Problems with migration from InDesign

[ernst.w]

My main problem at the moment:

My documents are/were previously created in Indesign CS6. After having successfully implemented some smaller projects in Affinity Publisher, I wanted to migrate other projects as well. And in doing so, I encountered problems that I a) didn't expect and for which I b) didn't find any explanations or help in the form of tutorials. The tutorials and also the help files probably explain some of the affected details like master pages, layers, frame texts, but without addressing my problem or even touching on it.

To migrate documents from InDesign to Affinity Publisher, I created IDML exports and opened them in Affinity Publisher. These are layered documents, with various, even hierarchical, master pages, with basic text frames on them, activated on the effective pages of the document using [SHIFT][CTRL] and then used. For InDesign, these text frames are then editable on the relevant effective page.

Affinity Publisher apparently sees this quite differently. After IDML import, I can edit all text frames inserted directly in these pages (e.g. for image texts, info frames, etc.) that are on "regular" layers, but not the text frames that I have brought into the page from the master page. I hope this is understandable for outsiders.

These text frames, which in my case contain headings and the main text respectively, I see on a strange layer, which on the one hand is labeled with the name of the master page, but on the other hand is grayed out.

 

My question:

How can I move these frame texts to one of the "correct" layer ("Text & Images")? And this in the whole document, not manually page by page; after all, these are documents with 200 to 450 pages, but they should be adapted to new circumstances year by year.

 

Additional question:

After using optical kerning in InDesign for text, I feel now like wet-shirted in the wind with Affinity Publisher. I would have to reformat or rewrite to appropriate length every single text on every single page. Is there a solution here? Because it looks like ignoring optical kerning for Sans Serif is almost a matter of faith. Which makes a feature update in this direction not likely.

 

My considerations for switching to Affinity Software were:

I could continue to work on these documents with Adobe InDesign until CS6 stops working at the current OS level. I could, but only very theoretically, afford an InDesign subscription from Adobe. But since I don't want to support subscription models at all, and on the other hand I've been financially supporting Sans Serif with the Affinity palette since the first version without using the products in any meaningful way so far, I thought the moment when my first InDesign tool no longer supported version CS6 was the right one to switch completely.

This works quite well with Affinity Photo with a few sacrifices and some tedious conversions in terms of operation. Affinity Designer, like Adobe Illustrator, I will hardly use. And with Affinity Publisher, I'm quite far along, although the changeover is much more complex than with Affinity Photo. I'm still a bit behind there.

[lacerto]

6 hours ago, ernst.w said:

How can I move these frame texts to one of the "correct" layer ("Text & Images")? And this in the whole document, not manually page by page; after all, these are documents with 200 to 450 pages, but they should be adapted to new circumstances year by year.

I think you can edit a master-based content only as per page-basis in Affinity Publisher (you can do this by right clicking the master layer in the Layers panel and choosing Edit Detached, and then accept changes by choosing Finish). Affinity Publisher does not have global layers so they behave differently from ones used in InDesign.

6 hours ago, ernst.w said:

After using optical kerning in InDesign for text, I feel now like wet-shirted in the wind with Affinity Publisher. I would have to reformat or rewrite to appropriate length every single text on every single page. Is there a solution here?

Optical kerning is not supported, only metric-based. The text would be wrapped much differently anyway and I doubt there is anything that can be done to fix this (other than using manual line breaks).

[lacerto]

46 minutes ago, ernst.w said:

I could continue to work on these documents with Adobe InDesign until CS6 stops working at the current OS level.

Just out of curiosity, when do you expect this to happen? As far as I know Adobe still resets installation count of CS6 apps on direct chat connection -- I did this a year ago when I installed the whole master package on Windows 11 Pro, and got the installation count zeroed, so I expect to be able to install yet on a few more Windows computers in the future. As long as they do not stop the activation servers (which I think they have done with versions earlier than CS6). I have no idea whether installed and activated CS6 apps can be transferred on a new computer, but if you manage to get your CS6 suite installed and activated on a replaceable SSD of a new Windows 11 Pro computer, I guess just restoring the disc image would keep your CS6 package alive for yet another 10 or 15 years...  

