form fields and interactive pdf export would be nice

[chirurgean]

Quoting from a comment from 2019 for publisher v1

this would be great to have in v2 of publisher

[Attinity]

yes please, i neet it too!

this would be great to have in a uptate like 2.5 or 2.7 Not in next version 3.0

[havocsforge]

I am honestly saddened that such an important feature that has been requested for years no was not implemented. Its incredibly tedious to made a document in publisher and then use another program to add fields, only to update the document a week later and have to redo a hundred fields.

[Ampersand]

I add my vote to the future impementation of this feature

much love to the devs!

[Medical Officer Bones]

On 11/19/2022 at 12:34 PM, havocsforge said:

I am honestly saddened that such an important feature that has been requested for years no was not implemented. Its incredibly tedious to made a document in publisher and then use another program to add fields, only to update the document a week later and have to redo a hundred fields.

Then you are obviously doing it wrong: open the old and new PDF, and simply copy the fields from the old version into the new version. Make changes/additions.

While it would be nice to have PDF form field support in Publisher, it is not necessary to "redo a hundred fields" in Acrobat or PDF-Xchange Editor (I use the second one). The process takes a minute or two (depending on the number of changes, of course).

[chirurgean]

PDF xchange looks good, but it seems to be on the windows platform and not the mac unfortunately.  Acrobat would do the job, but I don't like subscription software and would like not to add any more to my outgoings (I do have Lightroom for the DAM side of things though). PDF forms would also be a small part of my software needs (but a desired part)

[Vicam]

I have been looking for this to be added for a while as well. I hope they do soon

[chirurgean]

Yes it would be very nice and another chance to move away from the Adobe orbit.

 

I do suspect that this is not a trivial addition, otherwise it would have been done before now.

 

As the print world recedes for the majority and documents become digital only (we are nearly there I think … for 'casual work' but not glossy paper magazines) then a well designed interactive form is a real need. The workflow of:  download a form, print it to paper, complete the fields with ink, scan the paper and email is a slow and inefficient hangover from the past.

 

I am an optimist and the guys at DT keep delivering (maybe for this new year or next Christmas?)

[DinoJam]

Would absolutely love to have this function. It would make our workflow so much easier. We resort to using Scribus (and the UI for that open software is clunky and not easy to use...) because we'd rather not pay a subscription to any alternatives. Was surprised to see it wasn't implemented in V2 after seeing so many requests for it for V1. Surely if open software can accomplish it the team at Serif can do it too? 

We work with clients around the world who do not always have access to printers or scanners. Form fillable PDFs are a big part of improving the accessibility of the products we create and sell. We know plenty of others in our industry who would happily leave Adobe for Affinity if Publisher could accomplish this.

[Scott Hunter]

Really disappointed that this feature has not been added. 

It is annoying that tools and features that were available Pageplus series have not been implemented, despite lots of requests. 

I'm a huge fan of Affinity and the company, but sometimes I feel they really aren't listening to their community. 

[Debbie tech VA]

I am considering switching back to InDesign because I really miss this feature.

 

[Andy_R]

My transition to Affinity hit the rocks today when I've got a job to create an editable PDF. These used to be a large proportion of our work until about a year ago (client got assimilated into a larger organisation)  and I'd forgotten how important it is to be able to do this. I'd even pay extra for a separate 'Acrobat like' Affinity product to do this if it could be switched as seemlessly as the others with studio link. That would be amazing because even doing this in Adobe is clunky and rubbish. Unfortunately today after a couple of months of being able to transition pretty much all my work to Affinity I'm going to have to fire up Indesign & Acrobat for this one.

[chirurgean]

Perhaps as you say, this feature appended as a paid add-on for those who need it. It would be extra work for Affinity to do this and they do deserve to be recompensed.

In the end it is a commercial decision. I for one, will keep my fingers crossed and stay optimistic 

[Atlas Games Webmaster]

Me, too. Really necessary for our business, where we offer RPG character sheets as PDF with fillable forms on our website. It's a value add that our fans expect these days.

[Jason]

Definitely would love to have an interactive pdf. With fillable fields, drop downs,  radio buttons etc..

This would make forms more easily filled out by clients and customers. 

[completenormal]

This is the one feature that I'd most like to see included in the Affinity workflow.

At the time of writing, its the only design-related task that I still need to rely on other software to achieve.

Ideally, the feature would be implemented into Publisher (a la InDesign); but I would also pay for a standalone product that provided this functionality (a la Acrobat), if it was native to the Affinity Suite.

Fast, flexible, ISO standard tools for creating interactive PDFs is the very apex of my wishlist, and has been for some years now. 

[Andy_R]

They probably haven't got the resources to make this happen, but it's a shame because if they could make it work they could win a lot of Adobe users over - the current way of doing this in Indesign / Acrobat is terrible.

