Designer: Convert Enclosed Document to Shapes

[D.VE]

I made a mistake in all the cartoons a made in the past two years: Instead of inserting SVGs as curves. I accidentally imported them as an enclosed document.

How can I integrate/convert this to curves/shapes?

I haven't found any option for that... Tried to open the original by double click and copy-paste it. But this is not working, since I rotated and resized it - a lot! Doing this again takes about 10 Minutes per Shape.

We're talking about over 300 documents... This will take forever.

 

thx

Dave

 

 

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, D.VE said:

How can I integrate/convert this to curves/shapes?

Only by copy/paste, as far as I know.

Why do you consider it a mistake to have used them as documents? And are you using Embedded or Linked documents?

What problem are you having with your current method?

[D.VE]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

What problem are you having with your current method?

 

I realized that because I changed the original. It was sill open so that I could undo.

I have ADHD and the chance is like 100% that I will forget this and will screw up ALL my documents one day.

 

This REALLY needs to be implemented...

[v_kyr]

37 minutes ago, D.VE said:

I made a mistake in all the cartoons a made in the past two years: Instead of inserting SVGs as curves. I accidentally imported them as an enclosed document. ...

That's bad for that many files as the following would be sisyphus work then ...

What I would do instead for 300 docs is, to bulk/batch export all docs as SVG files (maybe probably best done via APh, as far as v2 can also save as SVGs now?) and then just reimport the SVG files in ADe, this will remove embedded file states and convert everything to structured/nested curve/shape layers.

UPDATE: looks like you would have to open the 300 Affinity docs manually, then to save them as SVGs and reimport the generated SVGs in order to get rid of the embedded file states.

[thomaso]

Apart from my impression that in your screenshot the selected, highlighted and additionally marked layer with the custom name "Frame" shows an unfolded layer with an icon of layer type "Curve" (not the "</>" icon of a placed "document" layer, which seems to be used for layers named "Border"):

Workaround: export as PDF and open the result in APub. It will give you access to all used objects.
Disadvantage: your specific layer hierarchy and custom layer names will not be maintained – but possibly may work and be worth for copy/paste of certain layers to replace placed documents in your current layout.

[Return]

Perhaps replacing through the resource manager is of any help.
 

 

 

[Return]

After replacing all with one version.
Add that version to the assetspanel for re usage.
And/or place it in a masterpage (provided you can use publisher)
Add this masterpage to the pages and edit detached per usage.
If you want to reset after that, simply apply the masterpage again and use replace existing and all will be reset.

[D.VE]

6 minutes ago, Return said:

Perhaps replacing through the resource manager is of any help.

Thanks a lot for the video... Can't reproduce that (tried for 10 minutes now)...
don't understand without comment what's happening there... 

[v_kyr]

The easiest and still quickest way is, to export every ADe doc as SVG and then to reimport the SVG file and save it again as an updated ADe doc.

The bad in/about ADe is, that it doesn't offer any batch processing or scripting capabilities here. With the later (scripting) it would be a no brainer to automate the whole processing in some suitable manner for many docs here.

[Return]

Sorry,if you used the same embedded svg for all the frames you can replace through the resource manager.

[lepr]

1 hour ago, D.VE said:

I realized that because I changed the original. It was sill open so that I could undo.

I have ADHD and the chance is like 100% that I will forget this and will screw up ALL my documents one day.

I'm getting the impression that your placed 'Border' SVG files are linked, rather than embedded, and therefore there will be an unwanted changed appearance inside the parent Affinity document if the external files are edited.

The app's Resource Manager will say 'Linked' or 'Embedded' on each line of its content.

If I am correct about your placed files being linked then, still in Resource Manager, select all of them and click the Embed button at the bottom of the manager. They will become embedded and then will not be affected by future edits to the external files.

By the way, each Affinity document has a placement policy. You can choose to prefer embedded or linked in the Document Setup so further imports are as you require.

 

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, D.VE said:

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

What problem are you having with your current method?

I realized that because I changed the original. It was sill open so that I could undo.

I have ADHD and the chance is like 100% that I will forget this and will screw up ALL my documents one day.

I might misunderstand your problem – but if your goal is to prevent you from editing the embedded documents in future while they aren't currently edited yet, then you 'simply' can switch their placement policy in the Resource Manager from "Embedded" to "Linked" via the button "Make Linked" with all embedded items selected.

Objects that are linked will not offer the option "Edit Document" in the Context Toolbar and thus prevent you from incidentally editing. Vice versa, if the original source of a linked item will get edited (+ saved !) then all instances of this linked item will change in the parent layout .afpub.

This works in 1 step for all selected items only for those that were not edited inside APub after they got placed; if you select one edited item among other not edited items, then the button "Make Linked" will be grayed-out. For already edited resources the workflow requires step-by-step with the button "Replace" first + then turning them to "Linked", which of course will reset all edits you had done previously in their embedded state.