Migrating from InDesign to Publisher - what's better/what do you miss?

[craftycurate]

Hi folks

I'm considering migrating my design/publishing freelance operation from Adobe to Affinity, esp given the current flash sale. I'm asking as a fairly advanced user (around 15 years) who makes use of many of InDesigns bells and whistles and has come to rely on them ... e.g.

• GREP searches for quickly processing marked up manuscripts, or scanning for extra spaces etc. - I use this all the time
• Footnotes/Endnotes
• Variable fonts
• Creating custom spreads (e.g. a 3 page spread for a book cover)
• Primary text frames or equivalent for longer form documents (must have)

I'm reaching out mainly to more experienced InDesign users who have migrated to Affinity or who use both.

How does Publisher stack up against InDesign (esp in publishing/typesetting/book design, but just in general)? 

Thanks in advance
Richard
 

PS. "Just buy it you wont' regret it" type responses don't really help me btw - I appreciate your enthusiasm but I'm after facts and details. It's not so much about whether Affinity is great value for money (which it is) but "can I use it to do what I need to do" - can it replace my InDesign workflow for more advanced publishing projects. Thanks for understanding 😄

[thomaso]

47 minutes ago, craftycurate said:

• GREP searches for quickly processing marked up manuscripts, or scanning for extra spaces etc. - I use this all the time
• Footnotes/Endnotes
• Variable fonts

This three exist in APub 2 (variable fonts in 2.5) – Spreads of more than 2 pages aren't possible and both pages of a spread need to have the same dimensions. I don't know what you mean with "primary text frames".

You might need to learn/accept the different colour swatches handling, understand the slightly different (less) and possibly confusing PDF export settings which may require more cumbersome workflows. APub lacks an overprint preview.

Also master page handling is different, APub allows to assign more than one master page at a time and may appear a little cumbersome when handling/releasing master page objects.

APub has no global layers, no nested / no grep text styles (but base/next styles), no linked (global) object styles, no "don't print" object attribute and no scripts.

I am sure other APub users will know more differences. Or you may ask more detailed for your used and expected "bells and whistles".

[cgidesign]

Span columns is missing (can only be simulated with time consuming workarounds).

E.g. you can't set a header paragraph style to span two columns of body text.

Because of that I am still using InDesign CS6.

See thread below.

 

[craftycurate]

Thanks! @thomaso @cgidesign - that's very helpful. Exactly the kind of detail I need to be aware of.

In InDesign a Primary Text Frame can only occur once on a page, and it designed to hold the document's main content flow e.g. the main copy of the book. It is similar to a normal text frame but with some key advantages esp for long documents.

 

[Oufti]

4 hours ago, craftycurate said:

Primary text frames or equivalent for longer form documents (must have)

Seems to be similar to Affinity Publisher's Smart Master Pages (but more restricted). With Publisher you can keep content (texts and pictures) at their respective place when applying a differently laid out master page – even if the place, the shape or the dimensions of the frames have changed:

[:TLDW: Go to 2:19 to see it in action.]

 

[cgidesign]

I forgot to mention one more point - the softproof function behaves strangely (in all Affinity desktop products - I don't know about the ipad ones).

Example: sRGB document without and with softproof of cmyk iso newspaper.

 

[MikeTO]

Publisher does not have the primary text frame feature of InDesign. It's been previously requested but it's very easy enough to create frames on the master pages after creating the document, it's just an extra step.

Serif has stated that multi-page spreads are in development but again, this is an easy feature to live without until it's available. Just create a page that is the width of your three-page spread and draw two vertical guides.

There's very little you can't create in Publisher that you can create in InDesign and vice versa. As cgidesign pointed out, Span Columns is missing in Publisher and it's time consuming to compensate so that's a big one. The other big features that Publisher are missing are:

• ePub export - Serif has announced it's in development although you can use third party PDF to ePub converters - your mileage may vary
• Scripting - ditto
• RTL (right-to-left) text

[thomaso]

15 hours ago, craftycurate said:

In InDesign a Primary Text Frame can only occur once on a page, and it designed to hold the document's main content flow e.g. the main copy of the book. It is similar to a normal text frame but with some key advantages esp for long documents.

If I understand right you mean linked text frames with text flow of a story across an entire document? If yes, it is available in APub but may work differently.

As far I remember APub may confuse and feel less comfortable in the handling of these frame(s). For instance it can matter where you place the frame initially (master or document page) when text flow needs to get modified or another master page should get assigned at a later time. (unfortunately I can't tell a specific situation but remember when I used APub the first weeks that their main story text frame + text flow (<- "primary text frame" ?) confused me. Maybe others will describe a more detailed situation).

Also note in APub you can't cut/paste one or more linked frames of a story of linked frames as you can do in ID to split a story. In APub a cut frame of a text flow chain contains the entire story text and displays the start of the story when it gets pasted.

[craftycurate]

Thanks again @MikeTO @cgidesign @thomaso @Oufti 

This is very helpful and it's exactly the kind of detailed information I am looking for in making an informed decision.

[MikeTO]

For those unfamiliar with the Primary Text Frame feature of InDesign, formerly known as Master Text Frame, or similar features in most other page layout apps, you specify in the create new document dialog that you want primary text frames and what their gutter and columns should be. The app creates the frames on the master page using the specified page margins.

