Integrated apps create "why can't I edit this" issues

[Like, would like more if…]

I have recently noticed that the integration of all the apps can create difficult and confusing to edit artwork. I love Publisher, it carries all the features and swaps between the apps efficiently but I love designer too for the export persona, for outputting sliced and diced web or other components.

However as the Designer section within Publisher doesn't contain this I have to use both for some projects, i.e brochure content taken into Designer to generate web content, specifically sized with retina versions varied formats etc and using the continuous output function to save time.

As an example, I took a table from Publisher and pasted into Designer. Despite there being no table functionality or interface in Designer, I get layers flagged as tables, can edit the text within, can scale all, but have no way of setting cell margins sizes etc. Some minor functions are in the top bar, merge and separate cells for example, but no others.

Now, I could go back and edit the table as I want it to be in Publisher and copy across again, but what is odd is there is no way to separate the artwork that is a table to make it editable within Designer as native artwork, it remains as a table in a piece of software that puportedly does not support table creation.

In addition if I click on and edit the table content using the text tool, I can then draw another table on the page… that I can't then format.

This is not so much complaint as an observation of the confusion some of the interlinked functionality can create and should be redressed. It lays apparent that the bulk of each app is contained within the others but that specific functionality is hidden away - which can cause issues as you can't then easily edit out what you no longer require. For example some others…

• And object with text wrap (AP) will still cause text to wrap when pasted into AD, despite no text wrap functionality on display.
• A text frame with fill and stroke settings and insets can be cut and pasted, characteristics remain, but fill and stroke settings in AD will only alter the colour and line of the text itself, not the container as text frames don't exist.
• I had used paragraph decorations to create solid blocks behind copy in the table. The text styles come across beautifully, fully listed in the Text Styles palette, with the aforementioned decorations. But Designer doesn't have paragraph decorations, so again leaves you with appearance characteristics that cannot be altered to suit the required layout without reverting to publisher, or stripping of style and rebuilding using background shapes in Designer.

I'm sure there are many many more examples, and know that I have had similar "why can't I edit this" moments many times, but as most often I'm in Publisher I can switch between and utilise all the features where they live. When swapping fully between apps this is more frustrating.