[SOLVED] affinity publisher wtf ? thanks to Lightroom

[cirkē]

I am trying to create a phonebook with affinity publish V2 on Mac ,  have already done a few books with pixum , Saal-digital, blurb, they are all intuitive and easy to use

If I try a photobook with affinity it is a mess to use, where is the cover ?  where are the pages  ? how can I add directly 100 pages ?

how  can it be less intuitive to use 

is there any A3 book template to download ?

thanks

[loukash]

51 minutes ago, cirkē said:

phonebook

51 minutes ago, cirkē said:

photobook

So… a phonebook or a photobook…?
My gut-feeling-right-before-noon is that the workflows for either one might not be exactly the same.

[cirkē]

photobook of course  (auto correction sucks)

you are right the workflow is intuitive nearly everywhere but not with affinity

I bought all affinity  software when adobe went for subscription and now I bought a year subscription again for adobe because affinity is not there at all

[loukash]

17 minutes ago, cirkē said:

you are right the workflow is intuitive nearly everywhere but not with affinity

Please do not put words in my mouth! thank you

16 minutes ago, cirkē said:

now I bought a year subscription again for adobe

OK, so problem solved, issue closed.

[cirkē]

You should go play somewhere else, I asked a question and if anyone knows the answer thanks

apparently it's not you

You should have a nice glass of wine and calm down. ?

bye

[cirkē]

3 minutes ago, Return said:

Question 1,2,3: read the manual.
Question 4: no.

reading manual means that it is not intuitive at all, even for indesign I could  manage it at once without any manual

no template means  it sucks much more than I thought 

 

thanks

[KarinC]

I bought Publisher in June (or early July) after the 30 day trial. I published my first book less than 3 months later - a highly illustrated manual, btw.

Outside of asking a few questions here, with excellent help, and watching a few videos I didn't read a manual. I felt it was highly intuitive.

 

 

[cirkē]

3 months to achieve the learning curve !!! use pixum  it  takes one hour

[cirkē]

10 minutes ago, Return said:

If you don't know how things work>learn >where to find >manual.
(Or try the yellow pages)
Good luck with your phonebook.

as I said the manual should be used only for details or very special features, if it is impossible to create a simple book directly without any manual then the software  is not good

 

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, cirkē said:

pixum , Saal-digital, blurb, they are all intuitive and easy to use

46 minutes ago, cirkē said:

reading manual means that it is not intuitive at all

You compare two different app concepts, while coming from one experience lets you expect the same in another and feel the difference as non-intuitive. That hardly works for such different tools. [ If you are used to a kitchen knife then a swiss knife or leatherman feels unintuitive ]

Your intuitive experience may be caused by several automatism and limited features. While those photo book apps (or the A. Lightroom book feature) start with a bunch of images to auto-create the book file, APub works rather vice versa and a lot more flexible for a range of use cases, starting with blank pages and various features that you might not need for your photo book but for a range of other projects and purposes.

In APub the feature of "Smart Master Pages" might interest you and touch your intuition. It enables you to turn a document spread layout into another that you setup before with empty picture frames on a separate master page. Then just dragging the master onto the layout makes you switch / toggle between various layout for one spread.

Below is a more detailed tutorial (7:40 min.) by Serif:
(note, to use the "smart master" feature it is not necessarily required to name the various items individually)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Hl4ST84Ac

[PaulEC]

1 hour ago, cirkē said:

photobook of course

Why "of course"? – I used to use APub to produce a phonebook for work!

[GarryP]

3 hours ago, cirkē said:

have already done a few books with pixum , Saal-digital, blurb, they are all intuitive and easy to use

Pixum, Saal-digital and blurb (amongst many others) give you special-purpose tools for creating very specific things, like photo-books.

Publisher, on the other hand, is a general-purpose application for creating many different types of things and, as such, has a much steeper learning curve.

Comparing Publisher to the other things is like comparing the choices you have between an art supply shop and a single box of pencils.

If you only need to do some quick sketching then the single box of pencils is probably the better choice for you than the art supply shop.

[wonderings]

As others have said, those websites are the amateur way of doing things. They give you simple basic tools, drag and drop, dead simple. Publisher is not like that, it is full featured layout software. I work in print for a profession, I would never dream of using any of the sites you listed for the simple fact as they are so limited in what you can do. You find it unintuitive because you are using a full featured application, many of the tools you will not need. Not sure why you bought the software before using the demo first to see if it suits your needs. There are lots of websites for photo book creation, is there a reason you are looking for a stand alone app to set these up? Especially with no experience?

