Affinity Publisher as All-in-one app?

[Old Bruce]

2 hours ago, albertkinng said:

I don’t even know why I need to explain these details to solve the problem?

The details are: What elements on the various pages need to exported in which formats? Is it a graphic that needs to be a TIFF file and a JPEG file and a PDF file? Is it each photo on a page needing to be exported in various sizes and or DPI settings? 

So far all we know is that you cannot do some sort of export from Publisher and you need to use the Export Persona in Designer for that. Fair enough but you have not really explained what sort of exports are needed.

Could you make a simple Publisher document say 4 pages in size with elements that would need to be exported using an Export Persona. We don't need the current document you are using for your client, use screen shots for photos and really simple graphics on the pages. Use text on the pages to explain what elements need to be exported in what formats, file type and size etc.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, albertkinng said:

My friend, the files have the same layout, the only thing that change is the content. In my case, I work directly with the ads on the sponsors pages and… I don’t even know why I need to explain these details to solve the problem? You can’t do it on Publisher. That’s the point. 

What you need to explain is how exactly you expect changing anything in the content of any one artboard to be applied to every other artboard that you want to export anything from. So like @Old Bruce said, we really need to know more than you have said about what kind of elements you want to export, to what format(s), how converting pages to artboards would help, & so on.

[albertkinng]

14 hours ago, R C-R said:

What you need to explain is how exactly you expect changing anything in the content of any one artboard to be applied to every other artboard that you want to export anything from. 

I already explained the process. You can't find a solution because it's not your everyday project and never find yourself with the same need. The files are already made in Publisher, I work with them, and then I deliver parts of the documents in different formats. Again, I already know how to do this, I've been doing this for a long time. I know it can't be done, that's why I was wondering if an option to save in a different app file would be available!! I already heard you saying 100 times, "you don't need to save the file in a different doc because all apps file formats are the same." I already heard you saying "yes you can do artboards in Publisher" Stop repeating the same instructions over and over. Go build a 20 pages magazine in Publisher, use the tools for columns and formatting and picture placeholders, SVG files and masked pictures and try to turn the magazine into Artboards later... IT CAN'T BE DONE. So, save your ideas because the only way to have a great day is creating the Magazine in Designer inside Publisher, so you can have the artboards and then build the magazine with pages, or the 1500 ways you come up to do it better than me, but that is not the scenario here, and your solutions can't be applied. This is the wrong thread to keep talking about this, and we're still swimming in circles. Why this thread is still open? Seriously, I thought you said this wasn't the thread. Right?

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, albertkinng said:

Why this thread is still open?

Because we still do not know how you expect to make whatever it is you want to do easier to do if all your pages could be converted to artboards.

If you could explain how that would work, ideally accompanied by an example file we could test with, then either we might be able to suggest an alternate way to achieve it or failing that at least to understand what is preventing you from doing what you are tryng to do.

As it is, you just keep repeating that the only way it can be done with pages is manually, one page at a time, but from what little you have told us it is still not clear how it could be done any easier or in fewer steps if all your content was in artboards rather than on pages.

[walt.farrell]

Perhaps we should just accept that @albertkinng is happy with their current workflow, and let the topic fade away?

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Perhaps we should just accept that @albertkinng is happy with their current workflow, and let the topic fade away?

He does not seem happy with it at all & is hoping for a quicker & easier workflow made possible by a future feature addition that makes it possible to convert pages to artboards in just one or a few steps.

[albertkinng]

27 minutes ago, R C-R said:

it is still not clear how it could be done any easier or in fewer steps if all your content was in artboards rather than on pages.

I said that once I do it manually I can use it as a template and paste other contents in the artboards with the saved Export Persona selections and keep delivering the different formats that way. Let me explain one more time:

1. Open the Publisher document.

2. Make the changes on all 24 pages

3. Because I can’t convert those pages in artboards because IT’S NOT POSSIBLE. I create a Designer document with 24 artboards same size as pages.

4. I copy the Pages of Publisher and paste them on the artboards to work with.

5. The content of some pages (not all of them) need to be exported in PNG, SVG, EPS etc… so I go to Export Persona and make the selections individually.

