Essential features for me

[gombi]

I am aged 78 and have been teaching seniors how to use PC computers since 1999, the aim being to show them how to impress their friends, relatives and neighbours.  One program stood out - Serif PagePlus - fantastic, and I regretted there was nothing like it for Macs.  Now Serif has  produced Affinity Designer, and I am giving it a trial. 

 

However, in producing a newsletter for my students, and others, to show what it can do, I am bemused [?]  that I can find no templates [they would use calendars, visiting cards, greetings cards .....], no graphics [PagePlus has a fantastic collection] and no ability to prepare a document with more than one page.

 

I am not computer illiterate, but I am getting on in years -  am I missing something?     Or if I am not missing anything, is there any chance of these features appearing in the near future?

 

I do have several Mac DTPs which do all of these things, but Affinity Designer almost leaves them all for dead - almost.

[Hokusai]

Gombi,

 

Designer is more like Illustrator, not Indesign. Designer can be used to make newsletters but that isn't its purpose, it is a vector app not a page layout app. Next year, Affinity will release the beta of Publisher and it will be more of what you are looking for.

 

Hokusai

[Hokusai]

Gombi,

 

Sorry, I later realised that you might not be familiar with Illustrator or Indesign. Affinity Designer is more like DrawPlus and Affinity Publisher will be more like PagePlus. Designer is more for creating vector art, although you can also do raster work too (and you can even mix them). Publisher will be more for layout, making newsletters, calendars, etc. I hope this helps and welcome to the forums.

 

Hokusai

[Peregrin]

However, in producing a newsletter for my students, and others, to show what it can do, I am bemused [?]  that I can find no templates [they would use calendars, visiting cards, greetings cards .....], no graphics [PagePlus has a fantastic collection] and no ability to prepare a document with more than one page.

Just as Hokusai said, Affinity designer isn't designed for making multi-page newsletters.  If what you need is a PDF, then the Artboard feature might help, but even this feature is more for graphic design and not so much for page layout.

 

There will, at some point, be Affinity Publisher, which will be designed for this purpose.  Designer is for making vector illustrations, pixel/vector art, web design, and the like, so templates for newsletters or greeting cards aren't necessary; I mean, all you really need in order to draw a picture is a blank page.  I found it easy to make my business card design using Designer, but business card printing requires two appropriately-sized and formatted .png files, as opposed to a multi-page newsletter, which essentially requires a full pdf and thrives on templates to make it go faster (because the emphasis is on what's written rather than images).

 

I assume by "graphics," you refer to symbols, emojis, clip-art, or something similar.  Affinity designer is far better suited to designing those graphics themselves than making a newsletter.  It does have a large selection of geometric shapes, but those are intended more as a basis for one to build on than as symbols to insert into a page for print.  The same can be said for pages; the Artboard tool essentially does for illustration what pages do for a newsletter, but again they are designed to benefit the illustration side of things rather than page layout.

 

In short, you're looking at the wrong app for your purposes.  If you like drawing, you should give Designer a try with art in mind.  Otherwise, you should wait until the release of Affinity Publisher, which will almost certainly serve your needs.

[Peregrin]

Oh…  I just realized that this thread was from last year.  My mistake.