epub/dox/docx/rtf export?

[PeeGeeBee]

As a new user, I'm still finding, or not finding things about Affinity that I expected. I confess I'm a bit disappointed that there's no option to export to epub. That said, perhaps it's a different target audience? My old version of InDesign CC had the option, but mostly I preferred to export an rtf document which was often easier to work on with a variety of apps, including Amazon's Kindle Create (is that what it's called now?)

So, is there a way to export an rtf or doc/docx file from Affinity, or how do folks bridge the gap from print to epub, mobi etc?

Many thanks!

[Callum]

Hi PeeGeeBee,

Unfortunately at this point in time Publisher doesn't support Epub or the other formats you listed however Epub is something we would like to add support for in the future. At this point in time your best bet would likely be exporting to PDF and then using a third party app to convert this PDF into Epub etc.

Thanks
C

[Affinityconfusesme]

@Callum DOCX export would be really useful for writing essays in, so I hope that publisher gets the format soon which would give me more of a reason to purchase publisher.

[v_kyr]

• pdf to epub site:forum.affinity.serif.com

[PaoloT]

18 hours ago, v_kyr said:

• pdf to epub site:forum.affinity.serif.com

ePub is all structure, that is hardly recognized from a PDF, in particular one that is not tagged. I doubt a decent ePub can be derived from a converter of this type.

Paolo

 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, PaoloT said:

ePub is all structure, that is hardly recognized from a PDF, in particular one that is not tagged. I doubt a decent ePub can be derived from a converter of this type.

Better than nothing, so people have to give it a try. Other than that they have to copy/paste texts and image resources over to some much better suited  HTML/ePub authoring tool for such purposes. - Personally I always used tools like "iBooks Author" and the like to create readable ePub files.

[PeeGeeBee]

Having struggled with this for a while, I've settled on PDFelement 6 Pro -- for Mac -- (not free but far more reliable and less involved than any of the free or cheap alternatives I tried). Still seems like a major oversight that a potential InDesign-killer like Publisher doesn't have a way to export either ePub or even a simple .doc/.rtf file. I would have thought this was a basic in today's multi-format publishing world.

[jz2000]

On 6/23/2023 at 6:14 AM, Callum said:

Hi PeeGeeBee,

Unfortunately at this point in time Publisher doesn't support Epub or the other formats you listed however Epub is something we would like to add support for in the future. At this point in time your best bet would likely be exporting to PDF and then using a third party app to convert this PDF into Epub etc.

Thanks
C

Unfortunately, that strategy does not work in many cases. I have many documents that render just fine in affinity and in the PDF file that affinity exports. However, when attempting to load into word, I get garbage.

PDF on left, docx on right:

 

 

[jz2000]

On 8/28/2023 at 12:40 PM, PeeGeeBee said:

Having struggled with this for a while, I've settled on PDFelement 6 Pro -- for Mac -- (not free but far more reliable and less involved than any of the free or cheap alternatives I tried). Still seems like a major oversight that a potential InDesign-killer like Publisher doesn't have a way to export either ePub or even a simple .doc/.rtf file. I would have thought this was a basic in today's multi-format publishing world.

Agreed, particularly because moving forward, epub / kindle is the predominant book format.

[martenf]

I asked this same question last year and the response was that it was being considered.

I have produced a book with over 400 pages for print in AP only to find out from the author that I need to produce an ePub/MOBI version.

It is quite unfortunate that AP still does not have this feature. Its competitors do. 

I had to convert the PDF into a docx and then import that into QuarkXpress so I can begin to set it up for those electronic versions. Its a major task which also requires checking the entire book as the docx conversion is not always perfect.

Calibre can do this but it is not that great with the output.

[lmarcos]

If you're on Windows, Sigil does a nice work converting directly from pdf to epub if it's just text. It may have some more issues with images.

My flow, though, doing all text editing in LibreOffice and exporting that to epub with writer2html extension and importing/copying, depending, into Publisher.

[XM Moon]

On 6/23/2023 at 5:14 AM, Callum said:

Hi PeeGeeBee,

Unfortunately at this point in time Publisher doesn't support Epub or the other formats you listed however Epub is something we would like to add support for in the future. At this point in time your best bet would likely be exporting to PDF and then using a third party app to convert this PDF into Epub etc.

Thanks
C

This is the barrier to actually switching to Affinity for me. Exporting a PDF and converting isn't an option in professional contexts. PDFs are image files and fundamentally incompatible with reflowable ePub functionality. Since Amazon finally got on board, ePubs are the ebook format, and while it doesn't have to be a perfect export (because ePubs come with their own technical nightmares), not being able to export a basic ePub file is a breaking point for anyone in the publishing industry. It's the reason I can't/won't recommend Affinity to my peers in the indie publishing industry who are desperate for an alternative to Adobe. It's the reason I still have to have Adobe in some capacity. I would literally pay double to be able to do this.

[Affinityconfusesme]

+1 for these export formats.

[Affinityconfusesme]

Hi @Callum,

I wonder why the team chose to add DXF/DWF export instead of DOCX this cycle as it would benefit more people. These formats are pretty specialized along with DDS. and presumably most users use the software for common file formats and purposes, ( at least based on what I see on the forums) as these file formats are used for more specialized purposes. For example, users that use Publisher for writing books can achieve the same thing in Word (DOCX) but choose to do it in publisher because it is more advanced.

 

Thanks,

tzvi20

 

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, tzvi20 said:

I wonder why the team chose to add DXF/DWF export instead of DOCX this cycle as it would benefit more people.

Read what was written there for the announcement (ADe) ...

Quote

Apps: Designer
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad

Affinity Designer now supports both DWG and DXF export, available from both File->Export and the Export Persona.

... this thread here is instead more about APub export options!

[Affinityconfusesme]

They could have focused on afpub this cycle instead and added DOCX export!

[Callum]

8 hours ago, tzvi20 said:

They could have focused on afpub this cycle instead and added DOCX export!

Our apps are developed by completely separate teams within the company more features for Designer in one patch doesn't mean less features for Publisher and vice versa. DWG and DXF export is something I personally see requested fairly often I imagine it will be very well received by Designer users.

[PaoloT]

Publisher can currently export RTF text via copy&paste. A document pasted into LibreOffice also preserves the full style sheet, and correctly applies it to the pasted text. Pasted into Word applies the paragraph styles to the pasted text. Images are not pasted.

It looks like they are at a very narrow distance to DOCX export. It is surprising they don't cut that short hair.

Being able to export to DOCX would open compatibility with ePub and web editors, documents for the marketing department, translators working on text to be later reassembled. It would make the Affinity apps be better accepted "in the industry".

Paolo

 

[davidjwebster2003]

not having .docx or epub export is a show stopper for us (a small publishing company). We will ditch adobe as soon as these export options are available. Until then we're sticking with adobe as it works 

david