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Affinity Publisher for Windows - 1.9.0


Patrick Connor

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We are pleased to announce an update for the Windows release of Affinity Publisher, version 1.9.0

Changes in this build

A highlights explanation can be found here: 5 things you should know about Affinity Publisher 1.9

The detailed changes in Affinity Publisher for Windows 1.9.0 over the release build Affinity Publisher for Windows 1.8.5 are as follows:

New Features

  • Data Merge (learn more)
  • Support PDF Passthrough to ensure perfect representation of original PDF when exporting, without the need to have embedded fonts installed
  • Package feature to collate your document alongside all used image and font resources into a folder (learn more)
  • Studio Presets for the UI layout to save your favourite workspace setups for different tasks, explained here Studio panel combinations  (also learn more)
  • Content sync of store purchases (requires registration)
    This feature is explained in more detail here Sync your Affinity Store resources with your Affinity 1.9 apps
  • Windows hardware (GPU) acceleration (for users running Windows 10 (April 2020 update or later) with a Direct3D feature level 12.0 capable card)
  • Flattened bitmap representation used for all PSD files 
  • Path text improvements (learn more)
  • Initial text baseline advance (learn more)
  • Configurable bleed and margin guide colours (learn more)
  • OpenAsset support for drag/drop from browser content
  • PDF bookmarks (learn more)
  • Convert pixel layer to image node (learn more)
  • Divide blend mode 

Fixes & Improvements:

General

  • Artboard conversion to spreads now optional
  • Placed scale for all placed files, which allows scaling to be reset to 100%
  • Pages panel loses the scroll position when switching between document tabs
  • Document Merge - Added option to ignore unused incoming text styles
  • Document profile PDX Export preflight tweak, falls back to CMYK profile for RGB / LAB documents
  • Opening a template from File > Open or Drag and drop will now open it as untitled
  • Filter Effect Dialog - Enabled the use of global colours
  • When creating a global colour from an object also apply it
  • Fixes various issues with mishandling of CJK fonts in the UI (Win)
  • Various stability improvements
  • Help and Localisation improvements
  • Performance improvements

Page/Spread

  • Resizing single page Master could change the size of dependent spreads incorrectly
  • Deleting Master Page when editing detached could leave 'Editing Detached' notification open
  • Fixed issue where re-applying master pages with text frames with pinned objects could cause document instability
  • When modifying Adjustment Layers any bleed and pasteboard areas affected were not updating correctly
  • Pinned objects from Master Pages were not showing in bleed 
  • Resizing a single page master could cause spreads that used it to be resized incorrectly
  • Guides lost from Master Page when changing from facing to single pages
  • Fixes for margins setup on a Master Page (Win)
  • Added option to 'Add Pages (from file) at end of document'
  • Added option in Add Pages From File to 'Add Before / After / Replacing Section'

Text

  • Text selection highlight across multiple spreads could display incorrectly 
  • Hyperlink styling could accidentally be added to new text
  • More consistent handling of mid-word punctuation
  • Deleting a row with merged cells could cause a crash
  • Text wrap settings on images could become distorted after a document save and load
  • Fix for hang resizing table columns in certain circumstances
  • Line widths around Drop Caps could be wrong /inconsistent
  • Glyph Browser was missing glyphs under certain circumstances when sorting via Unicode
  • Prevent application of Hyperlink Anchors to Layers / Master Page instances
  • Prevent creation of blank Hyperlink Anchors that could case errors on PDF Export
  • Multi-curve text wrap could be combined incorrectly resulting in unexpected wrapping around complex shapes
  • Bookmarks created by TOC not in the correct order when exported to PDF
  • Auto correct quotation marks for French
  • Style changes not always picked up as out of date for TOC
  • TOC Anchors were not being deleted when the TOC was deleted
  • Fixed generation of wrap shapes for certain images with alpha

Import

  • IDML Import - text import now always applies appropriate text styling to be used when appending to imported text
  • IDML import - Speed and efficiency improvements
  • PDF import - Filter Effects could be wrongly rasterised and cause export failures
  • PDF import - placed PDF improvements
  • PDF import - fix for tiling patterns
  • SVG Import - stability improvement

Resources

  • Many Resource Manager fixes and improvements
  • Artboard and other settings could be lost when reconnecting missing Affinity resources
  • Place linked files could be opened as <Embedded> under certain circumstances
  • 'Size frame to content' for images imported from IDML could behave incorrectly
  • Picture frame within a Picture Frame could cause crash

Export

  • Export Pages field now clears when switching documents
  • PDF Export - Improved export of Type 1 fonts, which could cause failure under certain circumstances
  • TGA Export - Fix for 32bit export
  • RTF export / copy paste was losing hyphens under certain circumstances

 

UPDATING TO THIS VERSION (Free for existing customers)

The software version can be seen on the splash screen and the About dialog (in Help > About Affinity Publisher).

