Looking for a command like "Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform" in Designer, similar to Illustrator

[jimcxlp]

New to Photo, Designer, and Publisher, coming from 20 years on Adobe. Great products, You have done a great job.

I have searched Help, forums and the web for a command similar to Illustrators "Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform" and can't seem to find it.

This is an extremely powerful command for a number of use cases, such as business cards, labels, etc.

If it exists, where can I find it. If it does not, how do I suggest it.

[Guest]

Unfortunately, the answer to when folks ask for the equivalent of the Illustrator vector effects features within Affinity Designer is still to suggest they use VectorStyler as a workaround. Hopefully Serif will address the lack of these tools in their professional vector editing application in a future update.

[jimcxlp]

I was not speaking of the vector effects feature, this is a replication tool. The attached image shows what the command does. 

There are two Transforms applied to the element on the art board in the image.

It allows the creation of a single element on an art board, the business card example in the top left.

The first transform instantiated 4 copies below the original. The second transform instantiates a copy of the left column. 

This allows the element to be created once and results in 10 elements on the page. A change to the parent element is propagated to all of the transformed child elements.

[Alfred]

32 minutes ago, jimcxlp said:

The first transform instantiated 4 copies below the original. The second transform instantiates a copy of the left column.

You can use the power duplicate feature to achieve this.

33 minutes ago, jimcxlp said:

This allows the element to be created once and results in 10 elements on the page. A change to the parent element is propagated to all of the transformed child elements.

Create a symbol from the original if you want changes to be propagated to the copies.

[jimcxlp]

That does not accomplish what the Illustrator Transform does. Using the Transform, the relative position and rotation to the original can be set and also edited at a later date. I have included a link to a Loom video that demonstrated the power of this tool.

https://www.loom.com/share/90f4f880fe1e4c0abac721a5746cf4d8

Edited July 28, 2021 by jimcxlp
Left out link

[chessboard]

If you have Affinity Publisher you could use the Data Merge Layout Tool, which lets you create a grid and then fill in the first cell with shapes, groups and layers that are replicated in all other cells of the grid. You can then afterwards adjust the width an height of the grid and by this the distance between the shapes.

[jimcxlp]

Thanks for the response, but if you look at the video, that is not the goal .

I do have Publisher, but we use this in the Illustrator to InDesign workflow now.

An example is to create a document in Illustrator with two art boards in a facing page spread, with only one line on the left art board. Then, use two transforms to have lines on both art boards. Then, place that Illustrator file in InDesign on a two page master page, create a book with, say 100 pages and you have a KDP interior for a journal of 100 pages using only one line on the first art board in Illustrator.

If the line spacing needs to be changed, the transforms in the Illustrator document can be edited, and the embedded Illustrator document will update the InDesign document. One small change to one line and the entire 100 pages are updated.

[chessboard]

Perhaps I understand your example wrong, but you can use the Data Merge Layout Tool for this, too. Create a grid with 1 row and the desired number of columns with this tool on the left side of a Master page in Publisher, fill it with a line and adjust the line to the left of the first cell, switch to Designer Persona and convert the Data Object into a symbol, then place this symbol on the right page of the Master page. You can now adjust the spacing of the lines by adjusting the width of the Data Objects cells. And this is replicated then on all your pages.

There's no need to handle embedded files for this at all, while it can all be done in Publisher if you use Studio Link for Designer (and Photo).

If you have Illustrator at hand I personally would keep using it in conjunction with Indesign instead of replacing it by Affinity Designer. AD works best with the Affintiy Suite.

[puertomixto]

On 7/29/2021 at 12:05 AM, jimcxlp said:

That does not accomplish what the Illustrator Transform does. Using the Transform, the relative position and rotation to the original can be set and also edited at a later date. I have included a link to a Loom video that demonstrated the power of this tool.

https://www.loom.com/share/90f4f880fe1e4c0abac721a5746cf4d8

Hi, I perfectly understand what you mean. I use this Illustrator function in the same exact way, and was searching how to do that in Affinitity Designer. Hope they will implement this feature in the next editions of the suite.