Affinity Designer file compatibility between V1 and V2

[Morningstar.pm]

Thanks everyone for the responses! 

3 hours ago, lacerto said:

It is not unheard of, though. I remember that Microsoft Office 2003 versions were once able to open, edit and save to new versions of Office apps.

https://download.cnet.com/Microsoft-Office-Compatibility-Pack-for-Word-Excel-and-PowerPoint-File-Formats/3000-18483_4-10648733.html

And many graphic design apps are capable of saving back to earlier versions for interoperability, resolving one way or another how new features will be saved back (simply just omitted, or e.g. converted to curves, rasterized, etc. so that the features stay somehow useable even if not fully editable in older versions). Some apps have also a specific interchange format that is designed to stay compatible between new and old versions of the app. 

This kind of file version compatibility is of course not a trivial task to develop, but it might be useful to Affinity users some of which are now behind an operating system version wall (Windows 7 and 8 and pre-Catalina support now gone). 

I had the same thing in my mind. Even today in Office Word / Excel etc you can natively save a file in "doc / xls" (97-2004) or "docx / xlsx" (2004-present) file format. You lose some of the editing features if those features are not present in the older version, or some parts will be imported wrongly if a new feature was used, but at least you can still open and edit perfectly if no new feature has been used on the file...

My main problem with this is I have V2 while my co-worker doesn't. He sent me a file, I opened it, moved one line and one shape, and then saved it. I didn't add anything in the doc that wasn't already there, or use any of the new features on it. When this happened, like any self-respecting employee I naturally blamed the incompetence of my co-worker (sarcasm) for not being able to open the file, but it turns out it wasn't on him. 

It would have been great if we had a feature like in Office at least during this transitory period where the majority of the user base is still on V1 while a minority have moved to V2.

[XU3E]

Just add possibility save to Affinity V1 file with warrning about possible lost some "new" features. This should be not so hard... All pro apps give us this option.

Reason: I have older macbook that is not possible install nor run V2 (High Sierra). So i have to use V1. That goes for my another mac with Mojave.

And...  same goes with my iPad where i have V1 Affinity. I want use Aff v1 as well as v2 with possibility open V2 in V1. I do not mind click some compatibility checkbox as we have in Adobe software.

And fix the problem mentioned previously. Automatic backup and saving options cause compatibility problems with V1 files opened in V2. This should be fixed by popup window where we are notified about it and disable this options for the file as we lost possibility open some files in V1.

Thanks in advance

[AndyCapp]

Hi folks,

I'm not quite happy with the conclusions or resolutions from this discussion thread on the Affinity side.

If there wasn't my quite high regard of the Affinity products and of their - by comparison fair - business model,
I'd come to think that "Sorry, we cannot save in V1 format." is nothing but a sales turbo to force the whole user community to switch to V2.

Unfortunately, one has the occasional collaboration situation with people being totally satisfied with V1.

Thus, I'm appealing to the Affinity team to implement some kind of "Save as", it would make a lot of lives a little bit easier.

And remember, even M$ offers some "Save as" option for compatibility with previous Office versions...

Best regards

Uwe

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, AndyCapp said:

Thus, I'm appealing to the Affinity team to implement some kind of "Save as", it would make a lot of lives a little bit easier.

If you are a V2 user, which would you rather they focus their limited development resources on, adding some kind of save as V1 compatible option, or fixing the bugs in V2 & improving its feature set?

Please keep in mind that we do not know what else they may be planing to add to V2 or how that might impact any reasonably useful compatibility option.

[Arenja]

I can't believe that I quit adobe because I didn't want them to hold my files hostage just to realise it's worse here. I cannot afford v2 and v2 doesn't have any change I'm interested in either. I was merely stupid enough to save a file in v2 and prioritise other projects in the meantime until the test time frame ran out

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, Arenja said:

I can't believe that I quit adobe because I didn't want them to hold my files hostage just to realise it's worse here. I cannot afford v2 and v2 doesn't have any change I'm interested in either. I was merely stupid enough to save a file in v2 and prioritise other projects in the meantime until the test time frame ran out

Search the forum & you will see that there are suggestions for how to transfer V2 content to V1 apps, like via copy & paste.

Not perfect but better than nothing.

[drkanukie]

On 11/23/2022 at 3:21 PM, R C-R said:

If you are a V2 user, which would you rather they focus their limited development resources on, adding some kind of save as V1 compatible option, or fixing the bugs in V2 & improving its feature set?

Please keep in mind that we do not know what else they may be planing to add to V2 or how that might impact any reasonably useful compatibility option.

