General Feedback from a New Convert

[Greg dJ]

Hi, Affinity community. Thought I'd chime in on my experience switching 'cold-turkey' from AI/PS/ID to Affinity, this year. My initial motivation was cost; I was not relishing another $800/year hit. But also a week's trial of Designer, Photo and Publisher convinced me I would not find myself lacking. So I bought all 3 and canceled my other subscription.

Top Pros:

1. Speed - the apps launch and operate a perceptible ~3x faster than what I was accustomed to.
2. Cost - I'm deeply grateful to have such an affordable, viable, professional option (I'm just an occasional freelancer).
3. Generally pleasing to use - as I adapt my former workflow and keyboard shortcut muscle-memory to the Affinity way, I find it ever more satisfying to use, such that I find myself looking for reasons to use it - which is surely a good sign. Things like the Designer Export interface reveal the way the dev team reconsider each step of usage.
4. Community - this is always a boon for new users, to know there is a good starting place for getting help and ideas online.

A few Cons:

1. Vector warp tools (esp. non-destructive) - I wasn't even aware of how often I use these, until I didn't have them. I know I'm not alone in this. It'll be a great day when Affinity rolls this out in Designer.
2. Without ID any more (to export IDML), I have to reconstruct my ID files in Publisher; not terrible, some forced practice, and luckily I tend to have a PDF to work from.
3. I was just starting to get accustomed to PS artboards, despite their clunkiness; reverting to building (in Photo) one canvas at a time is a bit of a setback.
4. I had some struggles resizing placed files in Publisher, had to wrest control from the app a bit (internal scaling: none; anchor: none), just because I am accustomed to resizing frames independently from content.

Cheers!

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @Greg dJ.

40 minutes ago, Greg dJ said:

I was just starting to get accustomed to PS artboards, despite their clunkiness; reverting to building (in Photo) one canvas at a time is a bit of a setback.

Have you tried creating an artboard-based document in Designer and then working on it in Photo?

[Greg dJ]

22 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @Greg dJ.

Have you tried creating an artboard-based document in Designer and then working on it in Photo?

Makes sense, and yeah would work thanks to the cohesion between the two apps. Thanks!

[PaoloT]

On 11/17/2021 at 6:53 PM, Greg dJ said:

Without ID any more (to export IDML), I have to reconstruct my ID files in Publisher

You could download a one-month demo of InDesign, or buy a one-month subscription (around 45€, if I’m not wrong), and convert all your old files.

There is also a batch script to automate it for each folder. I don't remember it, but I’ll check when I am at my work computer.

Paolo

 

[PaoloT]

Ok, finding the right thread seems a bit complicate. The most direct one seems to be this one, but pointing to a missing link:

https://creativepro.com/creating-batch-pdfs/

I'm therefore attach the version of the script I have, that should be the most accurate one.

On a Mac, with InDesign CS6, this script should be inside the folder:

~/Library!Preferences/Adobe InDesign/Version 8.0/en_GB/Scripts/Scrips Panel/

Paolo

 

INDD - IDML batch_convert.jsxbin.zip

[Greg dJ]

On 11/22/2021 at 11:54 PM, PaoloT said:

You could download a one-month demo of InDesign, or buy a one-month subscription (around 45€, if I’m not wrong), and convert all your old files.

There is also a batch script to automate it for each folder. I don't remember it, but I’ll check when I am at my work computer.

Paolo

 

Good to note in this thread, although I don't have such a raft of ID files that I will be put out to rebuild them on a case-by-case basis; my work is mostly one-offs so I'd be overhauling the designs anyway. Thanks for the tip and for seeking out that script!