[BanchoryJohn]

Just to add my voice in support of form creation and pdf export with fillable fields. It would be a a very positive thing to have this within Publisher, especially now paper forms seem so last century.

[Fingermouse]

This feature would save me so much time and effort. I was hoping that it'd be in V2 after it wasn't included in V1 but that clearly wasn't to be. Is it even on any roadmap?

At the moment I'm using DocHub.com to add form fields to my documents (there's a free tier which is probably enough for most people), which works well and is nicer than a lot of the other software options, but obviously it's an extra step in the workflow and I have to find workarounds when documents need updating. Right now I'm having to update the covers on a whole stack of PDF workbooks which were all made fillable a while ago. I'd love to be able to just export the new versions from Publisher and be done, but instead I'm having to export the covers on their own and then replace them in DocHub to avoid having to re-do all the forms.

Without direct form support in Publisher, any process is going to involve additional software and require some major compromises. And the suggestions (above) to use Acrobat make no sense — if I was going to use Acrobat and give (more) money to Adobe then I might as well go back to InDesign and save myself the bother entirely. I use Publisher because it's fast, good at what it does and isn't made by Adobe. Adobe have already had thousands from me over the years, I'm in no hurry to give them more.

Given that fillable form creation is implemented in so many other services and software packages, it's clearly not an impossible task. It just doesn't seem to be very high on the list of priorities. I don't know why, though — as has been said before, we're long past moving away from printing everything out and fillable forms are (or at least should be) widespread. Quite aside from my commercial work, I receive loads of PDFs where the sender says "fill this out and email back" but there are no fillable fields. I end up using Publisher or Designer to fill out the form and create a new PDF but I assume that plenty of people end up having to print the form out and scan/photograph the result to email it, which is crazy. When even something as professional as Publisher doesn't allow the creation of forms, it's no surprise that we're in this state. (Although, to be honest, Microsoft Word takes a huge part of the blame for the horrible state of forms and PDFs).

[chirurgean]

I just have to agree with all you have said. I don't want to send my info off to a web site so DocHub is not for me. My need is great, and increasing, as my outdated copy of PDF Office from Readdle is increasingly non functional. This (before it became abandonware) just managed to fill my needs. Ok, it was flaky, but easy to use and kept my data on device. Affinity tend to be tight-lipped about their plans. Lets hope that they are working on a 'cunning plan'

Microsoft Word - Ugh!

[Fingermouse]

1 hour ago, chirurgean said:

I just have to agree with all you have said. I don't want to send my info off to a web site so DocHub is not for me. My need is great, and increasing, as my outdated copy of PDF Office from Readdle is increasingly non functional. This (before it became abandonware) just managed to fill my needs. Ok, it was flaky, but easy to use and kept my data on device. Affinity tend to be tight-lipped about their plans. Lets hope that they are working on a 'cunning plan'

Microsoft Word - Ugh!

A while ago I would have agreed with you about DocHub and sending info off to a web site, but web applications are definitely the way that lots of things are heading so it's almost unavoidable in the long run. Whether this is a good or bad thing is a discussion for another time and place (and I'm already hijacking this thread to respond).

I certainly wouldn't use one of those online services that takes files and sends modified files back anonymously — there are loads of those that convert between formats etc and users have no control over what the service is doing with your files. However, I don't see a web-based service that requires a login and has secure storage like DocHub as anything worse than having my files on Dropbox or collaborating on design files using Figma (although I can understand if people see both of those things as awful too).

In an ideal world I wouldn't have to use DocHub, but for me it's a lot quicker and lower cost than the majority of the other options available. I guess I'm still optimistic that Affinity will add native form fields to Publisher eventually, and I don't want to install yet another piece of software to do just one job. Maybe I should just go and knock on Serif's door to see what's going on. I drive past their HQ twice a week and am often tempted...

[DinoJam]

Just wanted to add that I'd happily make a one-time purchase for an official add-on or plug-in - or even an entire fourth app in the suite - to have this be a reality. Seeing all the more requests in this thread has me hopeful though. Keep the comments coming! To reiterate, having this functionality would change (for the better!) every single one of our digital products - and it would help us send forms and do work with clients/collaborators around the world who do not always have access to printers and scanners.

Would love to hear from a developer if this is at all a blip on the roadmap or within possibility though - even if we can't get a timeline, date, or promise.

[chirurgean]

An update to this topic

New Mac and iPad OS will offer PDF form functionalities. I’m not sure how good these will be, but they may be enough for 90% of needs. If there is a place for Affinity publisher to get into this facility, then perhaps sooner rather than later AND with an enhanced feature set would be very helpful

[katana1232]

I really hope this feature comes at some point it would be nice not to have to do it in other apps that ruin the look of my documents.

[dansim]

I do really need this feature to be available. Now I am forced to buy another (expensive) product just for this task.