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PagePlus ppp any way to import or convert for use in Affinity Publisher


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I purchased Affinity publisher a year or so ago and installed it. Apart from playing around a bit sadly I just haven't used it much)  The main reason is I have used Page Plus ever since it first came out. I had the very first version of it and have continued with every version since. Herein is the problem. Even though Affinity was brought out by Serif it seems Affinity publisher & PagePlus are ontotally incompatible. I have a huge number of files done in PagePlus some of which I still use but theI cant find any way to bring in or convert PagePlus files to use in Affinity. It has either meant continuing with PagePlus X9 or recreating them from scratch. So far because of time coinstrains I have had to stick with the first option.  It seems rather strange that there is no provision at all to do this. Most software even when they bring out a totally new version do at least have some tools to provide a conversion from old formats to new. I really would like to get in to using Affinity and if anyone could suggest a way of importing or converting  PPP files into Affinity Publisher I would be very grateful.  The same goes for the other 2 products I purchased. Still sitting unused so any helpful hints on those would also be appreciated. Maybe there are some conversion tools around but I haven't found them yet so any pointers to them or suggestions would be very appreciate. I really would like to get stuck in to using Affinity publisher 

Robin Griffiths

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Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, Robin. :)

The Affinity apps have been written from scratch, so the code base is completely new and PagePlus and Publisher don’t share the same feature set. If you want to use your old documents with Publisher (instead of reserving APub for new documents and continuing to revise old ones in PP) you’ll need to ‘Publish As PDF’ from PP and open the result in APub.

It may seem strange that the developers haven’t created a purpose-built conversion utility, but the reality is that it would have eaten up a lot of valuable development time and it might well not have produced significantly better results than the PDF route.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Yes I have been doing a Google search on this and you are right they just didnt do any conversion utility  and (according to the post I saw) alienated a LOT of loyal users. I suspect a lot of them either looked elsewhere (but apart from Microsoft publisher there are not a lot of choices) or like myself still kept with their old versions of PagePlus/DrawPlus/PhotoPlus  For the latter although I have Affinity Photo I have switched to a rival product for photo editing which came bundled with video editing software. I might get to use my Affinity photo at some time but to be honest the failure to provide a conversion  facility for PagePlus other than converting to PDF did not sit well with me. (nor it seems many of their loyal customer base) probably when I need to start new publishing projects I will start using Affinity Publisher 

As an aside one rather interesting side effecting of dumping  XXXPlus customers is that I now no longer get phone calls from their sales reps trying to flog upgrades or add on 3rd party software. Although sometimes a nuisance, there were many times I found it genuinely helpful and I purchased quite a number of really useful  extra software products or add- ons especially to PhotoPlus.  I know their in house ones are available to purchase from their web site but the phone reps although pushy did at times come up with some really useful stuff at usually good prices.  

 

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8 hours ago, Alfred said:

It may seem strange that the developers haven’t created a purpose-built conversion utility, but the reality is that it would have eaten up a lot of valuable development time and it might well not have produced significantly better results than the PDF route.

It would not even be feasible unless APub supported every feature of the PagePlus app or a very close approximation to every one of them. I am a Mac user so I have no experience with any of the old Windows-only Plus apps, but from what I gather from various comments here, APub has a long way to go before that could become a reality.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 7 months later...

No news around .ppp importer? Even in May 2022?
It's hard to think I have to install my good old Serif PagePlus in parallel to Affinity to deal with my many .ppp files (developed in 10 years of Serif products usage....)

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14 minutes ago, SergioS said:

No news around .ppp importer? Even in May 2022?
It's hard to think I have to install my good old Serif PagePlus in parallel to Affinity to deal with my many .ppp files (developed in 10 years of Serif products usage....)

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

No, there is no mechanism to import .ppp files, and if I remember correctly Serif have said they do not plan to provide one. It would be a lot of work to develop an importer/converter, and due to functional differences between the products it would not be perfect.

You can either keep usiong PagePlus in parallel, or use it to export all your .ppp files as PDF files. PDF files can be used with Affinity Publisher, and may transfer better than an importer/converter would if it existed. It still won't be perfect, but it's probably the best you can do other than using PagePlus for those projects if they need to be updated.

