Why are there no templates for greeting cards in Publisher?

[JCarls]

This should be an obvious feature when you select "New Document." Please don't tell me I have to set this up myself after having it available in Serif PagePlus.

[Rick G]

Set it up once and save it as a template. 

[dominik]

7 hours ago, JCarls said:

This should be an obvious feature when you select "New Document."

There are so many different variants of greeting cards in the world that it would be hard to make a good choice of which formats to include and which ones to leave out. This would end up in either an enormous list of templates or a lot of complains in the forum.

The template feature is made for each user to set up it's individual collection of preferred formats (oops, basically I just told you to set it up by yourself. Sorry 😉 )

It should be relatively easy to bring some of the Serif PagePlus templates over via an export as PDF. You can also use any template from the net and use that as a starting point.

d.

[Rick G]

3 hours ago, dominik said:

The template feature is made for each user to set up it's individual collection of preferred formats (oops, basically I just told you to set it up by yourself. Sorry 😉 )

I am not sure if you assumed I was being snotty, but I was not. The easiest way to add them SEEMS to be recreating the document with the correct proportions and saving it as a template. When I moved from the old Serif products to the Affinity line I had to go through the export then import routine for a good many files which was time consuming to say the least.

[dominik]

1 minute ago, Rick G said:

I am not sure if you assumed I was being snotty, but I was not.

Definetly I did not. Sorry if I wrote unclear. My intention here was to add my perspective to your point and the OP's question.

d.

[JCarls]

On 6/10/2021 at 1:08 AM, dominik said:

It should be relatively easy to bring some of the Serif PagePlus templates over via an export as PDF. You can also use any template from the net and use that as a starting point.

Well... thanks for attempting to help. However importing a PDF version of an existing card isn't useful. It simply yields two pages arranged in "printed" format (one half the outer page upside-down), not the proper four half-pages that can be edited right-side up. I've tried setting up a basic template with four 8.5" X 5.5" pages and it printed incorrectly. After reading through other forum posts, it appears you can't import PagePlus templates at all and the developers haven't addressed this rather common activity, so this is a bit of a bait-and-switch for any home users who thought Publisher would be a better choice. Do you know of any guides for setting up a booklet- or tent-style card and then printing it on a front and back of a single sheet? Without that or a template, I'll have to stick with PagePlus for this. Thanks again.

-JC

[dominik]

Hello @JCarls,

 

14 hours ago, JCarls said:

so this is a bit of a bait-and-switch for any home users who thought Publisher would be a better choice.

 

it may not be obvious but was communicated many times by Serif that the Affinity suite is not a complete replacement of the Plus range of software. It's rather a new start with new programming technology in the background. This includes a 'better choice' in regard to modern software and compatibility and OS support, but does not necessarily start with feature parity.

 

14 hours ago, JCarls said:

Do you know of any guides for setting up a booklet- or tent-style card and then printing it on a front and back of a single sheet?

 

I consider this video tutorial quite detailed and understandable but I am not sure if this fits your requirements.

 

Cheers,
d.

[William Overington]

If you want to you could start a thread in the Share your work section with a title like

Workshop to learn how to produce templates for greetings cards and to produce some

Then when we have produced some donate them to the Resources section.

In the meantime, you might like to have a look at the templates that Papier uses to get some ideas, though the Papier templates are just for the front of the card and all that can be customized is the front and the text on page 3, so useful but not templates to do kore than that.

https://www.papier.com/photos/photo-cards

For the avoidance of doubt, one can use one's own photo, the picture in the template is just an example use. Also it does not need to be a photo, I have successfully used artwork, some produced in PagePlus X7 and some in Affinity Designer.

If the suggested thread is generated then we can explore the problems that need to be resolved and learn as well as doing.

William

 

[William Overington]

I have started the thread that I suggested.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/144877-workshop-to-learn-how-to-produce-templates-for-greetings-cards-and-to-produce-some/

William

 

[William Overington]

4 hours ago, William Overington said:

I have started the thread that I suggested.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/144877-workshop-to-learn-how-to-produce-templates-for-greetings-cards-and-to-produce-some/

William

 

The workshop is underway, four posts and fifty-two views thus far.

William

 

[JCarls]

The workshop is underway, four posts and fifty-two views thus far.

1 hour ago, William Overington said:

The workshop is underway, four posts and fifty-two views thus far.

As it happens, I've now figured it out. The hard part was realizing that you had to save the correct printing profile in order to print the card correctly.

[William Overington]

58 minutes ago, JCarls said:

The workshop is underway, four posts and fifty-two views thus far.

As it happens, I've now figured it out. The hard part was realizing that you had to save the correct printing profile in order to print the card correctly.

I don't understand.

That is probably mostly because I don't have a printer at present.

And that I do not have much experience with Affinity Publisher and most of what I have done with it resulted in images or a PDF for the web.

William

 

[JCarls]

27 minutes ago, William Overington said:

That is probably mostly because I don't have a printer at present.

Yes, getting a four-page document that needs to print in 4-1-2-3 order (with one page upside-down if it's a "tent" style card) adds a whole level of complexity if you don't know what options to select. However, if you wanted to print to a PDF so that you could print a card later at another location, the issue would be the same: the PDF would typically be a two-page document on which the four pages of the card were properly oriented for printing, then folding. By now you've probably seen my post in your workshop. Hope that explains it. Thanks for setting that up.

[JCarls]

To all: I think there might have been a misunderstanding: I wasn't looking for "card ideas" (all of my cards are created "from scratch"). I was looking for a blank template that already had all the needed settings in this new program for setting up and printing a folded card. It seemed like an obvious thing to include in any first release of publishing software. 🙂

[StuartRc]

Hi,

You can just download a PDF from one of the many web to print companies. edit it/streamline and export to your own template folder....them you will have a set..

Try these..There are loads more!

Printed.com
SoloPress