[cirkē]

I used indesign without any problem would you say that indesign is not pro ?

nearly all Affinity users went from Adobe , but Affinity is nearly like  the Gimp ,  cheap but a mess to use

[Twolane]

I just have to butt in here, because I can't resist.

I have used Publisher to prepare in the neighborhood of 15 POD books (At least. There could be more. I stopped counting because it is so easy to use my templates). I will admit right off that they are novels, not photo books or manuals or anything else. The interiors match what the Big 5 produce. How do I know that? Because I copied their formatting, and my books match, exactly. I defy anyone to tell me they don't look "professional". (As to content, I leave that to my tens of thousands of readers to decide.)

I will admit that Publisher was a bit of a bear to use right out of the box. However, despite my hateful attitude towards video learning, I sat down, bit bullets, dodged others, and watched until my eyes bled out. After using the eraser end of a pencil to poke them, I had a usable print book template that I now have tweaked to my satisfaction.

Was it easy? No. Did it pay off? Yes. I might suggest that if you're in a hurry, use another solution. If you feel the need to "get something up there quick", use another product. Publisher isn't "easy" to learn. Once you have it down, there will be no stopping you. On the other hand, if you're looking for an overnight solution, you might use something "easier" that you're more familiar with.

[KarinC]

I read this passage this morning in my "Daily Stoic" email which seems to apply here:

"... the question is whether you're willing to be taught. Life is constantly speaking to you. The world is always trying to teach you. But do you hear it? Are you open to it?
Epictetus said we can't learn that which we think we already know. Zeno reminds us that conceit is the impediment to growth and change. If you're not willing to be taught, you cannot learn."

https://dailystoic.com/are-you-willing-to-be-taught/

[kaffeeundsalz]

12 minutes ago, cirkē said:

I used indesign without any problem would you say that indesign is not pro ?

The comparison between those photobook websites and Affinity Publisher is what you came up with in your initial post. People are just picking up on it. So, to be clear: What you're saying is that Adobe InDesign is as easy to use as, say, Pixum? Or Blurb? I very much doubt so, and I think that comparison is unfair towards both InDesign and Publisher. Put an inexperienced user in front of an empty InDesign page and see how far they can get. I've done it sometimes, just as an experiment, at the beginning of InDesign courses at university. The overall result is that people are just completely lost if you deny them any guidance. The same is probably true for Affinity Publisher. But I think what's happening here is that you confuse intuitiveness with the fact that you just know how to use the software.

[thomaso]

20 minutes ago, cirkē said:

I used indesign without any problem would you say that indesign is not pro ?

If you came from QXP I assume ID did not feel intuitively in the beginning simply because you were used to a different tool, different interface and workflows.

There are various posts in this forum of Affinity users not only expecting but even presuppose same interface and workflows as in their previous app, some complain about differences to their well experienced Serif Page/Draw/Photo Plus, others compare Affinity with their ID experience.

If you would have started with Affinity and would then switch to QXP or ID the latter might feel less intuitive than your known, usual Affinity.

However, I don't mean Affinity UI/UX is of same quality or value than ID's – but they also aren't of same price, which finally makes your comparison not working well.

[wonderings]

45 minutes ago, cirkē said:

I used indesign without any problem would you say that indesign is not pro ?

nearly all Affinity users went from Adobe , but Affinity is nearly like  the Gimp ,  cheap but a mess to use

I use Indesign daily, it is my main application for work. I find it strange that if you can figure out Indesign you can't figure out Publisher. Are they different in how they do things? Yes, but the basic ideas are the same and getting around to simply make a book in spreads should not be that complicated for you. Your original post made it sound like you want drag and drop like the websites you use for photo books, this is not what Indesign and Publisher are for, simple book creation. You create everything from scratch having powerful pro tools to do it. 

[loukash]

3 minutes ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

Put an inexperienced user in front of an empty InDesign page and see how far they can get.

Hehe, back in the late 1980s, I had to figure out how to use Aldus PageMaker 3 without being provided any user manual. That was right after I finished the art school where we didn't work with DTP at all yet. Eventually I figured it all out, but it may have taken a few years, as I didn't have a chance to use a Mac very often, and I didn't own a Mac myself until 1999.