-- 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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I have basically dumped Affinity Designer and continuing with Page Plus X9 and will eventually go with the open source Scribus which is quite mature now, and has plenty of free templates with it and on the web.  I have been using PagePlus for many years and found their free built in templates very convenient.  But that there are no templates distributed with Affinity Designer was the last straw.  I do not want to have to become a professional web programmer just to compose a simple newsletter which I have done through templates in PagePlus, nor do I want to fork out more money on professional Affinity templates just for simple newsletters.  Sure I can spend hours looking for the ideal free Adobe InDesign template and import it into Affinity Designer, but you can do the same with Scribus.  And all my work of the past in PagePlus is incompatible with Affinity Designer for me to re-use, which is a complete disrespect for loyal Serif customers......so what is the point of Affinity?

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Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @krasnit.

First comment: Publisher is what you would probably use, as a PagePlus user, not Designer. If you buy Publisher it comes with several templates, but probably all are more complex than you would want for a newsletter.

Second comment: If you have a template in PagePlus that you like, you can probably export it as a PDF, and Open the PDF in Publisher. That will get you something close, though not perfect. But the adjustments you would need to make would be straightforward.

Next: You do not need to be a "web programmer" to do this. None of the Affinity applications involve web programming.

Finally: The purpose of the Affinity application suite is to have a set of applications that work together, sharing a common data format, and available on Windows, MacOS, and iPadOS (rather than just on Windows as the Serif "Plus" applications were). It is a completely new set of applications, designed from scratch to allow the common data formats, interoperability, and multi-platform support.

-- 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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  • 4 weeks later...

WELL WALT, IT STILL SUCKS THAT THER IS NOT AT LEAST A WAY TO IMPORT THE PPP FILES, AT LEAST A BASIC METHOD. WHILE THE PDF PROCESS MAY GET THE TEXT AND OTHER DATA INTO AFFINITY, IT LEAVES THE USER WITH THE GREAT TASK OF REBUILDING ALL OF THE FORMATING, PAGE TO PAGE FLOWS AND TEABLE OF CONTENTS. HUGE AMOUNT OF WORK THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE REQUIRED. IF THE GOAL WAS TO OPEN TEH DOOR TO YOUR FAITHFUL USERS TO GO ELSEWHERE, THAT DOOR IS WID EOPEN NOW AND WONT GET SHUT. THIS I STHE SAME STUNT PULLED WHEN PAGEMAKER BECAME INDESIGN. WHAT  AMESS AND A LACK OF COMMITMENT TO THE PEOPLE WHO MADE SERIF WHAT IT WAS.

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I was a PagePlus user back from 1993. I find the the new apps very refreshing. not much changed throughout the years with Serif other than small upgrades here and there for Windows OS. It's nice to see Serif saw the future and took it. It was not with Pageplus. i had moved to the Mac and the only way was to use Parallels. Now I can use it on anything and it's tremendously more powerful. I would sacrifice all templates - I don't need them. I want tools to get the job done and Affinity has put Serif on the right path. 

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I was also a user from Version 1 pf PP. I had an awful lot of PP files, including a 332 page book, many newsletters, flyers, you name it.

PDF worked in some cases but often it did not, and the text produced was a mix of frame text and artistic text, not what I wanted.

So where a lot of text is involved, set up a new document in pub, open the old one in PP and copy and paste the actual text across. This preserves the formatting. Much more accurate.

I too was cross at not being able to open PP files in Pub, but having spent a weekend or so converting,the files across, it was well worth it.

PP was good, but PUB is excellent. The data merge is so much better and being able to open the document and work on it in designer and photo without leaving the document is magic.

I am totally converted like all my files. Worth persevering with this because everything is so much easier, and there are so many more things you can do in Pub.

I sign myself off as a very happy Pub user. And I keep PP on my system in case I need to go back to the old files/

 

CRG

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Hi CRG  Thank you for that very helpful suggestion. Like you I tried the PDF route but it really didn't work out well. I will try your suggestion.   Unfortunately though a lot of my old documents rather that being mostly texts also have a lot of graphics and some uses tables as well so a bit more complicated. Hopefully one day I will make the transition to the Affinity range. For new users that are really great software tools. Its a shame though that Serif turned its back on a  large group of loyal users. Apart from promotional e-mails I never hear a peep out of them. Their salespeople could be a bit  annoying when they phoned to pressure you in to buying stuff BUT they also used to come up with  some really good deal nots just in Serif upgrades  but add on and 3rd party software that were extremely useful and at a good price.

Bu I will give your suggestion a try. Thank you for taking the time to respond

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  • 1 month later...

