Convert Publisher pages into Photo documents or groups

[Clau_S]

Hi everybody,

I've searched for a similar question but I haven't found it. It's even difficult to express the topic exactly in a title.  I hope I did nothing wrong and that I'll make myself clear as this is not my language.

I'm painting some boards in Affinity Photo. I have to make 31 and I have to put 90 different labels on each for a total of 2790 different labels. Data merge feature in Publisher will help me populate the labels quickly. The problem is that I can't find a way to import them in Photo (and I'm not that much into Publisher yet). Actually I have found several ways but not the practical one I'm looking for, since Publisher cannot export pages separately in Affinity format, while importing an .afpub into Photo won't give you the chance to separate pages as you can do with PDFs. I came up with this:

• Dragging/placing the .afpub file in Photo document will show only one page. To have all the 90 labels displayed I should duplicate the layer 89 times and select the right page for each. Too long to repeat 2790 times.
• Copying/pasting every page in a new group in Photo would be at last as long as the previous method.
• Exporting every page in a raster format would prevent any further edit. It's not that I really need it, but if I'd need I should go back to Publisher and export/import again. Also I'd prefer to deal with text and shapes until the end.
• A more viable approach would be to export every single page in PSD format, but  having to rely on an external file type instead of the proprietary one sounds cumbersome to me. Also there could be inconsistencies too.

Any ideas on how to import quickly all Publisher document's pages into Photo as individual embedded documents or groups?

[walt.farrell]

I'm not sure I understand what you're doing, but Photo can Open a .afpub file. True, you can only see one page at a time, but you can navigate from page to page using the page selector on the left edge of the Status Bar at the bottom of the workspace. Wouldn't that accomplish what you need?

[Clau_S]

Just now, walt.farrell said:

I'm not sure I understand what you're doing, but Photo can Open a .afpub file. True, you can only see one page at a time, but you can navigate from page to page using the page selector on the left edge of the Status Bar at the bottom of the workspace. Wouldn't that accomplish what you need?

Thanks for your reply, but I already knew that. I'll try to be more specific. I'll create the labels in Publisher with the help of data merge that will output a new 90 pages document (one page for any label). In my Photo document I need to place and distribute all the 90 labels, so all the 90 pages. As I said, If I import the afpub (basically all Affinity formats are the same if I recall correctly) into Photo, I should duplicate the embedded document 89 times and set each of the layers to show a different page to have all the 90 different labels on my board. That's pretty time consuming considering I should repeat it 2759 times to complete all my boards.

Another approach would be to use the Data Merge Layout Tool to create all the labels in a single page, but since their background will change too (I have 6 different colors) I should edit them nonetheless. Maybe faster but not as much as I'd like. With the other method I could set 6 master pages to differentiate the background.

 

[R C-R]

53 minutes ago, Clau_S said:

I'll create the labels in Publisher with the help of data merge that will output a new 90 pages document (one page for any label). In my Photo document I need to place and distribute all the 90 labels, so all the 90 pages.

I don't understand. Are you saying that you want all 90 labels on each of the 90 pages of the document or something else?

Regardless, can you explain why you need to do whatever it is that you want to do in AP instead of in APub?

[Clau_S]

4 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't understand. Are you saying that you want all 90 labels on each of the 90 pages of the document or something else?

Regardless, can you explain why you need to do whatever it is that you want to do in AP instead of in APub?

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I have to make 31 boards (they are 31 different versions of the same board game). Each board will be made in a dedicated afphoto document. All of these will be single page documents and I need to place the respective 90 labels (coming from a publisher file -this is the 90 pages document) on any document. So there will be 2790 labels for 31 boards in total. 90 labels for each board.

I work in AP because it's an artistic/graphic job and I need Photo tools. Also I know Photo pretty well compared to Publisher. Anyway, working in Publisher (with the integrated Photo persona) wouldn't change the situation since I should still find a way to have all the labels laid out in a single page avoiding as much as possible time consuming tasks or the need for further edits.

I already made the same job last year but working on a few boards, one board at a time and with a lot of time for each. So I did the labels manually (also data merge wasn't a feature in Publisher yet). This time I have many boards and I need to hurry up. So I was looking for the fastest way. If Publisher had the ability to export any page individually as an affinity file or there was a way to load pages as individual groups (or if there is a way in publisher to copy all layers, from all pages, at once) my job would be easier.

[walt.farrell]

Are all the labels the same for each board? If so, perhaps Symbols (Designer, or Designer Persona of Publisher) would be a good approach.

[Clau_S]

7 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Are all the labels the same for each board? If so, perhaps Symbols (Designer, or Designer Persona of Publisher) would be a good approach.

Unfortunately, as I wrote in my opening post, they are 2790 different labels. The structure is pretty the same for every labels set, but the text is different. I made a template for labels last year and for every board I edited it adding the texts manually before importing, but copying/pasting 2790 texts would be a suicide. Looking for a solution, I found that Data Merge feature was added to Pub and it's a real bless to me. I just hoped to find a way just as effective to quickly import the labels in my document. At this point I will rely on one of the methods that I said earlier and eventually will ask for a new feature in the proper forum. 

[Old Bruce]

18 hours ago, Clau_S said:

All of these will be single page documents and I need to place the respective 90 labels (coming from a publisher file -this is the 90 pages document) on any document.

Can you not have the 90 labels on one Publisher Page?

Place the Photo document in a Publisher document then merge the labels onto the photo document?

As an aside: I am thinking in terms of 31 Languages and or 31 Cities.

[Clau_S]

15 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Can you not have the 90 labels on one Publisher Page?

Place the Photo document in a Publisher document then merge the labels onto the photo document?

As an aside: I am thinking in terms of 31 Languages and or 31 Cities.

With Data Marge Layout Tool I can make them on a single page, but they would need more further edits 'cause I cannot take advantage of Master Pages flexibility to differentiate backgrounds. I also could place my old empty labels in a grid and use Data Merge Layout Tool to create only text layers, but then I should move any text layer in the corresponding label group. This process would almost take as much time as copy-pasting and I don't know if I could speed it up with a macro.

 

Almost there: 1 Language, 31 different maps.