how can I export from affinity publisher to indesign

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Affinity Publisher ALREADY opens .idml files.

Yes, but perhaps "feature-complete" was the more important part of that statement.

[MikeW]

53 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Yes, but perhaps "feature-complete" was the more important part of that statement.

Feature parity in-so-much as Serif can program same/similar features is, will be, always a race but can never truly be attained (there are things/capabilities ID has Serif has stated will not happen or take a "long time" to happen). However, APub's advantage is Adobe is adding new features at a snail's pace.

In-coming feature parity (as much as Serif can) can be attained over time. I don't think anyone thinks that can happen in one or two major releases. If they do, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

However, Serif can/could provide as good of .idml export as they can its import/opening capabilities. As one (opening) gains capabilities, so too could its exporting.

Even today, within Adobe InDesign, successful collaboration between disparate ID versions is always at the lowest common feature denominator. That is, capabilities of the lowest ID version dictates what a person with a newer version can/should do as regards using features not in the lower version. The same would apply to a successful collaboration between an APub user and an ID user.

[Old Bruce]

It would be interesting to see how VivaDesigner works with InDesign in round tripping, say a couple or three times back and forth. A brief look at the Viva site said they use different hyphenation dictionaries. From the site's PDF on Exchange with InDesign... This list is dealing only with Text, not other things in DTP there is another set for that.

In VivaDesigner, avoid options that are not available in InDesign:

1. Character Background,
2. Character Frame,
3. Paragraph Background,
4. Paragraph Frame,
5. hyphenation quality,
6. text writing direction,
7. Baseline Orientation,
8. Line Counter,
9. outline drop caps,
10. drop cap indents,
11. Layouts,
12. Layout Style Sheets,
13. Layout spacing
14. as well as special Footnote and Endnote options.

There is no list of things to avoid using in InDesign for exchange to VivaDesign.

[Wosven]

  

  

12 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? 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.

You've got previous answer in this thread:

Now, about the collaboration part, if you only do simple files, like simple ads, without any special links, etc. No problem, it's possible to collaborate with someone working with APub.

But for important work, like books and magazines using advanced features not yet — and probably never — in APub, it would be a complete mess to send back a file made with another app than ID.
And certainly the end of a collaboration if people need to spend hours correcting your files to get back to a proper ID file. 

 

IDML is simply an archive (zip) containing XML files. The same as DOCX, XLSX...
XML is fabulous for structuring datas. But ID exists for long, and there's a lot of data, and I'm not sure  Affinity's goal is to produce apps and files reproducing such structure (this documentation, helpful for scripting, can give an idea):
https://www.indesignjs.de/extendscriptAPI/indesign16/#about.html

 

2 hours ago, MikeW said:

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. 

IDML is modified as some point, cf. different versions of the InDesign ExtendScript API linked above. Some variables can be renamed, or added, etc.

Adobe don't mind people switching to the last version of ID, they don't want people using old versions. For now, it's only people writting scripts that shoud manage the difference between version. New datas are ignored when parsed by older versions of ID, and set to default.

For example, between CS4 and CS5, they added individual values for round corners. If parsed by older versions, all the corner are square. If you need to maintain the visual effect, you'll have to use tricks.

2 hours ago, MikeW said:

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. 

In the last year, I never saw a file made with ID version prior to 2014-2015 (and we were among the few that were using CC2014, instead of the last version). But I'm not a printer, and people here seem to use old versions. At some point, when everyone will need to upgrade the hardware, they'll have to do the same with the apps.

 

3 hours ago, Leaving-Adobe said:

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

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

But if APub export to IDML, it should be usable files, without alterations, or it'll be bugged.

At some point, a file going from ID > APub > ID > APub ... will be a total mess or unusable, or so simple — stripped of different values only used by the other app —,  that it'll be better to redo a complete document in the appropriate app to use interesting and advanced features, than using a file reduce to simple and non manageable items (variables reduce to simple text, GREP converted to overrides, decorations not sticking to their paragraphes but reduces to curves, etc.).

 

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

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.

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

At this point, IDML can be used as an interchange format (though it should not be).

XML is a language, to share data.

Microsoft and Adobe did a good job structuring their datas using XML, so now, other apps can read the files and convert them in their own structured datas.
If it would be a good idea to develop their apps with this in mind, so their code can be easily translated to IDML, or IDML converted to their own code, I'm not sure it's the way Affinity apps are done.

