Editing PDF's

[T Kitto]

Hi there, 

I'm strongly considering buying Affinity Publisher to edit my self published books. I have a specific question about it's ability to edit PDF's, which is this: 

I format my novels using Vellum and export the print copy as a PDF. I'd like to embellish each first page of my chapters with my own headings (see attached image). Vellum doesn't allow me to have headings that span the entire width of the page. When I edit the PDF in Adobe Photoshop, it stops the text being a vector, which means that the finished, printed result leaves the text looking rough and pixelated. So, would I be able to use Affinity Publisher to add these headings to my finished PDF manuscript and still keep the text as a vector, remaining sharp and crisp? Is the software able to do this? 

I hope that makes sense! Thanks for any help that I may receive. 

Terry Kitto

[wonderings]

I would first off recommend using the demo and try for yourself. Second I would say it would keep all the text vector and sharp, it is not a raster image program so it is not rasterizing on output unless you tell it to. I would be very cautious about formatting changes, might be worth only editing the first page and then inserting it back into the PDF of your book.

[jmwellborn]

Welcome to the Forums, @T Kitto😊  If I have understood your question correctly, the answer is yes.  As a test, I opened a PDF in Publisher, used the settings shown below, and then put a picture frame above my text frame and placed an image.  (I did not create a bleed, so you will see a tiny bit of white in the screenshot below.)  I then exported the test page back as a PDF, and printed the result.  There was no pixellation of the type at all.  (The screenshot of the test page is a bit fuzzy, but the printed page is beautifully crisp.  And please forgive the baby lions -- they have nothing whatsoever to do with 1781 and the British Army!)   I hope this will help you and I agree with @wonderings that you will be happiest if you try the free trial version of Publisher as you decide.

  

[Medical Officer Bones]

Correct, this will work. But you MUST have the same fonts installed on your local computer as the ones which are used in your book, otherwise you will run into issues with your text formatting, i.e., fonts will be replaced.

[jmwellborn]

2 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Correct, this will work. But you MUST have the same fonts installed on your local computer as the ones which are used in your book, otherwise you will run into issues with your text formatting, i.e., fonts will be replaced.

Good point.  Hopefully @T Kitto will try out Font Manager while testing Publisher.  And of course it would be a good idea to check on the fonts used in the PDF to be sure about compatibility.  

[Guest]

Talking about fonts, this is one area I find Publisher to be very weak compared to what used to be my go to Publishing app, that I gladly abandoned in favor of Publisher, that be QuarkXpress. With Quark if you decided to change all of the fonts in a PDF you could do so through the font substitution window. This worked wether all of the fonts used were available the opened PDF, or you just wanted to make changes. Publisher will let you substitute for fonts not present or are disabled on your Mac when you open the PDF. No other changes are easily or transparently available. In a real sense this hobbles Publisher because changing fonts is essential for customization. One way to somewhat get around this problem is to use Font Book or the like to disable the embed fonts. However, if you made the mistake of using Times New Roman in the PDF and you disable Times New Roman that  added to your font collection, the System will automatically substitute Times and the System's own version of Times New Roman, these cannot be disabled, the result is you're stuck. On the other hand if you used a font that is not a System font you have some latitude to make substitutions. I hope that the Affinity Wonderkunds will someday make font substitution a fast track item!

[Guest]

I have been educated by some excellent support people! Here's the quote: 

If all of your text is using the same Text Style, you can edit the Text Style and this will update the font for all of the text.  Theres a tutorial on text styles here:

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/publisher/desktop/video/337305725/

 

Another way would be to use Find and Replace, if you click Text along the top menu and select Find, this will call up the Find and Replace window.  Now click on the Cog icon on the Find box and select Format.  Here you can select the Font you want to find and once you've done that, do the same on the Replace box but this time when you select Format, select the new font you want to use.  Then click on Find, followed by Replace All and that will change everything for you.  

This is excellent!!! My frustration and despair has been relieved! Thanks much to the Affinity Gang!

 

 

Another way would be to use Find and Replace, if you click Text along the top menu and select Find, this will call up the Find and Replace window.  Now click on the Cog icon on the Find box and select Format.  Here you can select the Font you want to find and once you've done that, do the same on the Replace box but this time when you select Format, select the new font you want to use.  Then click on Find, followed by Replace All and that will change everything for you.  

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by Guest