Columns — Feature to Span Columns

[Eink]

Well said.  Thank you Mr. Damm.

Until and unless Affinity is able to add Split/Span functionality, it will never be considered a realistic alternative to the Adobe current monopoly.  Once implemented I predict a rush to your doors.  You'll (Affinity) need to be ready for all the downloads.

I remain hopeful for implementation in 2025.

Good luck.

[Jochen Damm]

Hello Eink,

It's just sad - Affinity is a great software suite. I use it at home and at work for four years now. In fact I begged my employer to buy this software. In earlier projects I worked with various programs. At times with the heavyweights Adobe InDesign and CorelDRAW, but primarily with Affinity Publisher's predecessor Serif PagePlus. For a long time, I only had access to open source software. At one point, I also wanted to do without proprietary software altogether. But the possibilities under Linux were simply far too limited. I have grown fond of projects like OpenOffice/LibreOffice, Inkscape and Scribus. I've been using them since between 2002 and 2008, now back on Microsoft Windows. The combination of Inkscape and Scribus is powerful and strong. I didn't want to equip a company with it as my primary tool, but all my projects could be realized with it. But I'm also a lazy person: ever since I started working with Affinity Publisher, I couldn't understand how I got along with Scribus before. Scribus still has some small advantages over Affinity Publisher, but working with Affinity is much easier. Today, I only use it for special tasks that Affinity can't solve and for projects that need to be edited on Linux computers. At the time, I didn't really care - these were leisure projects with no time pressure and I simply wanted inexpensive software, at best free of charge. But the demands and requirements have grown since then. Affinity/Serif wants to position itself as a manufacturer of professional solutions, it is no longer a program for private users and self-employed people who want to equip their small business. Along the lines of a business card or invoice printer... Yes, Serif has partly established new standards. But there are still so many functions that must or should also be available in the software. And my point of view is that if even free software supports it, proprietary software must do so too. It is understandable that different teams have different concepts and priorities. But this is about the desire of paying customers, they pay for a service to be fulfilled. Exactly the point why many turned away from Adobe to Serif - the subscription model with no real innovation.

Kind regards from Germany

[Eink]

Well said.  Thank you Mr. Damm.

Until and unless Affinity is able to add Split/Span functionality, it will never be considered a realistic alternative to the Adobe current monopoly.  Once implemented I predict a rush to your doors.  You'll (Affinity) need to be ready for all the downloads.

I remain hopeful for implementation in 2025.

Good luck.

[Eink]

It is sad Mr. Damm.  I've used Affinity Publisher and believe that it holds great promise for professional production environments like mine.  But until the programmers can solve the split/span issue, there are too many steps required to perform the basic functions of magazine page layout to serve this industry.  I'd happily pay double or triple the asking price for a software package that holds as much promise as Publisher does.  Sad.

 

[Juhani]

@Serif Is there any chance in the world we will see Span Columns feature implemented in Affinity Publisher this year? So that we could stop drawing out and continuously keep readjusting multiple dozens of extra frames in our editorial layouts and focus on more creative aspects of design work instead.

[fde101]

Serif does not ordinarily comment on feature requests, so you are unlikely to get a reply from them on that question.

However, it is highly unlikely that you will see this in a release version until next year at the very earliest.  The beta for the next release has been underway for a while now and this feature is not included.  The betas for minor versions (the ones that introduce new features) have generally been running once a year and are typically started toward the end of one year for a release early the following year.  As late into the beta cycle as they are, a feature like this is unlikely to be added at this stage, so I would not expect this could show up until the next beta at the earliest.

That assumes Serif intends to implement this at all, and that it has a high enough priority and low enough cost of development for them to consider adding it at this time - it is entirely possible that their priorities or some internal prerequisites for implementing this feature may not align for it to happen just yet, particularly since there are other features the absence of which are just as likely to be a bigger impact on various other subsets of their user base.

[MickRose]

@Eink In the meantime maybe look at Tables. It's not ideal but might be useful sometimes.

[Juhani]

35 minutes ago, fde101 said:

there are other features the absence of which are just as likely to be a bigger impact on various other subsets of their user base.

You mean like multi-page spreads?

11 minutes ago, MickRose said:

In the meantime maybe look at Tables. It's not ideal but might be useful sometimes.

This reminds me how we used tables for doing web layouts in 90s. I guess this is still a thing then in 2025 with Affinity, alas, I don't think tables can flow across multiple pages and spreads in Publisher, which kind of makes them unusable for layout purposes.

[Eink]

Tables are not at all useful as a publication production tool.

If fde101's report is correct, I'm going to give up on Publisher as an alternative.  Without span/split columns Publisher is just not a practical alternative.  Too bad.

[Jochen Damm]

On 1/9/2025 at 2:06 PM, Eink said:

Tables are not at all useful as a publication production tool.

If fde101's report is correct, I'm going to give up on Publisher as an alternative.  Without span/split columns Publisher is just not a practical alternative.  Too bad.

I understand that, but isn't that a bit exaggerated? Saying it's not practicable is not true either. There is definitely room for improvement in various areas. But it's still a great tool. Are there any sensible alternatives? InDesign is no longer an option for many people. Scribus can't do it either. Can VIVA Designer do this? I think so, but I'm not sure. To my knowledge, VIVA Designer seems to be the most promising alternative in a comparable product category/price range. But for now, I will remain loyal to Affinity. As I said, I've tried a lot of programs - both at work and at home - and have worked with Serif software on and off for over 20 years. Yes, I also miss some things from the predecessor PagePlus. But someone once said that you should use the software as a tool and not allow yourself to become a tool of the software. There are several ways to reach your goal, especially in the creative field. As a user, you always want to use your own way. From a developer's point of view, it's a nightmare: 20 solutions for a single problem. We have seen the advantages and disadvantages of this with Adobe programs such as InDesign or Photoshop. Completely overloaded and yet still lacking a few other functions to make it better than it is.

[fde101]

54 minutes ago, Jochen Damm said:

Are there any sensible alternatives?

Yes, QuarkXPress, if you are willing to pay for it and spend some time finding your way around.  It is the "other" major player with the vast majority of the features people keep begging to have added to Publisher.  Not all (there is no paragraph composer), but most (including span columns).

If you don't want to pay that kind of money, or you want a more sensible user interface, then Affinity Publisher is probably one of the best options available at the moment.

[Jochen Damm]

3 hours ago, fde101 said:

Yes, QuarkXPress, if you are willing to pay for it and spend some time finding your way around.  It is the "other" major player with the vast majority of the features people keep begging to have added to Publisher.  Not all (there is no paragraph composer), but most (including span columns).

If you don't want to pay that kind of money, or you want a more sensible user interface, then Affinity Publisher is probably one of the best options available at the moment.

OK, I didn't know that. I had no idea. Well, I knew that QuarkXPress existed, but for me it always seemed to be a special case. In my perception, it was only ever aimed at larger companies, with no offerings for SMEs and freelancers. It was also always described to me as complicated and outdated, needing to reinvent itself to compete with Adobe and then specializing in a niche. It simply led a shadowy existence. Sure, it was always the biggest competitor to InDesign and InCopy, but out of reach for small businesses and/or budgets. That's why QuarkXPress doesn't even come to mind for me personally.