V2 Publisher - Improvements in ID compatibility?

[malebron]

For publisher V2, has any work been done on Adobe InDesign file compatibility?

I bought Publisher last year in the hope of moving my annual calendar off ID, but it was unable to import my project correctly and despite much help and various ideas here on the forum, it was simpler and quicker to just go back to Adobe.

[Old Bruce]

Still only IDML file opening. No export of any Adobe format other than PSD and that has no Text as Text retention, the Text layers will be rasterized.

[malebron]

IDML should have been sufficient for my needs. It just didn't translate correctly.

I want to know if the code was moved untouched from V1, or if anyone has worked on it to fix/improve (in which case I'd check it out).

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, lacerto said:

Anyone expecting fundamental changes throughout the app trio will be sadly disappointed

I have to disagree, here is one; raw file development is quite different and it is better. 

[nwhit]

Be pretty easy (and free) to simply download the 30-day free trial and give it a go. Easy way to test it. 

[malebron]

To be clear, I'm only talking about Publisher, and the new features are not relevant to me.

If IDML import in V2 is potentially better than V1, I'll check it out. If the developers didn't touch that (which sounds like may be the case) I don't want to waste my time.

Thanks!

[nwhit]

Best not to try then. Change is difficult for many people. And free is a pretty tough deal to accept.

Personally, my media production company has imported hundreds of legacy ID files, most all without significant issues. And V2 of Publisher is dramatically better than V1 in my brief testing. 

[malebron]

@nwhitWell, I'm glad it works for you. I only have one use case and I wasted countless hours trying to get this file to import properly last year (not to mention the time of many kind people on this forum), and as you know, the definition of madness is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. If it this part of the software hasn't been changed why would I spend even another minute?

On the other hand if Serif tells me "oh, yeah, we made a bunch of changes there"...

Hence the question.

A non-sarcastic response from someone at Serif would be helpful and warmly welcomed.

[nwhit]

A 10-minute free download would answer your question quite quickly. But OTOH, I found over the many, many months when Affinity was developing the IDML import in numerous betas, that any time my company came across an IDML import problem, it was very easy to upload it to their tech staff for evaluation and troubleshooting, which always resolved the problem, sometimes albeit after an upgrade. There are, of course, many things that can be done in ID that don't export well, much less import properly, but Affinity staff has been relentless in working on those issues to get them resolved, assuming they can be resolved. Sometimes it is the fault of ID, not Affinity that causes the import problem.

May not be the answer you're looking for but it is a viable path.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[Patrick Connor]

Yes there have been a number of improvements to IDML import around stability and fidelity.

I would say the new endnotes and footnotes features in Affinity Publisher 2 are not yet reflected in the equivalent ability to load them from IDML files. I'm sure we will be adding that when time allows.

[malebron]

@Patrick Connor Thank you.

[malebron]

For anyone who finds this thread later: I did download the trial. There is no difference importing IDML for my project. It's still unusable in Affinity Publisher 2.  (It's based on a template from MagCloud, a subsidiary of leading on-demand book publisher, Blurb).

MagCloud published updated (2022) versions of their templates, but INDD format only.

My ID version is too old to open these, so I will continue using this to update my old docs for now.  When/if Affinity has INDD import I will revisit.

[emmrecs01]

1 hour ago, malebron said:

When/if Affinity has INDD import I will revisit.

It is my understanding that the INDD file format is proprietary to Adobe and so not "accessible" to any other software manufacturer.

[Patrick Connor]

1 hour ago, emmrecs01 said:

It is my understanding that the INDD file format is proprietary to Adobe and so not "accessible" to any other software manufacturer.

It is. Others have reverse engineered the format but we absolutely do not plan to do that. Files need converting to IDML to be imported 

[malebron]

1 hour ago, Patrick Connor said:

Others have reverse engineered the format but we absolutely do not plan to do that. Files need converting to IDML to be imported 

Thanks for the clear answer.

Unfortunately this means that although AP works well for original creators, occasional users like me who rely on available 3rd party templates may be shut out. And of course we are the users who can least justify an Adobe subscription.  A 3rd party conversion tool might help, but your explanation seems to preclude this.