6. All selections will be exported in bulk to the client and also the magazine in Publisher document.

7. I open another Publisher document and copy all pages manually and paste them in the Designer document I already made keeping the Export Persona selections and export the items again

The tedious part of selecting and defining the areas for Export Persona It’s done once.

Why I wish for a ‘SAVE AS IN DESIGNER” ??

Because all documents are not the same, some magazine has different sizes as booklets and I need to do all the steps in Designer again. 
 

With a ‘SAVE AS DESIGNER DOC’ I wont need to create the artboards manually, use the guides to divide the artboards, and so on.. it will be just open the document and make selections to export in Export Persona.

if this time you don’t understand, don’t worry. It’s ok. There’s no other way to explain it.

[Old Bruce]

4 minutes ago, albertkinng said:

1. Open the Publisher document.

2. Make the changes on all 24 pages

3. Because I can’t convert those pages in artboards because IT’S NOT POSSIBLE. I create a Designer document with 24 artboards same size as pages.

4. I copy the Pages of Publisher and paste them on the artboards to work with.

5. The content of some pages (not all of them) need to be exported in PNG, SVG, EPS etc… so I go to Export Persona and make the selections individually.

6. All selections will be exported in bulk to the client and also the magazine in Publisher document.

7. I open another Publisher document and copy all pages manually and paste them in the Designer document I already made keeping the Export Persona selections and export the items again

After step 2 why not open the Publisher document in Designer

3. Open document in Publisher .

4. Choose Page one.

5. Use the Export Persona to export the elements you want to export in the formats and sizes you want.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to export the elements on the other pages.

One document, no copying and pasting. You would maybe want to set up some export presets in Designer, that way you just choose the home made presets each time you go to step 5.

[albertkinng]

12 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

After step 2 why not open the Publisher document in Designer

3. Open document in Publisher .

4. Choose Page one.

5. Use the Export Persona to export the elements you want to export in the formats and sizes you want.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to export the elements on the other pages.

One document, no copying and pasting. You would maybe want to set up some export presets in Designer, that way you just choose the home made presets each time you go to step 5.

With your suggestion I need to work page by page in Publisher. When I create all artboards I can export everything in one click. All artboards at once. It will be a nightmare one Page at a time. 

[R C-R]

16 minutes ago, albertkinng said:

6. All selections will be exported in bulk to the client and also the magazine in Publisher document.

But even if you could convert all your pages to artboards, wouldn't you still need to set up each export individually before you could use the AD Export Persona to do your bulk exports? You say you are not exporting the content of every page or artboard, & earlier you said it is only some of the content on individual ones that you want to export, so it is still not clear how converting all (?) pages to artboards would reduce the amount of manual work you need to do to get what you want.

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, albertkinng said:

With your suggestion I need to work page by page in Publisher. When I create all artboards I can export everything in one click. All artboards at once. It will be a nightmare one Page at a time. 

Again, even if everything is in artboards how could you export everything with just one click without a lot of manual preparation?

[albertkinng]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

But even if you could convert all your pages to artboards, wouldn't you still need to set up each export individually before you could use the AD Export Persona to do your bulk exports? You say you are not exporting the content of every page or artboard, & earlier you said it is only some of the content on individual ones that you want to export, so it is still not clear how converting all (?) pages to artboards would reduce the amount of manual work you need to do to get what you want.

Please read again. I make the selections in Export Persona just once and use that document as a template later on. It seems you are not familiar with the way you can make selections and paste new content keeping the selections intact. The Export Selections stay there once they have been created for the document.

[albertkinng]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Again, even if everything is in artboards how could you export everything with just one click without a lot of manual preparation?

I think you are joking or being funny now, but I will said it again.

I make the selections in Export Persona just once. Then in the same document with the selections already made I paste new pages from other magazines and so on. 
 

Please tell me you understand now.

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, albertkinng said:

I make the selections in Export Persona just once.

What specifically are you selecting? Slices, layers, something else? If whatever it is you are selecting is not the same for every artboard, how can you make just one selection that works for each of them?

[albertkinng]

Ok guys. I hope this video gives you a better perspective of the whole deal:

Video One: The Problem Video

Video two: The Solution

[R C-R]

Video 2 won't play for me -- I just get a slashed Play icon on a black background -- but it is still not clear if all the pages are different how you expect this to take fewer steps if you could convert the pages to artboards unless each page needs exactly the same alterations.