This feature might seem unimportant because it only saves you a step, but:

• If you use the feature for facing pages, the master frames are linked together without the need for the user to link them
• It improves discoverability - new users will be more likely to use frames on masters saving them from creating that first long document with all the frames drawn on the document page, and then being unable to change the frame widths in one step
• It makes the number of pages to create feature of the create new document feature more useful because the pages created will have frames on their master all linked together
• ID also limits their equivalent to Publisher's AutoFlow to primary text frames to avoid the issue Publisher has with auto flowing to newly-created document frames on top of master page frames. https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/196740-autoflow-discoverability-and-configuration/. We don't need primary text frames to fix that issue but it would still be a good idea.

[Oufti]

5 hours ago, craftycurate said:

it's exactly the kind of detailed information I am looking for in making an informed decision.

When you'll have collected enough information, you could be willing to download and use the free trial version, probably intensely since it's only valid 7 days. 

https://affinity.serif.com/ (N.B. There is currently a flash sale with 50% off. I don't know when it will end.)

[MickRose]

Here are a few other features that Affinity Publisher doesn't have:

1) Object frames - text, pictures, objects etc - cannot be converted to circles etc
2) Print presets
3) Tabs/table conversion
4) Step & Repeat in a grid

Having said that, there are many things that Affinity software does that Adobe software doesn't.

[Alfred]

22 minutes ago, MickRose said:

Step & Repeat in a grid

Take a look at the Data Merge Layout Tool.

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/populate-pages-in-an-instant-with-affinity-publishers-powerful-data-merge-manager/

[MickRose]

Thanks @Alfred You are right - it does do a grid step and repeat. I'd looked at it a while ago and then forgot about it.

[R C-R]

10 hours ago, MickRose said:

2) Print presets

I'm not sure how this is implemented in InDesign but in the Mac versions of APub you can create & use print presets. See for instance this Apple help topic for Catalina or set it to show the topic for other macOS versions. These presets can be created in any app that supports the macOS printer interface & can become globally available to any of them.

[MickRose]

Affinity Publisher on Windows actually does have print presets but they are basic and aimed at home printers. All printing to my A3 laser printer is done by exporting to PDFs and then using InDesign CS6 print presets which can remember print driver settings such as paper size, different X - Y scaling, tray number, paper weight etc. Obviously none of this is relevant if you are just exporting PDFs for trade printing, but I'm just making the point that IMO Publisher printing is less powerful than InDesign printing.

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, MickRose said:

Affinity Publisher on Windows actually does have print presets but they are basic and aimed at home printers.

So you cannot create custom ones in a way similar to how this can be done on Macs? IOW, does the Print dialog window not have a Presets: popup with various options including "Save Current Settings as Preset"?

[MickRose]

Yes, on Windows there are Presets which can save print dialogue box settings and then be reused for later use. But the saved settings doesn't include items listed in the Properties tab. As far as I know InDesign is the only software that does this and I find that very useful.

[JEH]

Affinity does everything that InDesign does ...probably - but you just need another screen running with a YouTube tutorial the first time you use any new feature. And then you'll likely forget how because EVERYTHING in affinity is so unintuitive. Printing with Affinity is total trial and error and if you manage to get a print out that looks good, don't expect the next one to look the same because Affinity will forget half the settings you've used. Saving the settings as a preset doesn't help either. So frustrating having to live with such mediochre software. Printing N-up is a total nightmare - easier to draw your own trim marks and duplicate the content as a group on the page. Affinity makes life miserable.

[PaoloT]

40 minutes ago, JEH said:

So frustrating having to live with such mediochre software.

I didn't know that in some countries using Affinity was enforced by the law!

 

[madiko]

Hey everybody, great thread. I followed very interested. Thank you for sharing.

One thing I struggle with: I am looking intensely for the function to put a type setting left anaxial (German: Flattersatz).
Any pointers?

[Old Bruce]

17 hours ago, madiko said:

One thing I struggle with: I am looking intensely for the function to put a type setting left anaxial (German: Flattersatz).
Any pointers?

I think you may be able to get a Character Style that has a negative slant.

[thomaso]

23 hours ago, madiko said:

One thing I struggle with: I am looking intensely for the function to put a type setting left anaxial (German: Flattersatz).

If I understand 'left anaxial' + 'Flattersatz' correctly you want the text right aligned ('rechtsbündig' )

[MikeTO]

I believe flattersatz refers to left aligned, ragged right, but more beautiful than what a page layout app normally does.

More info here: https://typeschool.de/typografie-flattersatz-soll-flattern/

Here's a script for InDesign to achieve this: https://github.com/freder/extendscripts/blob/master/indesign/flattersatz/readme.md

Without scripting, we don't have a way to do this. Turning on hyphenation and then manually adjusting hyphenation and spacing is the only option.

[MikeW]

59 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I believe flattersatz refers to left aligned, ragged right, but more beautiful than what a page layout app normally does.

More info here: https://typeschool.de/typografie-flattersatz-soll-flattern/

Here's a script for InDesign to achieve this: https://github.com/freder/extendscripts/blob/master/indesign/flattersatz/readme.md

Without scripting, we don't have a way to do this. Turning on hyphenation and then manually adjusting hyphenation and spacing is the only option.

The script is a hack. There may be better scripts to accomplish this, but even that (great) website talks about it being a manual process using the single line composer in ID.

Here's a screenshot of how the script accomplishes what it does. I've commented out a couple lines in the script in order to show what it is doing:

The script works by inserting graphic lines on the baseline (which are not an in-line graphic and so can be moved) at the frame's edge. The lines have wrap applied, the entire text has transparency applied and the lines use the Paper Color--something that Affinity applications do not have. So even with scripting, there would be that issue. 

The script does have a "variance" setting for the line lengths, my example is using 0 variance so it looks too even compared to adjusting the variance, but the manual, proper process, as shown at the website you linked to cannot easily be accomplished via the script.