I will request IDML format from MagCloud, but doubt the additional effort would be worth it for them. (and even then, the AP import may still fall short)

[DylanGG]

On 11/16/2022 at 4:44 PM, Patrick Connor said:

It is. Others have reverse engineered the format but we absolutely do not plan to do that. Files need converting to IDML to be imported 

I understand it would be hard to reverse engineer Adobe's file formats... but... it's a shame Serif is opting not to.

Affinity is targeted to professional users - most of us, including myself, work in agencies that 99.9% use Adobe.

So that limits professional uses to hobbyists and solo freelancers. It doesn't give Affinity a chance to shine professionally in teams.

I'm Affinity's biggest fan. I vouch for the software to my team, it's sadly not viable in industry standard workflows.

In the meantime... I'll keep using it in my personal projects! Love V2.

[emmrecs01]

Quote

6 minutes ago, DylanGG said:

I understand it would be hard to reverse engineer Adobe's file formats... but... it's a shame Serif is opting not to.

 

Isn't it the simple fact that such third-party "reverse engineering" of any file format is, technically, illegal?  Whether or not other software manufacturers do this is entirely their choice and at their risk.  Serif have chosen to not follow such a path. 

[mrichardson]

Is the .afpub format proprietary  to serif?  In other words, if I took it upon myself to reverse engineer the .indd format, would I be able to convert it to a format that was directly readable by Affinity publisher?  I'm just wondering if the affinity formats are open source or a closely guarded secret. I have a hunch those adobe files look an awful lot like a .pdf file.  I know for a fact that if you have an .AI file and you want to view it on a computer without Adobe Illustrator, but you do have a pdf viewer, then all you need to do is rename it.  i.e.  FileIWantToSee.ai gets renamed to FileIWantToSee.pdf.  Voila, it will (probably) work. Reverse engineering the .indd file format might not be as simple as that, but it also might not be impossible as well.  There must be some method to Adobe's madness and if you ever decode it you'll need to interface with Affinity's madness. Sounds like fun.

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, mrichardson said:

Is the .afpub format proprietary  to serif? 

Yes, and not publicly documented.

 

10 minutes ago, mrichardson said:

In other words, if I took it upon myself to reverse engineer the .indd format, would I be able to convert it to a format that was directly readable by Affinity publisher?

In theory you could, if you also reverse-engineered the native Affinity file format.

Of course, with any reverse-engineering, you then need to decide on what level of understanding you want, and you need to work in the future to accommodate changes that may occur in (in this case) either .indd specifications or Affinity file specifications.

That's the main issue with Affinity not providing the ability to create PSD files that have editable text, for example. Many people think of PSD files as an interchange mechanism between applications, but PSD is also proprietary, and poorly documented. Thus, understanding some of the finer points requires reverse-engineering, and then continued reverse-engineering as the format evolves.

10 minutes ago, mrichardson said:

I know for a fact that if you have an .AI file and you want to view it on a computer without Adobe Illustrator, but you do have a pdf viewer, then all you need to do is rename it.  i.e.  FileIWantToSee.ai gets renamed to FileIWantToSee.pdf.  Voila, it will (probably) work.

I think (but don't know for sure) that that is true only for AI files that were saved by AI (not some other app) and then only if saved in Compatibility Mode, which embeds a PDF of much (not all) of the AI content.

[tudor]

14 minutes ago, mrichardson said:

I know for a fact that if you have an .AI file and you want to view it on a computer without Adobe Illustrator, but you do have a pdf viewer, then all you need to do is rename it.  i.e.  FileIWantToSee.ai gets renamed to FileIWantToSee.pdf. 

When saving files in Illustrator, the default option is to embed a PDF stream in addition to the AI binary data. So by changing the file extension to .pdf, you’ll trick your system to display the PDF stream, not the actual AI data.

[loukash]

26 minutes ago, tudor said:

the default option is to embed a PDF stream in addition to the AI binary data.

Exactly.

And that PDF stream can make complex *.ai documents massively grow in size and take ages to load.
I was usually avoiding it and saving the native binary only. Meanwhile, I should likely go through many dozens of archive files and resave them with PDF, as long as my CS5 installation still works…