From your video 1 it appears that the content of each page is being altered in different ways.

[albertkinng]

21 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Video 2 won't play for me

Just focus on the second one. That video showcase what I need.

[albertkinng]

22 minutes ago, R C-R said:

but it is still not clear if all the pages are different how you expect this to take fewer steps if you could convert the pages to artboards unless each page needs exactly the same alterations.

Exactly, each page need changes in the same areas. I know you understand, It's not possible you can't understand watching a video with a step-by-step process recorded. If you don't get it, I'm done explaining.

[prophet]

Watched the videos and reread the whole thread. Seems like @walt.farrell's suggestion of using PDFs would be a reasonable solution.

On 4/19/2022 at 9:05 AM, walt.farrell said:

1. From Publisher, Export document as a PDF, making sure to select the option All Pages in the Export dialog rather than All Spreads.
2. From Designer, Open the PDF.

You would then have all pages "converted" to artboards. That works fine for the first document and creating the "export template". For the second document, export it as PDF, open it separately in Designer, copy all the art boards and paste them into the original "template" over the top of the original artboards. All new art, but same slices are ready for export.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, albertkinng said:

Just focus on the second one. That video showcase what I need.

From that, it seems like what you are most concerned about is not altering the original APub file. So to eliminate that concern why not just save a second copy of the file, which you are doing anyway via the hoped for new 'Save As Designer Document" feature*, open that second copy in Designer, & do whatever editing you want to its pages, & then create your Export Persona settings. Converting pages to artboards doesn't buy you much because you still have to create your slices for each artboard prior to export -- you have only done that for one artboard in your video but I assume you want to do this for more than one of them.

* note that since all native format files use the same document format this feature would not really be changing anything so what you really want is a way to convert pages to artboards via some sort of export option.

[albertkinng]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Converting pages to artboards doesn't buy you much because you still have to create your slices for each artboard prior to export

Wrong. I do need Artboards so I can export all of them in one click. If I do what you suggested (by the way I already tried that) It wont let me have all pages in artboards. It seems for you is fine doing a one by one instead of all at once. Again, I don't expect to understand my need but certainly I would appreciate if you get the need at least.

[albertkinng]

3 hours ago, prophet said:

Watched the videos and reread the whole thread. Seems like @walt.farrell's suggestion of using PDFs would be a reasonable solution.

You would then have all pages "converted" to artboards. That works fine for the first document and creating the "export template". For the second document, export it as PDF, open it separately in Designer, copy all the art boards and paste them into the original "template" over the top of the original artboards. All new art, but same slices are ready for export.

Great Alternative! The only thing is some content for some reason ended up bad, like a curve item ended up like a mask on pixel and some texts break apart in letters. I've tried on all PDF export options and always something is messed up, but hey! You are right, it's a great alternative to save me time. Thanks!

[prophet]

6 hours ago, albertkinng said:

some content for some reason ended up bad, like a curve item ended up like a mask on pixel and some texts break apart in letters.

I guess that's a risk if you have some elements that have to be flattened

 

6 hours ago, albertkinng said:

but hey! You are right, it's a great alternative to save me time. Thanks!

Happy to help. I know these threads can sometimes be frustrating if there's some miscommunication going on, but I find even the most…shall we say…persistent folks are just trying to help and find a solution. Not just for you, but for others who will come after.

[Old Bruce]

10 hours ago, prophet said:

Seems like @walt.farrell's suggestion of using PDFs would be a reasonable solution.

Please don't use the PDF format as an interchange format, this sort of thing makes for more problems. It is something to be used at the absolute final stage of production.

[albertkinng]

2 hours ago, prophet said:

folks are just trying to help and find a solution. Not just for you, but for others who will come after.

Yeah, I guess you’re right. I still think that an export option to Designer doc that convert the pages on artboards still the best option.  Having all apps in one is a genius idea! I always tell people that point out features missing or task they can’t do that don’t forget we are using a version 1 here! This is amazing! I can’t wait for what’s coming next! They surpassed Adobe in 89% of his designer apps already imagine what could happen in version 2!