[Seneca]

1 hour ago, ernst.w said:

Affinity Publisher apparently sees this quite differently.

Hello @ernst.w,

I hope you realise that Publisher is not going to open inDesign files with 100% accuracy.

For smaller documents this may work but for long documents you are going to run into a lot of problems.

It might be much quicker just to start from scratch in Publisher and import files from in Design as you go along.

There is no 1 to 1 translation between these 2 programs.

[ernst.w]

Thank you for your answer!

1 hour ago, lacerto said:

I think you can edit a master-based content only as per page-basis in Affinity Publisher (you can do this by right clicking the master layer in the Layers panel and choosing Edit Detached, and then accept changes by choosing Finish.

I am not sure what this method does really. Does it change the master page or only the master layer on that page?

I have found the possibility to unlock every frame in the (master) layer. Then, at a point I did not find out yet to reproduce, the unlocked objects can be edited. Is there a stting where I can unlock all objects on a page?

 

1 hour ago, lacerto said:

The text would be wrapped much differently anyway

This is my problem - as described above.

 

1 hour ago, lacerto said:

I doubt there is anything that can be done to fix this (other than using manual line breaks).

This is really a mess. Page by page means to create the books completely new from scratch. Overall thousands of pages. Puh. Better to create from scratch. But then I would have to do all things new including editorial office and so on. Many months of working, much money to pay...

 

1 hour ago, lacerto said:

Just out of curiosity, when do you expect this to happen?

I just did not want to say but I am >70 years old. There will come a point, when I could go with well known software but would not be able to learn new complex software to migrate when needed. The time when one of my tools for InDesign ("Create Book" plugin from Blurb) is not supported any longer, has come now. A good time to change the software that I wanted to leave when Adobe changed to subscription, I thought.

Another thing can happen from one day to the other: Not only activation servers can be switched off, PCs can die too. And then I should be prepared, not shocked.

Overall your posts were very helpful, thanks a lot!

[ernst.w]

27 minutes ago, Seneca said:

I hope you realise that Publisher is not going to open inDesign files with 100% accuracy.

I do. Of course. What I am looking for are methods to keep my effort within the realms of possibility. Therefore I ask, when there is something I cannot find out via Google and Affinity helpfiles.

To go from scratch is a theoretical possibility but seems not to be effordable in real world. I will try with one of my books when there is time enough, we'll see if it can work when I step on the gas.

 

[lacerto]

23 hours ago, ernst.w said:

I am not sure what this method does really. Does it change the master page or only the master layer on that page?

It does basically the same as Ctrl+Shift+Click does in InDesign to make a local override of a master page item. When you detach edit, I think it is basically equivalent to overriding all master page items on a specific page (you can also revert to master page items similarly as in InDesign).

23 hours ago, ernst.w said:

Many months of working, much money to pay...

Certainly, so something worth considering, if this is mainly for archival purposes...

23 hours ago, ernst.w said:

Not only activation servers can be switched off, PCs can die too. And then I should be prepared, not shocked.

Yes, true. Partially because of this discussion, I just made a decision to go for an Intel NUC 12 Pro to make it our main "server" to be accessed mostly with laptops (to back up and ultimately replace a full-size tower and big-screen workstation from 2014 that is now coming old). For us, too, it has become time to downsize but it is nice that one can get so much packed into such small size (and without spending too much). I hope it can run our non-subscription based work software as long as we need it but I have multiple plan Bs should that fail! Having all essential in such a compact form with fully replaceable parts inside, and then just backing up the bits on the cloud and local wireless disk gives some peace of mind. And a chance to finally get rid of a row of old computers with old OSs and legacy software just kept as a backup should something go wrong...