And working independently, give them more freedom, to search new ways to do things. But it can also lead to bugs, like we saw in another thread about SVG. If the apps are too different, and work in a completely different way it's difficult to output code created with other ideas in mind.

 

11 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Yes, but perhaps "feature-complete" was the more important part of that statement.

How do you import or export features not yet implemented in a file format?

[MikeW]

29 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Another thing that must be mentioned with VivaDesigner (or any other app when being compared to Affinity/Adobe/whatever) is the price. This must be part of the comparison. Otherwise, if price is not important, just pay an Adobe subscription and don't complain.

VivaDesigner personal edition is £99 (specifically not for commercial use), the commercial edition is £279. 

Yes, and the professional version costs about $75 at each major version. There are a dozen, or more, updates during a major version. Major versions are maybe some 2 years apart.

[R C-R]

15 minutes ago, Wosven said:

How do you import or export features not yet implemented in a file format?

Obviously, you can't. So among other things Affinity will not be able to use footnotes or right-to-left text until those features are implemented in the Affinity apps. It does not seem very likely that is going to happen anytime soon.

[PaoloT]

On 2/13/2022 at 5:54 PM, LondonSquirrel said:

Adobe InDesign indd is a dead end road concerning collaboration.

I would call ID the Central Station, more than a dead end road…

On 2/13/2022 at 5:54 PM, LondonSquirrel said:

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.

The whole translation industry may be misusing it, but this misfit is enough to earn the everyday bread.

Paolo

 

[PaoloT]

On 2/13/2022 at 9:03 PM, Old Bruce said:

xml 

IDML is an XML format. That's also the reason why changes to the schema can be (relatively) easily implemented in file converters.

Paolo

 

[Wosven]

16 hours ago, PaoloT said:

IDML is an XML format.

Yes, IDML, DOCX, XLSX, ODT, etc. are simply zip containing XML and other files to describe the content.

[R C-R]

26 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

What happens when the non-Adobe app encounters an Adobe-only feature? How does your app handle that?

Badly?

[PaoloT]

3 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

What happens when the non-Adobe app encounters an Adobe-only feature? How does your app handle that? If you never have any such headaches that is all well and good. 

Apps used by translators simply ignore any feature that is not pure text. Anything else is simply resaved exactly as it was in the original file. That's the beauty of XML, where any element is perfectly separated from any others, and can be simply left untouched.

In my personal experience, the only issue I had was a floating graphic frame in a particular document, that refused to stay in the original position after translation. It was just a matter of reapplying to it the Object Style, and it was back at its place.

I must add that that floating frame was create by forcing ID against one of its bugs (the inability of running the first line of text around a custom-aligned frame placed at the beginning of a paragraph). 

Paolo

 

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[PaoloT]

2 hours ago, Lagarto said:

considering that QuarkXPress and Viva Design have had support for interpreting IDML already for years

XPress added support for IDML only recently (2018), so it has marginally more experience than Serif in this area. Funny that InDesign has been able to read XPress files since the very beginning. This difference is possibly one of the keys of the success of Adobe and the fall of Quark.

My impression is that XPress is still alive, because of the huge installed base from the past. I've worked with small publishers who still did their (multi-awarded) work with older Macs and an older version of XPress. These perspective users, switching to a new version when having to purchase new computers, are probably very little interested into InDesign compatibility.

I don't know how relevant Viva Designer is in the various industrial areas. Which is their typical user? Their logo and web site seem to come out from the early Nineties (and at the moment the web site is incredibly slow in responding). Do they actually have a customer base? Are they receiving requests from real users?

Thank you very much for this test!

Paolo

 

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[MikeW]

5 hours ago, Lagarto said:

I performed a quick reality check in IDML to X direction (ID CS6, QuarkXPress 2022, Viva Designer 10, APub 1.10.4), and except for Serif (and Adobe), the results were depressing. The test document was a finalized print job (successfully printed, 100% preflighted, cleaned and totally problem free), saved as a package with 330 pages and roughly 2GB of images linked, but otherwise very simple (e.g., its "footnotes" are manually created sidenotes). As this is just a single test, and I have no further experience on the latest version of QXP, and very little on Viva Designer, I cannot say anything about how typical their crashing on opening IDML documents is, but I have opened IDML documents with Affinity Publisher often enough to be able to say that even if it supports only a sub set of InDesign features, it generally does a pretty good job.

