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Is it a good idea to develop a new creating/viewing "PDF" app beside Adobe's Acrobat and Reader?

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This doesn't sound like something that could be part of the Affinity suite. How would a PDF app open Designer, Photo or Publisher files?

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By exporting Affinity document into PDF maybe?  :)

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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Petar_MK,

 

Before I always thought it was unnecessary because why not just use Apple's Preview? Preview is free and it does a decent job handling PDF files but recently I had to modify some lengthy PDF files and using the latest Preview was just horrible. Sure it is great that it is free but it isn't a production tool by any means so I can see how it would be useful to have an Affinity PDF app like Acrobat. Sure you can edit somethings in Designer but it isn't really made to edit PDF files the same way that Acrobat is (no long documents in Designer). I don't like Acrobat either but I don't have any choice. In my opinion, Acrobat went downhill from version 6 (version 6 had that "Do you want to make Acrobat your default PDF viewer" dialog box that you had to click every time, it was horrible). Plus I'd rather stay away from anything made by Adobe so I would gladly welcome a PDF creator/viewer from Affinity! One that is powerful enough to use in a production setting.

 

Hokusai

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My motto is: "Less Adobe apps, more joy". BTW it is the same for Microsoft apps.  :)

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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This doesn't sound like something that could be part of the Affinity suite. How would a PDF app open Designer, Photo or Publisher files?

 

By exporting Affinity document into PDF maybe?  :)

 

In that case, the PDF app would not be opening the native files of the other apps in the suite. As I see it, the ability to do this is central to the whole concept of Affinity.

 

My motto is: "Less Adobe apps, more joy".

 

I'm inclined to agree with that. I like and use PDF-XChange Editor from Tracker Software. :)

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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  • 1 month later...

There are lots of reasons to add an awesome PDF viewer/editer application to the suite. Here are a few off the top of my head in under 5 minutes:

 

  • Add interactivity like buttons and multimedia files
  • Colour separation previews to check over print & spot colours and other pre-press proofing
  • Minor text changes without re-creating the whole PDF, especially if it's a long document or it uses fonts you don't have loaded on your computer
  • Define bleed, trim and type-safe areas for auto-processing applications that some newspaper publishers have for artwork submission
  • Preview/add/remove colour profiles
  • Optimise or recompress PDFs to make them smaller
  • Add security to limit the use of the document. Eg: a print-disabled proof to a client for sign-off that hasn't paid their final invoice.
  • Text & image extraction (copy and paste entire paragraphs rather than opening it into Designer where the words might be broken up into letters)
  • Advanced printing features without converting the PDF (eg: auto pagenated booklet printing)

 

Because the Affinity suite is catering to the print industry, PDFs should really be taken VERY seriously. Just opening PDFs and exporting PDFs is just not enough. Also, opening a PDF into Designer and to make changes, then exporting it again creates a whole new document. I don't know how many jobs have gone bad by printers opening my print-ready PDFs into Corel Draw and printing separations from it when they should be printing the separations straight from a PDF workflow application. Printers who would usually have used Corel Draw, might be tempted to move over to Affinity's PDF application for better quality integration.

 

I'd put a standalone PDF tool way ahead of all the calls for a Lightroom/Aperture alternative. It would instantly stamp Affinity's authority on the print industry. It might even become a tool that Adobe users would add to their set of designer tools – a complimentary tool, not a competing tool.

 

Think of all the new Apple Mac users who were convinced to change from Windows because they got an iPhone and fell in love with it. (There was no way Apple could convince Windows users to move based on iWork and expensive aluminium bodies because the competion was too stiff for a head-to-head fight).

 

Perhaps a PDF tool could be Affinity's iPhone to sit alongside every copy of Illustrator, InDesign and Corel Draw out there?

 

 

 

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+1

 

Yes, Stephen, this is what I have in mind. When you have in mind to "replace" Adobe software with your own, then you must not omit Adobe's Reader/Acrobat.

What you mentioned in the first part of the post can easilly be created/changed in Affinity apps, but I mean of wider use of new reader/editor. To complete replacement of Adobe's Reader/Acrobat by all their users, and even every other who need this kind of product.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

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  • 4 weeks later...

 

+1
 
Yes, Stephen, this is what I have in mind. When you have in mind to "replace" Adobe software with your own, then you must not omit Adobe's Reader/Acrobat.
What you mentioned in the first part of the post can easilly be created/changed in Affinity apps, but I mean of wider use of new reader/editor. To complete replacement of Adobe's Reader/Acrobat by all their users, and even every other who need this kind of product.

 

 

 

Some of the features – yes. My concern is checking the actual file that I'm sending to my printer.

 

Unfortunately, the moment you open a PDF into AF Designer, it stops being a PDF document and becomes a .adesign document so you are not actually proofing the PDF any more. If changes need to be made, you can't just save and close, you have to export and therefor create a new PDF document. 

 

This will create a vicious circle as you now need to proof the new PDF, and by proofing the PDF, I just end up making a new one...

 

.adesign  –>  PDF  –>  .adesign  –>  PDF  –>  .adesign  –>  PDF  –>  .adesign  –>  PDF  –>  etc (when can I confidently send my PDF to print?)

 

Hmmm, alternatively, what if.....  Publisher supports some kind of "Read Only" mode just for proofing files that guarantees that the file will be left unchanged by the app and saves directly back to the original PDF file without having to export a new one?

 

 

 

(once you've had to pay for a print job that has gone wrong, you understand why proofing is so important – especially since we don't have the physical proofing methods of days long gone – litho positives and chromalins. This is why I view Acrobat as such a critical tool in my design studio).

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