Export improvements in the future?

[ianrobertdouglas]

I have loved Affinity Designer, but I think I'm nearing the end of the road in how I can use it.

 

Recently I made a company brochure in AD. It was all more or less fine as I only had to prepare print-ready files which, when I flattened and consolidated some of the image effects I had used, I could do. But yesterday, the client asked for editable source files. Illustrator or Photoshop. And layered, for ease of use.

 

Impossible.

 

The .pdf format when pulled into Illustrator loses the layer structure. For some reason, .svg (which usually preserves the layer structure) was totally unable to output the file as it should be. EPS is useless. In the end, I had to output to .pdf, open in Illustrator and remove all text, then add a .svg output of the text layer and resize. Of course, .svg is not too great and getting the colors right. Close, but not exact.

 

Illustrator was throwing errors on opening .pdfs. "To preserve appearance, some text has been outlined" and, in exporting to .psd, "Some containers in the AI document have been flattened."

 

I know the .ai format is locked and proprietary. I also know that the .pdf has the layers intact, as you can see in Acrobat. But the issue is (and I wish it were different), 99% of clients have access to Illustrator or Photoshop, and I have no sure-fire way of exporting source files from AD in a way that they can use as intended.

 

So my question is: Are there significant improvements in this coming, at some point? I'm at a fork in the road, I feel.

 

Secondarily, if anyone has insights and tricks as to how to export layered and accurate and editable output from AD in a way that Illustrator or Photoshop can easily use, please let me know. I love AD, but I feel that one day it's going to lose me clients.

 

Yes, Adobe Suite is a mess (in my view). But isn't there something that can be done?

 

Thanks for reading.