You may want to consider submitting that .idml to both companies. Viva generally does their fixes relatively quickly. Quark not as quickly.

Q2022 has more quirks than this one. I consider it not fit for production yet, but for a couple other issues.

[MmmMaarten]

1 hour ago, Hens said:

IOW it will never happen as the industry is to fragmented to have a universal exchange format.
 

Nice thing about Publisher tho is that for only 50 euros you can give the printer their own copy of Publisher so they have it for free 😉

[Leaving-Adobe]

50 minutes ago, MmmMaarten said:

Nice thing about Publisher tho is that for only 50 euros you can give the printer their own copy of Publisher so they have it for free 😉

No seriously working DTP person would "just install" a him/her totally unknown programm that - moreaover - is not just "same same as Indesign" and print a book, work sth. out or whatever. They had to get used to it in order to "guarantee" the qualitiy they stand for. Do you pay their hours to do so, too? My DTP and visual collegues learned Adobes Creative Suite as I did 20 years ago at university od arts. After aprox 20-30h working with publisher I would say "ok, I get along with it", but exporting a print pdf for a expensive book or so - puh...one wring setting and you waste thousands of euros and lose possibly a customer or two...

[PaoloT]

4 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

That is not what I asked. I asked about features that Adobe has which non-Adobe apps do not have. Take footnotes and endnote, a "missing"/requested featured in APub but present in InDesign. Those are pure text. What happens to them?

You expressly asked me about the apps I use, and my experience with them. I answered with my experience with this type of apps (three different ones – Trados, WordFast, OmegaT). This type of apps is totally indifferent to where text belongs in the page, and by which layout program was generated. It just isolates text, wherever it is in the IDML file.

You can even give it a yellow stickie attached to your fridge, and it will just do that: extract text from the file, and resave it leaving all the remaining parts of the XML file untouched.

Paolo

 

[Wosven]

7 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

when the non-Adobe app encounters an Adobe-only feature? How does your app handle that?

Like anyone that dont have a dictionary available: you ignore it or you bug, if there's dependencies...

But it's the same with Affinity apps-only features: they won't be exported, perhaps it'll be rasterised if it involve adjustments, etc.

[PaoloT]

3 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Again, that is not what I asked. I will repeat it here with a key part made bold: What happens when the non-Adobe app encounters an Adobe-only feature? How does your app handle that?

There is not 1 to 1 compatibility between features in APub and InDesign.

This is a screenshot of our initial conversation:

 

 

I was speaking about the translation industry, and the use it does of the IDML file format. You asked about what happens when these non-Adobe apps encounter Adobe-only features, and I answered that these apps are feature-agnostic, and couldn't care less of the specific feature. You asked if I had any headaches with this file exchange, and I answered you that I didn't have any headache.

Where I cited an exchange between Affinity Publisher and InDesign is a mystery to me.

How Affinity Publisher deals with interchanging files with translation apps I don't know, since IDML export is not supported.

Paolo

 

 

[Old Bruce]

@PaoloT

I think the problem is that it was not clear to me that you were not using translation to refer to the "Interchange format" in the quoted text but were using it to refer to languages. This confusion was further enforced when you used the same term "misuse" in your reply and the quoted text contained "(mis)use" referring to DTP applications and not language.

I parsed the text in your reply to mean that you were earning your daily bread using various DTP applications to translate the IDML into those applications' file formats for further work in the laying out of text and graphics. I did not read the word translate to mean translating from French to Italian to German.

[PaoloT]

18 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

This is an Affinity forum. I'm not particularly interested (in this forum) in another apps' interoperability with InDesign.

So, please don't quote me anymore. Thanx.

Paolo

 

[Wosven]

41 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

To idml they won't be exported at all as there is no idml export.

But perhaps one day... and it's not bad to think about how your files will be exported in different other types of file. It's sure we need some export abilities, toward plain text, document, or other DTP file format.

Or some script possibilities.

[R C-R]

55 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

To idml they won't be exported at all as there is no idml export.

Even if there was, the problem remains of how to deal with Adobe-only features when opening an IDML file in Affinity. If they are simply ignored, anything dependent on those features can't be edited in Affinity so what would be the point of opening the file in Affinity if you want to be able to edit them & then export the result back to an IDML file?

It all comes back to the same thing: IDML is not designed to be an interchange format for anything besides within the ID 'family' of apps. For anything else, workarounds or compromises are unavoidable.