I have every Serif program and all of the upgrades...been using PagePlus and DrawPlus in particular - I have all of the Affinity products too...but as all of my visuals and children's books are done in PagePlus and Drawplus I've stuck with these...My laptop in on the way out so I need to load these programs onto a new one...I have the programs electronically and have the license numbers...but can't install them onto the new laptop...and there dosen't seem any where to download them from as Serif have now stopped providing support for the legacy programs...any suggestions/help..thanks

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52 minutes ago, John toy designer said:

I have every Serif program and all of the upgrades...been using PagePlus and DrawPlus in particular - I have all of the Affinity products too...but as all of my visuals and children's books are done in PagePlus and Drawplus I've stuck with these...My laptop in on the way out so I need to load these programs onto a new one...I have the programs electronically and have the license numbers...but can't install them onto the new laptop...and there dosen't seem any where to download them from as Serif have now stopped providing support for the legacy programs...any suggestions/help..thanks

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, John. :)

When you say

Quote

I have the programs electronically and have the license numbers

I presume the word ‘electronically’ means you don’t have installation discs but you have the programs installed on your current laptop.

I have copies of the installers that were until recently available for download from Serif, although I’m not currently set up to share them. Which versions of PagePlus and DrawPlus do you have product keys for?

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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1 minute ago, Alfred said:

although I’m not currently set up to share them

And wouldn't sharing them constitute a copyright violation?

-- 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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There are programs which can (sometimes) successfully transfer an installed Windows application to another computer. But sometimes they can't, and the only way to know seems to be to try it.

That's probably where I would start if the installer files aren't available.

-- 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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  • Staff
12 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

And wouldn't sharing them constitute a copyright violation?

Normally, yes but not in Alfred's case I gave him specific/explicit permission because of https://punster.me/serif/ 

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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On 7/15/2022 at 8:10 PM, Alfred said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, John. :)

When you say

I presume the word ‘electronically’ means you don’t have installation discs but you have the programs installed on your current laptop.

I have copies of the installers that were until recently available for download from Serif, although I’m not currently set up to share them. Which versions of PagePlus and DrawPlus do you have product keys for?

Hi Alfred....thank you for your reply...I have PagePlus X9 and DrawPlus x8 (plus WebPlus, PhotoPlus etc etc...but I'm not bothered with these) on my old laptop...simply copying the programs across doesn't work...I'm exploring a couple of programs that say they can copy across and everything they should function but the reviews say different. I wish I'd saved the download files that I got from Serif when I bought them...I think this might have been the solution?

if you could provide the installers I would really appreciate it

regards

 

john

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On 7/15/2022 at 8:10 PM, Alfred said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, John. :)

When you say

I presume the word ‘electronically’ means you don’t have installation discs but you have the programs installed on your current laptop.

I have copies of the installers that were until recently available for download from Serif, although I’m not currently set up to share them. Which versions of PagePlus and DrawPlus do you have product keys for?

Sorry Alfred....meant to say the I don't have the disks...the programs were downloaded from Serif

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12 minutes ago, John toy designer said:

if you could provide the installers I would really appreciate it

I’ve sent you a private message.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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  • 3 months later...

On October 14 2022 Windows updated and killed my Serif x2 ability to load files. It opens, flashes the logo and closed. I need a convertor to Affinity. I need software to open my files that go back many, many years. I would pay for it. Affinity, I have been a loyal purchaser of PP, Draw and Web since 1990. You are not loyal to me.

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had Serif pp on my windows machine, when I got a Mac it was no longer offered so I bought Affinity Publisher and designer. Thank you so much for not making a convertor so my old work can be brought over to Affinity.  I guess I should have gone with an alternate main stream software.

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  • 11 months later...

Hi there

I know it has been a while since this thread was posted so please forgive my tardiness.

I have been a user of all Serif programs since version 2.

I now have a Win 11 (prof) laptop and this would not allow me to install PP 9.

My way of getting round this was to install Orace Virtual Box ( https://www.virtualbox.org/ )

I then isntalled Windows 7 Prof (retail version) into Virtual machine. Registering Win 7 was easy using (free) phone registration. I procceded to install PP 9 and have tested it. I then copied all PP files ino the shared program foder and I can once again open all my PP files and I am able to edit etc as usual.

if you have a smallish SSD on newer PC I have Virtual Box installed onto an external HDD and it runs just fine from there This means I only have one extra step (open VB) to continue using serif programs. There are plenty of video tutorials on line if you have not used a virtual machine before just like myself. Very handy.

ErnieK

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