Creating Master Page Templates for use in other Publisher Publications

[Susie1001]

Hi there Support,

I have searched but can't find the answer, so here's my question:

I have created a publication & also created Master Pages for it. Now I want to create another Publication but use the same & add more Master Pages.
So, is there a way to create Master Pages & save them as Templates, that we can use in other Publications we create?

Thanks,

Susie

[Old Bruce]

You can make a Document and save it (with its Master Pages and Actual Pages) as a Template file. File > Export as Template ... Just make sure to set up a Directory/Folder somewhere easily found again, I use a Directory in my Documents directory called Affinity Templates. Just look for that when I make a new document and use the Templates choice in that New ... window.

An advantage of this Template formate is that you can also include things like Document Swatches with Global Colours, you can have a set of Character and Paragraph Styles.

[walt.farrell]

27 minutes ago, Susie1001 said:

So, is there a way to create Master Pages & save them as Templates, that we can use in other Publications we create?

You can create a document, with the Master Pages you want and nothing else.

You can then use File > Export as Template to save it. I would pick a special folder that you will use for such templates.

Then you can use File > New, and switch from Presets to Templates (left side of dialog), and add your special folder as a Template directory. That will make the templates easily available to use.

Official Tutorial

 

[Susie1001]

Hello to you both

& thank you for that suggestion. Yes, I realise I can do that but what happens when I want to import a PDF.
Can you import a pdf to a created publication that has a Master page already? Or can you add a template to a publication?

I will have to try both scenarios, but I don't think it will work
It would make more sense if we could import saved Master pages. Perhaps, this is for the Suggestion box?

Thanks Guys, you Rock!

[walt.farrell]

14 minutes ago, Susie1001 said:

Can you import a pdf to a created publication that has a Master page already?

Probably, yes. But whether it would do what you want depends on what you mean by "import".

[Susie1001]

Hi Walt,

I want to import a PDF document & then use a Master Page to create a specific layout.
Hence the request I made, if can I use a pre-made Master page. But although you can create a template with a Master Page included in it, I wanted to know if you can import a pdf document into that but I'm guessing, not!

Probably then, the only way would be to just copy & paste the text from the document into a pre-made Publisher document (that already has the Master Page included).
This would be a very long-winded way of doing it.
I will try & see how quickly I can set it up.
Thanks for your response.

Susie

[walt.farrell]

53 minutes ago, Susie1001 said:

want to import a PDF document

You need to say what "import" means, to you. Exactly what steps will you do in Publisher to get your PDF file into the Publisher document?

[thomaso]

7 hours ago, Susie1001 said:

Now I want to create another Publication but use the same & add more Master Pages.
So, is there a way to create Master Pages & save them as Templates, that we can use in other Publications we create?

Like Walt, I'm not sure what you want / don't know how to achieve. You may be missing the feature to add specific pages from PDF or Affinity documents. In this way, any document can be used as a template by transferring certain pages with their content to another document.

When adding pages from an .afpub document, you can't add master pages directly, but when you add a page that has a master page assigned to it, both the document page and its master page are added. When pages are added, they are added with their page dimensions and text styles, i.e. both may differ from the properties of the document to which they are added.

https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Advanced/mergeDocument.html?

[Susie1001]

Hello Thomaso,

I thought you may have been on the right track here. However, after opening Publisher, I open a PDF document, so all the pages are now sitting inside Publisher.
I then Add pages from File (as you suggested), it opens & I add the pages I wanted.

But this is strange. The pages have the items I want (guides, image & text placement boxes) but the pages & the Master I added from the File, now don't have the original settings, it has change from inches to points & the DPI has change from 400dpi to 72dpi.

Do you have any idea why that would be?

Thanks,
Susie

[Susie1001]

It also changed the colour settings as well, from CMYK to RGB.

[thomaso]

Does it also happen if you add pages from the same document into a new .afpub / without using the PDF?

Or: Can you upload the PDF + the .afpub you add pages from? (if they are large files you might delete some pages before upload).

[Susie1001]

Wow this is good.

If I add the Page from File, which has its own Master (with all the settings, image & text boxes) into a Blank document in Publisher, all the settings & the Master come over correctly.

Then when I Add pages from File for the Pdf, those pages come in & don't disrupt anything. All I must do then, is just assign the Master to those from the PDF.

Brilliant!

Thank you, Thomaso, you've solved my problem!

Susie

[thomaso]

Glad you managed it! – Nevertheless, neither colour nor DPI change should happen because it could cause modifications, e.g. to rasterized layers, stroke widths, adjustments, blend modes. Would you mind to upload the PDF for further investigation of a possible culprit?

[Susie1001]

Hi Tomaso,

Sorry, I forgot to say, when I Added from File first, before I then added the PDF, all the settings stayed i.e. DPI, Pixels, Colour, bleed etc. So, yes, it all worked

Susie 

[thomaso]

I already understood you like this in your previous post. Because you initially started with the PDF is why I suspect the PDF as one influencer for the colour or DPI issue. So again, if you can share / upload it (or just 1 page of it) it would be fine, same for the .afpub you added (if it differs in colour or DPI settings).