Brushes missing

[Mikey43]

I am trying to recover from a crash. Have reinstalled all three programmes but there is a problem with Publisher. In the view drop down menu under studio there is no 'brushes' listed. I have downloaded a pack and it says they have been installed but I cannot find them. I have tried 'reset studio'. Can you help please.

[Komatös]

Hi, @Mikey43

Go to View -> Studio and choose Brushes from the Drop-Down list.

[DWright]

Hi @Mikey43,

In Affinity Publisher to see the brushes you will need to be in the Designer or Photo Persona as the Publisher Persona does not have any brushes.

[Mikey43]

Thanks for your reply. Why is it that the downloads all show as a Publisher file?

[Mikey43]

One other point. When I download the brush file Publisher opens and says they have been downloaded but they do not appear in Designer or Photo. When I click on 'Import Brushes' in either programme and go to the download folder nothing is there.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Mikey43 said:

One other point. When I download the brush file Publisher opens and says they have been downloaded but they do not appear in Designer or Photo. When I click on 'Import Brushes' in either programme and go to the download folder nothing is there.

Any .afbrushes or .abr files in the folder shoulud show up when you use Import Brushes.

Can you show us a screenshot of the dialog that you get, which will be a Finder (Mac) or File Explorer (Windows) dialog opened by the Affinity application.

[Mikey43]

I have attached three screenshots. First one shows the download page, second Publisher after clicking install and the third shows the download page when trying to install from Photo.

[walt.farrell]

Thanks.

First, things will probably be less confusing if you configure File Explorer to show file extensions. 

Next, you have a .zip file. If you want the contents to be visible from within the Import Brushes dialog by default, you need to Unzip (extract) the file.

However, as you're on Windows you might be able to override the Import dialog by typing *.zip in the filename field and pressing Enter, then double-clicking on the .zip file, then selecting the brush file, then clicking Open. But it's probably best to just Unzip the file.

[Mikey43]

Thanks for your reply Walt. The zip file was unzipped that is why I tried to install it. I have just downloaded the same file on my backup pc and it has downloaded correctly as a Designer file and it installed correctly into the programme. I have tried downloading another brush file on my main pc with the same result - a Publisher file. Before the crash everything was working fine.

[PaulEC]

Try right clicking on the brush file that is associated with Publisher and click "open with" > "choose another app", then change it to open with Photo (tick always use this app...)

[Mikey43]

That is the answer PaulEC. Went to 'open with' clicked on Designer and 'BINGO' it changed and has downloaded OK. Never had to do this before but thanks again.

[PaulEC]

5 minutes ago, Mikey43 said:

Never had to do this before

Glad it worked. As long as you ticked "always use this app" you shouldn't need to do it again. 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

As long as you ticked "always use this app" you shouldn't need to do it again. 

But when we're talking about a single file extension, such as .afbrushes or .abr, which can be Opened by multiple applications, that may not help. Windows will always choose one of the applications to be the one the file type is associated with. You generally will need to use Open With, or use the file from within the application. Simply double-clicking on the file will only work if Windows happens to have the application you want associated with the file.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Mikey43 said:

The zip file was unzipped that is why I tried to install it

It was not unzipped in the screenshot from the Import Brushes dialog. Or you were not looking in the directory you unzipped it into. That's why you didn't see any file.

But, glad you have it working now.