passing it to our partners: the 200$ Converter mentioned here is discontinued. Why could that be? Am I one of just a few publisher fans that isn't working in a "affinity bubble" but rather trying to CONVINCE the de facto Adobe users to also swop to Affinity. How could I convince them if they are not even able to have a look on my work?!

Could someone responsible pls. explain again, why exactly it is not affordable to invest in an export option that writes the currently (!) used .idml standard?

[AaronShep]

6 hours ago, Leaving-Adobe said:

IBut even if we were willing to handle that problem by passing it to our partners: the 200$ Converter mentioned here is discontinued. Why could that be? Am I one of just a few publisher fans that isn't working in a "affinity bubble" but rather trying to CONVINCE the de facto Adobe users to also swop to Affinity. How could I convince them if they are not even able to have a look on my work?!

 

The converter mentioned is for Microsoft Publisher, not Affinity Publisher. 

[Leaving-Adobe]

3 hours ago, AaronShep said:

The converter mentioned is for Microsoft Publisher, not Affinity Publisher. 

Stupid me! Thanks!

[Old Bruce]

9 hours ago, Leaving-Adobe said:

Do Affinity's programmers / deciders really think that Adobe would alter its .idml-specs as soon as Publisher is able to export into it?

If I owned shares in Adobe I would be pissed off if they didn't. 

[Leaving-Adobe]

2 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

You could say the same about any application which has a closed file format. Adobe InDesign indd is a dead end road concerning collaboration. As is QuarkXpress, CorelDraw, etc.

Adobe themselves in the IDML specification state that 'IDML is not intended as an interchange format for use with applications outside the InDesign family of products'. The fact that some people (mis)use it to do that is neither here nor there.

"Not intented" doesn't mean it's illegal. So far I've not seen one concrete point why AP isn't supporting IDML. Furthermore it irritates me that this point "INDD is a closed format" is repeated and repeated again. What for? Do you want to compare with greedy Adobe? No. Is there a easily handable alternative within Adobe Indesign? Yes.
It's not about INDD, it's about IDML

[Leaving-Adobe]

3 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

If I owned shares in Adobe I would be pissed off if they didn't. 

Wouldn't altering IDML piss off a lot of Indesign users, too? What does altering mean concerning re-adaption. Is this really a point?

[Old Bruce]

Just now, Leaving-Adobe said:

"Not intented" doesn't mean it's illegal. So far I've not seen one concrete point why AP isn't supporting IDML.

Not illegal doesn't mean it is simple (or even possible) to reverse engineer.

[Old Bruce]

@Leaving-Adobe,

You are aware that IDML is a file format devised by and maintained by Adobe. And no one but Adobe. They (Adobe) can change it any time they want to, in fact every time they make a change to InDesign they change IDML.

[AaronShep]

6 minutes ago, Leaving-Adobe said:

"Not intented" doesn't mean it's illegal. So far I've not seen one concrete point why AP isn't supporting IDML.

I can give you one. When you import IDML, no one expects the conversion to be perfect. But that would not be as true of export. So, it would require a more rigorous treatment, and that would be especially difficult without Adobe's cooperation. It's not like there's a huge market for such conversion, to justify such an effort.

That's not to say I don't want to see this. In fact, the inability to export from Publisher to IDML has been sufficient reason for me to stick with InDesign CS6.

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

FWIW I feel there should be an open file format for desktop layout interchange.

xml 

[walt.farrell]

Just now, LondonSquirrel said:

If you won't accept Adobe's own words about the purpose of its file format I don't know what else will convince you. The fact that something can be used in a certain way does not mean that it should be. FWIW I feel there should be an open file format for desktop layout interchange. Whether companies would stick to it is a different matter.

Yes, it would be nice to have a standardized (open) format. It seems unlikely to happen, but it eventually happened with docx, so conceivably it could happen with a DTP format, too.

At this point, IDML can be used as an interchange format (though it should not be). I think the same could be said for PDF. It is not intended as an interchange format, but (lacking other alternatives) it is used that way.

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, Old Bruce said:

xml 

XML is a file format.

You would need some kind of document-level specification (e.g., an XSD), ideally standardized but with capabilities for extension.

[MikeW]

VivaDesigner opens both .indd and .idml. it can export as .idml.

Concerning Adobe changing .idml, it's possible, of course. But it would also break compatibility with past versions of ID. It would only be viable for then then current and future versions. They have too many users that need to use past versions to do that change, I think. 

[R C-R]

54 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Concerning Adobe changing .idml, it's possible, of course. But it would also break compatibility with past versions of ID.

Why would it have to do that ? But even if it did, Adobe might opt to do that to force users to upgrade to the newer ones that require a subscription model, thus increasing the company's revenues.

[MikeW]

17 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Why would it have to do that ? But even if it did, Adobe might opt to do that to force users to upgrade to the newer ones that require a subscription model, thus increasing the company's revenues.

Because if Adobe changed the format without the present ability to degrade features...the thing that makes CS4 through last year's CC to open .idml...there would be mass migration to other applications. 

There are legitimate reasons to run non-current versions of ID. Adobe knows/understands this fact. Changing .idml would break those previous versions. 

But could they? Sure. But even with the constant changes to the .indd format, companies like Viva etc. make the changes to their applications within days. They, Adobe, has little to gain. 

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Because if Adobe changed the format without the present ability to degrade features..

I am not sure what you mean by "degrade features." As I understand it, the idml format is XML based, which means they can add features the older versions do not support without breaking anything (because the XML parser can just ignore anything it does not support). Am I wrong about that?

[MikeW]

15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I am not sure what you mean by "degrade features." As I understand it, the idml format is XML based, which means they can add features the older versions do not support without breaking anything (because the XML parser can just ignore anything it does not support). Am I wrong about that?

Yes. No.

Adobe could make the format in such a manner older parsers do not understand well enough. 

But while they could, I don't think they would. 

Which means, as far ad the subject of this thread, if Serif saw fit, they could write an export routine that would work in ID without issues so people could exchange files with ID users. 

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, MikeW said:

Adobe could make the format in such a manner older parsers do not understand well enough. 

But could they not just make changes that their older parsers simply ignore?

6 hours ago, MikeW said:

Which means, as far ad the subject of this thread, if Serif saw fit, they could write an export routine that would work in ID without issues so people could exchange files with ID users. 

To exchange idml files back & forth with ID users (IOW, provide the round trip support the topic seems to be about) Affinity would have to support converting everything from the XML-based idml data format to the Affinity data format, & then support converting everything back to the idml one on export.

As of now, it can't even do the first, much less the second.

Besides, it all still comes down to what Adobe itself said about idml not being intended for use as an interchange format outside the ID 'family' of products.

[MikeW]

???

Affinity Publisher does import .idml currently. Is it perfect? No. Will it continue to work better? Yes, over time.

What is being requested is the reverse of the current capabilities. 

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, MikeW said:

What is being requested is the reverse of the current capabilities. 

I think that at least some here are asking for more than that; namely, feature-complete support for importing from & exporting to the IDML format.

[MikeW]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

I think that at least some here are asking for more than that; namely, feature-complete support for importing from & exporting to the IDML format.

Affinity Publisher ALREADY opens .idml files.