Request: Style mapping dialog during import in Publisher

[Evaluation complete.]

I’ve seen this requested as side notes or otherwise in various scattered threads, so I’m isolating it here and bringing it into focus.

I can see that switching to Publisher will be challenging for me/us due to this alone. There's a serious lack of a style mapping feature like the one below for importing text from Word. I receive chapters and texts from various sources and create some myself; occasionally, I get revisions late after external feedback. These Word documents should ideally follow a heading pattern (from a company template or my own fixed story template) in Publisher once we’ve defined the heading mapping, which then matches the headers I use in the Publisher document. 

It goes without saying that this style mapping should be savable, reusable, and editable once defined. It would be a highly valuable feature in a professional setup - so valuable that it unquestionably needs to be available and fully functional in software like Publisher.

Manual mapping of text is simply too time-consuming and carries significant risks of errors and oversights. I can even say that this will often be a decisive factor for potential clients to opt out of Affinity Publisher, especially those importing large amounts of text for substantial publications. It’s costly, pointless, and unusual for staff to have to spend time on this. It’s simply not a prerequisite that clients are willing to accept anymore.

I would also like to reiterate my request for a story editor where one can isolate the text and review style assignments for paragraphs in the sidebar, similar to other story editors.

There is far, far, far too much required manual work and too many workarounds in my experience so far. Publisher is steadily reducing profits.

[kenmcd]

Been requested many times.

Kinda crazy it still does not exist.

[Evaluation complete.]

Crazy is one word; incomprehensible is another. I really don’t understand the order of feature implementation. Footnotes, cross-references, and other great additions are there now, but not this? If you can’t map styles, the odds of anyone choosing Publisher for complex documents are pretty slim. And if there’s not even a story editor, then the environment for manual assignment is only available in an even more unsuitable form.

This back-and-forth between being drawn to the product and repelled by it is not exactly promotional.

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, Ingelise said:

Crazy is one word; incomprehensible is another. I really don’t understand the order of feature implementation. Footnotes, cross-references, and other great additions are there now, but not this? If you can’t map styles, the odds of anyone choosing Publisher for complex documents are pretty slim. And if there’s not even a story editor, then the environment for manual assignment is only available in an even more unsuitable form.

This back-and-forth between being drawn to the product and repelled by it is not exactly promotional.

I believe Serif is adding the features absolutely required to make possible the creation of documents that were previously impossible to create in Affinity. You can't create a book that requires footnotes without a footnote feature, but you can create it without a story editor or style mapping during import even if their absence makes it more work for some users.

[bbrother]

7 hours ago, MikeTO said:

I believe Serif is adding the features absolutely required to make possible the creation of documents that were previously impossible to create in Affinity. You can't create a book that requires footnotes without a footnote feature, but you can create it without a story editor or style mapping during import even if their absence makes it more work for some users.

Stop talking rubbish. Sure that you can create books that require footnotes without footnote feature but you'll need to create them manually which takes a lot time and effort. For a long time this was the only way because the footnote feature was implemented very late.

From my observations, serif is guided by the following criteria when adding new features:

• User feedback.
• Business value: The value that a new feature will bring to the company.
  This may include expected sales growth, improved customer retention, or increased user satisfaction.

13 hours ago, Ingelise said:

There is far, far, far too much required manual work and too many workarounds in my experience so far. Publisher is steadily reducing profits.

Oh, how much I agree with you. Many features were simply implemented in the simplest version and abandoned. They did not see any improvements for many years, hence the share of manual work and workarounds is high.

[Evaluation complete.]

I am simply just addressing this specific omission here. I don’t believe I can use Publisher for my publications within an acceptable timeframe without this feature. It feels like a completely unjustified lack. If this were version 1 of Publisher with a limited customer base, I could understand the rationale and be a bit more patient, but not in version 2.6. At this point, my doubt represents objectively valid feedback - how many releases should customers wait for this feature to arrive? Uncertainty is a key factor when choosing tools. I’ve been part of product screenings many times in my career, and these insights into trends and future directions are classic criteria for deciding whether to adopt or avoid products.

In any case, the motivation behind my feedback is that feedback should benefit a company with paying customers. They ought to be interested in well-reasoned feedback, and the more, the better. What people here think about it isn’t that important. This is customer feedback for the company.

I certainly can’t be stuck endlessly waiting, as I see some people are doing here. The lack of this feature practically forces customers into manual setup, similar to when typesetters arranged text manually with lead type - this is not the standard for software today. The omission creates work of a nature that is precisely the type of time-wasting task companies choose software to eliminate from workflows. We have a student assistant to help with routine tasks, but this will never be one of them. Software must be able to handle this.

Just to drive the point home firmly, we simply don’t have the time (or inclination) for this in our day-to-day tasks in a typical business environment. We estimate our tasks together as a standard practice week by week, and we continuously and openly discuss how to avoid heavy, time-consuming work that’s demotivating for employees and costly for both the company and clients in terms of time. If I have to stand openly in a circle of colleagues and talk about my manual time consumption of this nature, I can guarantee it will be noticed. Time is money. And who wants to work that way in late 2024? 

That’s why I’m here on my own time, so to speak, writing on a lazy Sunday, but even here, I’m running out of time. We need to head out and enjoy what the city has to offer.

Thanks for the feedback and enjoy your Sunday!

[Evaluation complete.]

And this forced import of styles from RTF is a true no go:

[Evaluation complete.]

I am now testing the Books feature, and once again, importing documents is a nightmarish nightmare without style mapping during import. And again, the lack of a Story Editor is absolutely catastrophic.

Serif, you must not assume that your customers have extra hours in their day beyond the 24, or that they wish to spend those hours on manual work, even if they had them. This is serious.