If you’ve purchased from the Affinity Store— each time you start the Affinity Store software it will check for updates and offer any available update. The latest update will install over the top of any earlier version, with no need to uninstall. You can download the latest installer by logging into the affinity store here and find the order in your account and use the "Download" button in there. Alternatively, this new release (and previous versions of Affinity Publisher for Windows) can be downloaded from this link (that installer is NOT for Windows Store purchases and needs a product key).

If you’ve purchased from the Microsoft Store— Microsoft Store updates are done automatically by the operating system (each time you start the application). If this does not happen for you, open the Windows Store app and click the three dots in the top right corner of the app and then go to Downloads and Updates. Click Get Updates. This should hopefully force the update to show.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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3 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

Data Merge (learn more)

I didn't realise in the beta thread discussions (I wasn't paying much attention to be honest) that Data Merge here means something different from Data Merge in InDesign.

In InDesign doing a data merge means a one time import of data, meaning if the data source is modified later, tough luck to you. This mostly renders InDesign data merge as a useless function, everyone just uses XML linking instead.

Turns out Data Merge in Publisher works much more like XML linking, meaning that if you change the data sources, you can update/sync the Publisher contents with a click of a button. This is quite amazing. This type of data linking is really hard to do, and you need some sort of masters degree to use the InDesign version (I know I spent almost a year perfecting this function for a client catalogue). That Serif was able to pull this off in such short notice is pretty amazing. Congratulations to the devs, well done and impressive work!

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Download, install and acces to My Account quick and smooth. Thanks all for your hard and good work.

I am just wondering why I have to log into my account three times to get the "same" content available in my three apps.

-- Window 11 - 32 gb - Intel I7 - 8700 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060
-- iPad Pro 2020 - 12,9 - 256 gb - Apple Pencil 2 -- iPad 9th gen 256 gb - Apple Pencil 1
-- Macbook Air 15"

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2 minutes ago, AlainP said:

I am just wondering why I have to log into my account three times to get the "same" content available in my three apps.

It's a consequence of building apps designed for a sandboxed environment. This feature is available in Affinity Store Mac App Store, iPad Store and Microsoft store versions. They cannot necessarily see each other.  We will have to consider what can be done for the less strict case (Affinity Store) with future versions going forward.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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AMAZING! Thank you soooooooo much! This is going to save me so much hassle and really removes the last reason for anyone to use Adobe Indesign (IMHO)

 

Having used it now: Even more thank you's - it works exactly as I hoped it would and will help me sell my books. Thank you for listening to your community requests. Affinity really is an amazing suite of apps .

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@Steve S.

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums :) and thank you for your kind words.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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1 hour ago, Michael S Harvey said:

Still no footnotes and endnotes?  I've a feeling that will require a paid upgrade release before we see this feature.  Still, thanks for 1.9.

They are supposed to come with version 2.0.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
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What a huge update for all three programs. I am now recommending this suite to (most of) my design students. Once you have footnote and endnote support I can remove that parenthetical!

There is scope here for simplifying the entire link workflow, so that all forms of internal links (including bookmarks, indices and TOCs) can be supported with one mechanism.

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Thanks for the update. The app is getting better and better and I'm very happy to see that workspaces can be saved.

I customized my workspace in 1.8 extensively and use two clusters of floating panels that I placed in the empty space in the menu bar and which I collapse when I don't need any of the individual panels that are contained in them. So, before updating to 1.9, I would like to know if (clusters of) floating panels are also saved in the new presets. I didn't see this in the feature video but hope they are!

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3 hours ago, Hilltop said:

So, before updating to 1.9, I would like to know if (clusters of) floating panels are also saved in the new presets. I didn't see this in the feature video but hope they are!

You could install the beta, adjust the panel placement, and see for yourself. :)

(But, if I've understood what you're doing, yes, it works with the Studio Preset function.)

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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My floating panels remember position and open/closed state. I have the Studio Preset set up with them closed and that is how they come up when I chose one of the presets. Mac OS 10.14.6

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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12 minutes ago, LBA said:

Just to confirm, before upgrading are 1.9 files backwards compatible?

No. And you should assume this is true whenever the "x" in 1.x changes. 1.6 could not read 1.7 files, 1.7 could not read 1.8, and 1.8 cannot read 1.9.

The major release number changing usually indicates the file format changed in a way that is not compatible with the prior release.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

No. And you should assume this is true whenever the "x" in 1.x changes. 1.6 could not read 1.7 files, 1.7 could not read 1.8, and 1.8 cannot read 1.9.

The major release number changing usually indicates the file format changed in a way that is not compatible with the prior release.

Walt,

OK thanks for confirming. Is this also mentioned in the release documents? I can't see reference to this, and it has caught us out this time round.

Thanks,

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