what's best file type to import from MS Publisher?

[ifni]

I'm migrating some work from MS Publisher to Affinity Designer.  I'm wondering what is considered "best practice" for this task.  I understand from the in-app help that AD supports opening the file types listed below, but I'm not clear on the advantages / disadvantages of the types that are beyond "flat images" (eg: tiff,bmp,gif,jpeg).  So my question is:  what MS Publisher output files will provide the most utility for an AD file import?  Is .pdf the only legit choice?  Thanks.

 

 

[Hokusai]

ifni,

 

Welcome to the forums. Just keep in mind that Affinity Designer's focus isn't a layout app like MS Publisher, that's what Affinity's forthcoming Affinity Publisher app will be. Affinity Designer is a vector app that is mostly used to create artwork, logos, etc (comparable to Illustrator, CorelDraw, the old Freehand, etc). You could use Affinity Designer to do some of the things that MS Publisher does but they are really different types of programs. If you are doing simple one-page documents, then Designer will work for you. If you are doing multi-page documents, then you can still use Designer but it isn't exactly suited to that and it would be best for you to use a layout focused program like Affinity Publisher once it is released (possibly the beta will be released early next year).

 

I have been working in design and pre-press for a long time and to be honest, pre-press people absolutely hate MS Publisher files. So when a customer says that they are sending us Publisher files, we have them send us a PDF file instead. If we have to, we open the MS Publisher file on a PC and then make a PDF file from it and then open it up in InDesign, Quark Xpress, Affinity Designer, or Illustrator (depending on the composition of the piece) and then rebuild the file. The only problem with this is fonts. Some fonts you will have to find (and possibly buy) Mac versions. I know that you can use Windows TrueType fonts on the Mac and I think you can do the same with OpenType fonts as well (but I can't remember for sure) but any Windows Postscript fonts that you are using won't work on a Mac and you will have to get a Mac version or find a suitable replacement. As well, you will have to have access to the fonts so that you can move them to your Mac so that you can use them. If your files are simply images then tiff or bmp, gif, jpeg or some other raster based (pixel) file format will do. Of course if your files are rasters, then you won't be able to edit any of your type. If your file contains fonts and/or vector artwork (like logos, ect) then you would be best off using PDF to migrate to Designer. I hope that this helps. 

 

Best of luck,

Hokusai

[ifni]

Phabulous response.  TYVM.  As a bit of follow-up, I've found PDF to be the only "fairly functional" transfer mechanism, as you suggest.  I migrated font to a more generic serif face, which was OK.  Immediate project is a 2-sided trifold brochure, so AD did its best with a 2-layer result that is fairly workable.  We'll see if the printer can work with distinct pdf's for front & back, else can surely work something out with tiff's or the like (or whatever CMYK based solution they'd like).  Thanks for the extra effort on clarifying things for me - very useful. 

[peter]

Not long now till 2016. The year APu (Affinity Publisher was born...)