V1 export no question.

[Roland Prinsloo]

So I basicly lost my designs because of this, I used the trial, saved my changes on the file and never thought... hey... later you might want to open it again in v1, after the trial expired. So now I dont know what to do, I'm basicly forced to buy v2 to get my designs back? Not a great start to v2, not a great start at all.

[PaulEC]

I know it's easy to be wise after the event, but, really, it's never a good idea to use trial. or beta, versions of software for serious work.

 

EDIT: There are warnings about opening v1 files in v2; it's as well to take notice of them! 

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Roland Prinsloo said:

I'm basicly forced to buy v2 to get my designs back

You could buy v2 from the Affinity Store, retrieve your designs and then request a refund.

https://store.serif.com/help/#returns

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, PaulEC said:

There are warnings about opening v1 files in v2; it's as well to take notice of them!

Unfortunately, the warnings were not added until 2.0.3, and users using the earlier V2 releases did not have them.

[PaulEC]

I've edited my post, as it obviously depends on the version you downloaded for the trial. I'd assumed, as the post I was replying to was only posted a few hours ago, that it would have had the warnings. Mea culpa!

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, Alfred said:

You could buy v2 from the Affinity Store, retrieve your designs and then request a refund.

https://store.serif.com/help/#returns

But they would still be V2 versions, right?

If so, you could probably copy most of the content & paste it into new V1 documents, but probably not everything would copy correctly & it would be a chore to do this with lots of documents. Alternately, you could export to some other format & import it into V1, but again not everything might be preserved in its original form.

[walt.farrell]

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But they would still be V2 versions, right?

If so, you could probably copy most of the content & paste it into new V1 documents, but probably not everything would copy correctly & it would be a chore to do this with lots of documents. Alternately, you could export to some other format & import it into V1, but again not everything might be preserved in its original form.

But it's better than completely losing access, in many/most cases.

[R C-R]

39 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But it's better than completely losing access, in many/most cases.

True, but I just wanted to make it clear that once a document is saved in V2, there is no way to 'retrieve' the V1 version of it, whether or not you have the trail or retail V2 version installed.

[GiovanniB]

That's really sad. Especially since it's good practice at other software companies like Corel, at least in their Technical Suite, where you can save any Corel Designer .des file in an older format for previous versions as required.

[Kobold]

Sending AD files to others, .....   who do not use V2? Come on guys, I am sure that an option saving as V1 version even brings more customers then staying with this strict rules .....  . To me I bought V2 but am using V1 due to this reason. Cause as soon as I would V2 only, I could forget sending files to partners ....  friends .....   that us V1 only. Be customer friendly and offer this option of saving!

[Amadeusz]

V2 has no possibility to save compatible file format with V1 to unable one user working on old software and new one simultaneously. I had hope that Affinity Software would be some nice project, great alternative for adobe but they do not listen their small group of clients. Instead they think how to force them to buy new version (If one co-worker has v2 another one has no choice), so lame.

I was forced to use Lightroom, so I bought it with PS cause it was cheaper together. Develop in AP v1 had no updates clients ask for, ubuntu or any other Linux is no consider by developers but there is a big group of hungry clients and very big empty market - unbelievable.
Future for Affinity is not bright, only hope someone openminded overtake control in management.

[Pšenda]

5 hours ago, Amadeusz said:

ubuntu or any other Linux is no consider by developers but there is a big group of hungry clients and very big empty market - unbelievable.

Why is it "very big empty market" with "a big group of hungry clients" after 32 years of Linux development?
Apparently, with the lucrativeness of this big market, it won't be so hot for anyone.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Amadeusz said:

V2 has no possibility to save compatible file format with V1 to unable one user working on old software and new one simultaneously.

But because both V1 & V2 can be installed & run simultaneously, while it isn't optimal it is entirely possible to work in both apps. You just have to duplicate files you want to work on in both V1 & V2 & make sure you do not mix them up. I do this sometimes when I want to post V1 versions to the forum and/or compare them to the V2 ones.

5 hours ago, Amadeusz said:

Future for Affinity is not bright, only hope someone openminded overtake control in management.

Actually, the company seems to be doing quite well, in part because there are lots of people who dislike the subscription model & really like the integrated native file format used throughout the suite of three Affinity apps.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

really like the integrated native file format used throughout the suite of three Affinity apps.

I think it's not just about the united "format" of the files, but mainly about the compatibility and consistency of the applications as such, i.e. their functions and their control. Anyone who can/knows ADesigner has no problem with the entire ASuite, and thanks to the Edit in... commands and StudioLink, he can easily switch between them.