Open PDF in Affinity Designer and export parts of it (quality?)

[markus985]

Hi there,

until recently, I did not know that I can open a PDF file that was created with Adobe XD or InDesign in Affinity Designer and am able to see and work with all the individual layers.

This can come in handy of course, e.g. I receive a screen design in PDF, and can export the elements, icons, images myself from the PDF and do not need to request it from the designer.

However, I am not sure if I should do that as I am not sure about the quality?

Are those elements lossless saved in the PDF? The elements I exported so far look pretty good and I can export those as SVG or any other format I like.

 

Is this a good way of doing this? Or is it actually a no go, and you definitely should request the original sources.

 

Thanks in advance 

 

Markus

 

 

[lacerto]

18 hours ago, markus985 said:

Is this a good way of doing this? Or is it actually a no go, and you definitely should request the original sources.

If the design is simple, you can check fairly easily that the quality matches the original, but as an opened PDF is always a result of interpretation, rendering can result in differences. If it is a critical job, I would personally use Adobe Acrobat or true PDF editor like PDF/X-Change and just remove what is not needed and then save as a different PDF and then place it (for passthrough), as these apps do not interpret the job. E.g. the fonts remain embedded, colors are not touched, etc. If you need to extract e.g. logos or stuff like that that are on top of colored background, etc. this is the way to go be sure to not mess unnecessarily with the original works.

UPDATE: ...and @markus985, welcome to the forums!

[markus985]

Thanks @lacerto 😀

I basically got the designs for a website a few times in PDF. I used to get it in Adobe XD, but some just send you a PDF. 

If the PDF is good enough, I rather not request for another format (people are just too busy and if PDF works, why not just use it, I am faster exporting what I need myself than waiting quite often)

PDF can be saved in many ways, probably it depends also what the source application is (e.g. Affinity Designer saved as PDF, Adobe InDesign saved as PDF)

The results I exported look astonishingly good, but of course I would always aim for the best source I can get and optimize myself for web from there.

 

Agree about fonts .. in the particular case, I don't mind about fonts, but fonts are definitely not embedded when opening a PDF with Affinity Designer. It accesses the system fonts, so they must be installed (and getting the exact right fonts is not always easy, better have them embedded)

 

In my case I do not need another PDF, just export parts of it, e.g., background elements, icon set, logo, etc. to get it in SVG or PNG/JPG

I am just surprised and happy that Affinity Designer can read the PDF so well. And the editor who created the PDF obviously saved it in a way that includes all the layer, which is amazing.

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by markus985

[lacerto]

19 minutes ago, markus985 said:

In my case I do not need another PDF, just export parts of it, e.g., background elements, icon set, logo, etc. to get it in SVG or PNG/JPG

In these kinds of scenarios I'd say you're safe to use Designer as a tool to extract stuff for other projects, just trusting your eyes. I use myself Affinity apps quite a lot for these kinds of things.

If you're on mac, you can use Preview to save a PDF as a PostScript file and have fonts converted to vectors, and then open the resulting PS file in Designer for editing (on Windows you can use e.g. GhostScript for the same). Adobe Acrobat Pro can do that of course, as well. Or if vector format is not needed, you can easily rasterize anything in a PDF, including embedded fonts, by placing a PDF in a high-enough DPI Designer document and then rasterize layer on which the PDF resides: no installed fonts needed but you get accurate rasterization (even when having legacy Type 1 fonts embedded in the document, something that e.g. Photoshop no longer does).

[markus985]

7 minutes ago, lacerto said:

If you're on mac, you can use Preview to save a PDF as a PostScript file and have fonts converted to vectors, and then open the resulting PS file in Designer for editing (on Windows you can use e.g. GhostScript for the same).

Thanks - that's a very good advice 

Then it seems I am good to go and ready to work with the files 👍

[iconoclast]

The quality of the elements in a PDF-file depends on the settings it was created with. E.g. it can happen that vector graphics will become rasterized at the moment the PDF was created. Or text can be converted into curves and will no longer be editable in that case. You can also adjust if PDFs shall be created for use on the web or in print, what will result in different qualities, because pixel images don't need a high resolution as images for print, but they should not have too large file sizes. So you can't say that in general. Generally you should know that PDF is not made  as a kind of storage for graphic elements, to extract if you need it. Initially PDF was meant to be a file format to send layout-files reliable and immutable to a print shop. Today you can do a lot more things with PDF, but it is tendencially more a final format then one to work with or use it as source file.

By the way, to use PDFs e.g. downloaded from the web, extract elements and use them for your work could also cause legal problems (copyright).

[markus985]

Thanks ..yes, I know PDF is quite complex and you could study PDF itself for many months.

Now, that I think about it, my post could really sound like I am trying "to steal" something from PDFs from the web .. not the case, I could easily also just request a folder with all graphic assets from the graphic designer. In some projects communication and collaboration is so cumbersome, I try to get just as much I can without bothering someone

And if the PDF from the graphic designer works for me to get the most out of it, then this saves me hours of back and forth emailing and waiting all the time

Of course, in my scenario, it would be best if the graphic designer just delivers what he/she should actually deliver (but that's a different story)