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Export Figures from Affinity Designer to insert into long MS Word document


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Hi everyone,

I'm using Affinity Designer to generate figures for my PhD thesis which I then insert into a MS Word document. My figures normally consist of both vector designs as well as microscopy images, so pixel based. As I mix figures with a lot of text, I need to use a mix of Affinity Designer and Word. 

I have tried several export options for my affinity files, but am completely confused which one would be the best for this purpose. I have to slightly resize my figures in Word as I have to fulfil different page setups for different projects and want to keep the figure the same. Thus, I was thinking a PDF file would be best as I still keep the vector properties. However, there are so many different PDF options that I am unsure which one to use. The word document will later be printed but also read on a screen, so transformed into a PDF document in the end (actually for both printing and screen use).

Would you suggest using the PDF/X ... format or go with the newer PDF (for print)? And if PDF/X which option? Or would you suggest something else completely?

I would be very grateful for any suggestions!

Thanks, Lena

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What Catshill wrote for raster images, for vectors you could try eps.
A quick test using an ancient Word 2010 doesn't show the red stroke for emf, wmf works but both of these formats import into Word as ginormous images, they were resized to fit on the screen together, eps matches the size set in Affinity rather well, ie a 50 x 50mm star imports as 50.01 x 50.01mm

WMF.png

Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe
Affinity Photo - 24/05/20, Affinity Publisher - 06/12/20, KTM Superduke - 27/09/10

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Note that EPS is no longer supported in current Word versions.

I tested this and noticed that having a 96DPI Designer RGB document and copy pasting as SVG (the appropriate Clipboard option needs to be checked in Edit > Preferences > General) works pretty well at least on Windows and up-to-date Office-365 version of Word. Exporting to WMF and converting text to curves works also fine but placed graphic needs to be manually resized. Leaving text as text left artifacts. EMF exports would import fine, but would fail when subsequently exporting to PDF. 

image.png.7ceedd293b4b39488f0df6f0e92bee5b.png

I did not test this on macOS, but as WMF is not available there, would imagine that SVG is the best vector option there. However, on macOS PDF format might also be supported, also via Clipboard (on Windows Word I could not make PDF imports work properly, perhaps it requires some extra modules installed if it is supported, at all).

VectorsForWord_v01.afdesign

VectorsForWord.afdesign (requires v2)

vectors.docx

vectors.pdf

UPDATE: I now tested this on macOS, and there PDF format works very well both when pasted via Clipboard and when placing Affinity Designer created PDFs in Word. The PDFs are also placed in their correct sizes in Word documents and export without problems. On the other hand, it seems SVG is not a supported Clipboard format between Affinity apps and Word.

UPDATE2: Exporting to PDF and placing them in Word on Windows works fine, too, even if it seems that objects need to be resized (it appears that they are placed at 300 dpi resolution no matter what the nominal resolution used at export is). In Word, the PDFs need to be placed by using Insert > Object (under Text group) > Create from File (instead of placing a picture). Word can also place an interpreted and editable PDF if a PDF is placed as Insert > Object > Text from file, but there are probably many kinds of errors in interpretation.

UPDATE3: PDFs placed in a Windows Word document are actually low-res rasterizations! It is a shame, and totally absurd that Microsoft has not implemented similar support for PDFs as there exists on macOS versions of Office apps!

So in a nutshell: on macOS, vectors can be exported to Word in PDF format, and can be used both via Clipboard and as placed graphic [to be passed through]; on Windows, vectors can be exported in WMF format (text as curves) and placed in a Word document (resizing typically needed), but not transferred via Clipboard (this is not supported by Affinity apps); or: copy pasted in SVG format when enabling the appropriate option in the Preferences. But exporting to SVG files and then placing in Word has several flaws and does probably only work with very simple drawings.

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