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  • Staff

Hi psiclone,

Affinity apps are a new line of software created from scratch. There's no feature parity between Affinity Designer and DrawPlus so there's no way to translate/convert DrawPlus/file format features and bring them to Affinity. You have to export your projects as PDF or SVG to be able to open them in Affinity (with some loss).

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  • Staff

These formats also have limitations when opened/imported in Affinity. Non-supported features are rasterised or lost on import which is basically what would happen if we created a specific importer for DrawPlus files. Exporting as PDF or SVG from DrawPlus will give you a similar result as if we created a specific importer (more or less). Both cases would lead to some loss.

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Then it seems that should be on your website, instead of listing:

 

"Unsurpassed file compatibility

The best PSD import engine available and full support for SVG, EPS, PDF, PDF/X and FH files means injecting Affinity Designer into your workflow is painless."

 

I can appreciate the notion of having non-supported features rasterized, but that's not exactly full support or painless, if you need to work with to what you're importing beyond it being just an image.  The expectation that provides isn't accurate.

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  • Staff

I thought you were referring specifically to Adobe formats in particular to PNG - generated by Fireworks, not the official PNG spec-, Ai and PSD (basically closed/proprietary formats).

SVG and PDF are open/documented standards - we are always following and improving Affinity importers to provide the best support we can. EPS is an old basic postscript format (nowadays replaced by PDF) which doesn't offer much features/functionality (it doesn't support layers or any kind of transparency for example) for which we provide full support. I can't comment about Freehand as i don't know this format that well (maybe the only exception here since its a closed format too).

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Heres the thing - moving to other software from the one you were using before always causes some problem at the beginning. Its the transition time when you still need some old files. Later on you just have everything created in new software you moved to and all is fine. Instead of waiting for devs to solve your problems look for workaround because there is a way out there. PDF is great to import your old files. New ones will be saved in Affinity format and there will be no problem. Sometimes reading posts I think people just expect Affinity to be all the software they used before combined and more. Its just another software - use it as such instead of expecting it to be some magic fusion of Illustrator/Corel/Freehand/DrawPlus/Photoshop and who knows what else. For your own good.

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"Unsurpassed file compatibility

The best PSD import engine available and full support for SVG, EPS, PDF, PDF/X and FH files means injecting Affinity Designer into your workflow is painless."

 

@psiclone, where, in that quote, does it specifically state that drawplus .dpp files can be imported to Affinity Designer?

 

You initially asked about dpp files but then seemed to broaden your comments to include other software/file formats.  Why?

 

Following a rebuild of my computer hardware I reinstalled all my serif apps, with the exception, initially, of DrawPlus because I rarely used it.  When I later realised I would like to have access to the few dpp files I have I reinstalled DPX5 (the latest version I own) opened any of those dpp files, exported them as pdf and then opened them for editing in AD.  To me, that qualifies as (relatively) "painless".

 

Jeff

Win 10 Pro, i7 6700K, 32Gb RAM, NVidia GTX1660 Ti and Intel HD530 Graphics

Long-time user of Serif products, chiefly PagePlus and PhotoPlus, but also WebPlus, CraftArtistProfessional and DrawPlus.  Delighted to be using Affinity Designer, Photo, and now Publisher, version 1 and now version 2.

iPad Pro (12.9") (iOS 17.4) running Affinity Photo and Designer version 1 and all three version 2 apps.

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It's a feature request and it's obviously not impossible to do this, as both software packages are by the same developer.  Talking about other formats being closed and/or open only strengthens my point.  The wording on the site is misleading as this software doesn't fully support those other formats.  If you don't want to support this request, it's your call, but it tells a lot about how this company approaches supporting customers with it's own software, suggesting there's little point in investing any more time and money in Affinity, as it will basically be called something else later on, providing basically the same functionality and intent as DrawPlus did in preceding Affinity.  Burn me once, bad on you...burn me twice, bad on me.

 

An argument such as "it's obviously not impossible to do this, as both software packages are by the same developer" doesn't stand up to even a modest amount of scrutiny. Have you ever tried to import an Adobe Photoshop file into Adobe Acrobat Reader, or import a Microsoft Publisher file into Microsoft Word?

 

As for "providing basically the same functionality and intent", DrawPlus supports both stopframe and keyframe animation but Affinity Designer will probably never include such animation features. If you want to continue to work on your DrawPlus files, open them in DrawPlus!

 

 

I'm rewriting what I was about to say here, as I'm realizing there's little point.  I'll look for better software elsewhere, where I'm not having to buy re-branded functionality every 2-3 years.

 

I don't understand where you get your "every 2-3 years" from. Affinity Designer was released 2½ years ago, after about five years in development, and it's clearly a long-term commitment on Serif's part. DrawPlus was developed over a quarter of a century.

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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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  • Staff

Hi psiclone,

I'm just trying to help you. Hope you don't take it wrong. We try to offer the best file format compatibility we can, but there's some cases where it's simply not possible because the format spec is poorly documented or non-existant (most proprietary formats) or in the case of DrawPlus files because there's not much advantage comparing to exporting to alternative formats (like PDF, SVG) since there's no similar features in Affinity to keep everything editable. Even if the feature set was similar, the way certain things are being implemented in Affinity differ from what was done in DrawPlus. Affinity Designer is not a direct replacement or an "upgraded version" of DrawPlus. It uses a new codebase written entirely from scratch and their features/intended market also differ.

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It seems to me that exporting a .ppp file to .svg or .pdf, followed by importing into Affinity is pretty painless and takes all of 20-30 seconds. What more could the OP want?

 

John

Windows 10, Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Designer 1.10.5 and Publisher 1.10.5 (mainly Photo), now ex-Adobe CC

CPU: AMD A6-3670. RAM: 16 GB DDR3 @ 666MHz, Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 630

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@John Rostron, my point exactly.

 

Jeff

Win 10 Pro, i7 6700K, 32Gb RAM, NVidia GTX1660 Ti and Intel HD530 Graphics

Long-time user of Serif products, chiefly PagePlus and PhotoPlus, but also WebPlus, CraftArtistProfessional and DrawPlus.  Delighted to be using Affinity Designer, Photo, and now Publisher, version 1 and now version 2.

iPad Pro (12.9") (iOS 17.4) running Affinity Photo and Designer version 1 and all three version 2 apps.

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