Affinity Publisher 2.2.1 on Sonoma Apple chip - using place tool for placing PDF pages buggy

[jmliss]

My goal is to place all the pages of a PDF file, one page per one page in a publisher file. I do place tool, choose the pdf file, then place the first page, and it works, however the place tab closes w/o giving me the opportunity to place additional pages. So I need to cycle the process again. I feel this is a bug and the place tool should remain open to give a multi page PDF file, the opportunity to have more than one page imported. I can understand it can't import all pages in one click. I want each page as image, not editable pdf objects.

[MikeTO]

Publisher provides a way to do what you want so this is not a bug.

Option 1: Choose File > Open and select the PDF file. Publisher will create pages for each of its pages. You can then customize the master pages and add other content.

Option 2: If you have an existing document to which you want to add PDF pages, do the same as option 1 and save that document as a temporary file. Then open your existing document and choose Document > Add Pages from File. The PDF pages will be added to the end or wherever you choose.

Option 3: If you really want to use the Place command, you can cut one step out of your process. When placing the PDF, use the Context Toolbar option to enter how many copies of the PDF should be placed. Publisher will create additional pages as required and place the PDF on each of them at the size and position you specify on the first page. However, they will all be set to page 1. You can select each PDF object and change its page with the Context Toolbar.

Cheers

[Hangman]

Hi @jmliss,

When Placing your PDF you need to click the expander arrow in the Place Panel to reveal the other pages in your PDF file. From there you can either Shift-Click to select sequential pages or Cmd-Click to select non-sequential pages prior to placing the selected pages on the first page of your document.

Publisher will then create the relevant number of pages based on your selection.

Once the pages have been placed hit the Esc key to cancel the placement process. If you need to add more pages from the same or a different PDF file either add a single new page at the end of your document or insert the relevant number of pages at the relevant place in your document and repeat the process.

[jmliss]

Hangman, you D' man (or woman) ! - thank you so much for this. I use to do this and it worked and I forgot about expanding the PDF with the Greater than sign ! and I couldn't figure out how to pick multiple pages. As such I thought it was a bug in this new version. In the 1970's I was a Unix Ninja, I could spin shells with the best of them and I rewrote Many unix commands, including the CU command. At that young age I did not have an appreciation for GUI's (they didn't exist). Affinity Tools are powerful, but too many cryptic tricks. I no longer wish to be a ninja. I wish for easy to use GUI. I certainly wish they would add AI (I have a few AI patents) and of course wizards. A wizard to walk through adding PDF would be helpful for the times when a feature is not used often. Think of the new cross reference, which I used extensively to cross reference figure captions. I need to remember anchoring, cross referencing, use an appropriate style, and then grouping the caption text box with the figure. How much more convenient it would be to have a wizard. 

Affinity Photo is a hodge poodle of features that were thrown together. Time to clean up the GUI's.

[jmliss]

15 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Publisher provides a way to do what you want so this is not a bug.

Option 1: Choose File > Open and select the PDF file. Publisher will create pages for each of its pages. You can then customize the master pages and add other content.

Option 2: If you have an existing document to which you want to add PDF pages, do the same as option 1 and save that document as a temporary file. Then open your existing document and choose Document > Add Pages from File. The PDF pages will be added to the end or wherever you choose.

Option 3: If you really want to use the Place command, you can cut one step out of your process. When placing the PDF, use the Context Toolbar option to enter how many copies of the PDF should be placed. Publisher will create additional pages as required and place the PDF on each of them at the size and position you specify on the first page. However, they will all be set to page 1. You can select each PDF object and change its page with the Context Toolbar.

Cheers

MikeTo, thank you for responding. I appreciate what you wrote. May I refer you to Hangman's suggestion and my response to him? What he/she reminded me of was exactly what I was looking for and thought was removed in this latest version. I do appreciate your very timely response (not the first time, I might add).

[Hangman]

57 minutes ago, jmliss said:

Thank you so much for this. I use to do this and it worked and I forgot about expanding the PDF with the Greater than sign ! and I couldn't figure out how to pick multiple pages. As such I thought it was a bug in this new version...

...a wizard to walk through adding PDF would be helpful for the times when a feature is not used often.

That's no problem at all, happy to help...

A simple solution could be that the Place Panel is expanded by default (with the option to collapse the thumbnails) which would perhaps make it more obvious to users the options available to them...

57 minutes ago, jmliss said:

In the 1970's I was a Unix Ninja, I could spin shells with the best of them and I rewrote Many unix commands, including the CU command.

Haha, my first foray into programming was with Fortran punch cards followed later on by BASIC on Atari...

[jmliss]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

That's no problem at all, happy to help...

A simple solution could be that the Place Panel is expanded by default (with the option to collapse the thumbnails) which would perhaps make it more obvious to users the options available to them...

Haha, my first foray into programming was with Fortran punch cards followed later on by BASIC on Atari...

1970 Fortran in high school then followed by Basic. Unix in college. Time Sharing in Grad school.  It blew my mind when I saw I=I+1 -> 50 years later AI patents 

I hope my age doesn't make me forget your hint  and I might post this as a bug again in the future  

 

They really do need to clean up the GUI's

 

[Hangman]

40 minutes ago, jmliss said:

1970 Fortran in high school then followed by Basic. Unix in college. Time Sharing in Grad school.  It blew my mind when I saw I=I+1 -> 50 years later AI patents 

Those were the days eh, life seemed so much simpler back then...

 

39 minutes ago, jmliss said:

I hope my age doesn't make me forget your hint  and I might post this as a bug again in the future  

No problem I expect I will have forgotten the solution I posted by then as well...

[jmliss]

Nice Canadian accent, eh ?