21 minutes ago, thomaso said:

If you came from QXP I assume ID did not feel intuitively in the beginning simply because you were used to a different tool, different interface and workflows.

Yeah, to fully understand QXP3 – a buddy had a license and I was allowed to work on his Mac – I then bought Samuel Hügli's "Insiderbuch QuarkXPress". Well written and truly mind opening. I read it through within a few days, made some notes and the next time I had a chance to work on the buddy's Mac, it "just worked". 
Then I bought InDesign 2 with the rest of the "Adobe Design Collection", and while I didn't have to start all over again, I bought the "InDesign 2 Smartbook" nonetheless to get a grip on the essentials as well as on many details. Actually, same for Freehand 9, Flash 4, Logic 4 and some more. Heck, I even have a ResEdit Smartbook…  and of course, I read it.

Well written manuals are a great thing for those willing to learn.

~~~

@cirkē, a well meant advice:
Navigate over to https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/191879-unofficial-pdf-manual-expert-guide-to-affinity-publisher and download @MikeTO's absolutely brilliant and absolutely free "Unofficial PDF Manual - Expert Guide to Affinity Publisher".
Please don't forget to say "thanks" to Mike.

Happy publishing.

 

[jmwellborn]

@loukash as I was reading your comment, I thought “MikeTO’s manual!” and then reached your well-meant advice to @cirkē.  Good for you!!  Hopefully this person will take advantage of Mike’s superb gift to us all, rather than posting any more all-encompassing criticisms of Affinity’s sophisticated software before learning to use it.

[EddCh]

5 hours ago, cirkē said:

I used indesign without any problem would you say that indesign is not pro ?

nearly all Affinity users went from Adobe , but Affinity is nearly like  the Gimp ,  cheap but a mess to use

I come from a 'heavyweight' Adobe InDesign (previously QuarkXpress and Aldus Pagemaker), Illustrator, Photoshop etc etc background and I found it so similar to the other page layout software I was familiar with that it took me literally no more than an hour to understand. Personally I found the transition from QuarkXpress to Adobe InDesign was more difficult and a steeper learning curve. I was able to produce a 64pp book right from the very first time I used Affinity Publisher (and without any need for a manual or tutorial). 

I am really astonished that you can use InDesign "without any problem" but cannot grasp Publisher as I think the two are fairly similar to each other. 

[loukash]

4 hours ago, EddCh said:

I am really astonished that you can use InDesign "without any problem" but cannot grasp Publisher as I think the two are fairly similar to each other. 

To be frank, in the very beginning when APu was released, I didn't consider it to be ready for prime time either, being too captured in my years-long ID workflows. If you search the forums hard enough, you can still find my early rants…  
But after I took some time to dive in, the whole Affinity concept started to make sense. Affinity has matured in the past four years. Besides, surrender to Adobe's subscription rip-off never was an option for me.

[Bit Disappointed]

14 hours ago, cirkē said:

I am trying to create

Hi @cirkē

Can you hear me through all the shouting and screaming? 🙂  

Serif actually once sold an application called Photo Projects that could do much of what you are asking for, but it has been retired now and was only for Windows. The idea of offering their customers something like what you are asking for is therefore not completely foreign to the company and your desire for such functionality is not unreasonable either. I think I got a portfolio template included in the purchase once (Affinity), but it's not the same thing, of course.

Publisher is a young product - Serif started from scratch with all their applications - and it is quite difficult to know where Serif will take Publisher. It's not exactly the sophisticated application people are talking about - it's a very classic DTP application much of the way - that has yet to be able to publish accessible to PDFs and especially in digital eBook formats, so let's just say we don't know if there will be templates with automatic or eBook support in the future. 

All the talk of willingness to learn and the talk of manuals I've also heard from Linux enthusiasts - it's not valuable in itself. And it is out of context to your current needs.

There's certainly no such automation here right now, maybe you should look for online services? Some of the companies that actually print photo books have excellent online services where you upload and organise. But I don't know how you need the photo book printed or digitally distributed, of course.

A (nostalgic) look back in time:

https://www.amazon.com/Serif-SPPUSDVDDI-Photo-Projects/dp/B005TGBOVO

[Catshill]

7 hours ago, Bit Arts said:

Publisher is a young product

I think middle aged is a better description.