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Affinity Publisher - Sneak Preview


TonyB

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On 17.3.2018 at 7:12 PM, TonyB said:

We have no plans on further previews before the beta. You can always ask questions here and we will try and answer them.

Will there be a possibility to import Apple Pages files? Both old an new iteration of Pages?

If not PDF import and being able to edit these would be great.

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On 1/7/2018 at 4:48 PM, bor said:

I Feel the same, Adobe is for long time on the market and peoples used it for years, and simply they will not switch to learn new ways to do stuff, and for last - this is a big suite, nowdays graphic designer is NOT just a graphic designer, it's more obvious to be motion designer also (After Effects, Animate CC) or Video Editor (Premiere Pro). Adobe has solutions for that and for that simple reason switching is a such problem. My freelance worklfolw right now looks like so: AD and AP for graphic design, Davinci Resolve for video editing but Adobe with his After Effects and InDesign still remains. And those two last program keeping me to continue beign screwd by ~63E per month subscription.

If You know any good alternative to AE, please let me know.

The sister software of Resolve of course, Fusion. 

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1 hour ago, Fatih19 said:

If You know any good alternative to AE

 

You don't know about Blackmagic's Fusion??? I just discovered it a while back, and it is simply amazIng! I especially love their node-based approach to adding elements and effects to the scenes! And, it is (in my opinion) an intuitive and easy to learn software, once you can wrap your mind around the concept of nodes. Go try it!

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2 minutes ago, Michael Sheaver said:

 

You don't know about Blackmagic's Fuison??? I just discovered it, and it is simply amazIng! I especially love their node-based approach to adding elements and effects to the scenes! And, it is (in my opinion) an intuitive and easy to learn software, once you can wrap your mind around the concept of nodes. Go try it!

I never use any compositing or motion graphics software before, but people said that compositing is faster in node based software. 

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I have heard of Fusion, but it does seem very different from other video editors. I don't think I can grasp one that doesn't use the common timeline, but I understand it is very powerful.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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5 hours ago, Bri-Toon said:

I have heard of Fusion, but it does seem very different from other video editors. I don't think I can grasp one that doesn't use the common timeline, but I understand it is very powerful.

Fusion is not a video editor, it'. a compositor and motion graphic software. DaVinci Resolve is a video editor. Yes, fusion works differently from Ae but it has a full free version. No watermark, commercial use allowed. The studio version is only 300$

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Hello,

I'm interested to know if I could use Affinity Publisher to export to HTML and keep the same layout. For example, if I already have a layout for print, with images and text, if I could export and make an HTML webpage that has the images and text in the exact same positions. (InDesign doesn't do this, so I have to redo the layouts in Muse... which is double the work obviously)

Thanks!

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3 minutes ago, Bogdan said:

Hello,

I'm interested to know if I could use Affinity Publisher to export to HTML and keep the same layout. For example, if I already have a layout for print, with images and text, if I could export and make an HTML webpage that has the images and text in the exact same positions. (InDesign doesn't do this, so I have to redo the layouts in Muse... which is double the work obviously)

Thanks!

 

Publisher won't have HTML export on the initial release and even in the future it will probably only be supported within an electronic publication export. Publisher output is not intended for webpages. 

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45 minutes ago, Bogdan said:

Hello,

I'm interested to know if I could use Affinity Publisher to export to HTML and keep the same layout. For example, if I already have a layout for print, with images and text, if I could export and make an HTML webpage that has the images and text in the exact same positions. (InDesign doesn't do this, so I have to redo the layouts in Muse... which is double the work obviously)

Thanks!

 

QXP can export to html5 fine. InDesign can with a plug-in from Ajar Productions:

 

https://ajarproductions.com/pages/products/in5/

 

Mike

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In other words, the initial release of APub then won't from start up support exporting as epub and dealing with HTML is reserved for another future Affinity app.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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1 minute ago, v_kyr said:

In other words, the initial release of APub then won't from start up support exporting as epub and dealing with HTML is reserved for another future Affinity app.

 

The initial release of Publisher will not support ePub. Future updates are likely to support fixed layout ePub but this will be confirmed on the roadmap when we release.

 

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14 minutes ago, MikeW said:

 

QXP can export to html5 fine. InDesign can with a plug-in from Ajar Productions:

 

https://ajarproductions.com/pages/products/in5/

 

Mike

 

I would say that HTML export for electronic publications is fine but using it to create webpages in my opinion is not. The modern web is so much more than fixed layout, static, non-semantic text and pictures. 

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1 hour ago, Bogdan said:

Hello,

I'm interested to know if I could use Affinity Publisher to export to HTML and keep the same layout. For example, if I already have a layout for print, with images and text, if I could export and make an HTML webpage that has the images and text in the exact same positions. (InDesign doesn't do this, so I have to redo the layouts in Muse... which is double the work obviously)

Thanks!

 

I have not tried any PDF to HTML converters, but there seem to be plenty available. Since APub will most definitely have a strong support for exporting PDF documents, maybe that'll do the trick? One step more, but exporting APub document as PDF should be no more than few clicks.

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22 minutes ago, TonyB said:

 

I would say that HTML export for electronic publications is fine but using it to create webpages in my opinion is not. The modern web is so much more than fixed layout, static, non-semantic text and pictures. 

 

Yes, neither option is a web page builder. Though earlier versions (of Q) did produce static fixed-position web sites. However, if the goal is to produce web "applications" including html5 interactivity AND the desire is to "keep the same layout," then either of those option are available and do produce good results.

 

As regards FXL ePubs, once html5 is possible within an application, both routes are possible.

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1 hour ago, TonyB said:

 

I would say that HTML export for electronic publications is fine but using it to create webpages in my opinion is not. The modern web is so much more than fixed layout, static, non-semantic text and pictures. 

 

Yes... I worked as mostly the only person for front end in a mid size company for almost a decade, (and before in several teams, at other places) and had time to cover almost any form of producing (graphics included, of course).... The web has become more of a puzzle of dynamic chunks of code, server generated, etc. You don't have anymore your large static XHTML and your CSS 3 sheet, your js includes and that'd be it. This is the past since quite long (I had my hopes on it going away as a trend like happened with all 2.0 cr4p...but that wont happen ). For landing pages, maybe. (but my late times at this, even those were generated by several sources...true that I'm 100% illustration/pixel-art/3D since 2013, and fully not sure how it has kept evolving, but all I have checked is it is following the trend, or even is more the case of it than then....) . Plus... making even a reliable and able to compete publishing app (with today's market) is said to be already daunting to achieve in this little time (and even the more cautious plan I've heard sounds too brave to me....) ...Is not just adding even more stuff on top of that difficult mountain... it is that doing a web code generator is a task where a lot of companies, even while doing it as a standalone specific app,  have failed in that in a too large percentage. First, for its incredible complexity, specially today (the times of one of the very few successful at that; Dreamweaver, by then the web allowed such app to make sense, and even so, from certain level of pro skill and bosses demands, you ended up using its code window 95% of the time (and as a last step, abandoning it in favor of just a text editor with syntax highlight and auto completion only for speed), lol...), and third parties involved, grids, frameworks , conditional CSS, responsive solutions, js (jQueries or not)/, and python/ROR/PHP/younameit generating all involved, etc. But also as is... a thing of ever-changing nature, at a crazy pace.  IMO, terrible business for an app developer.  If one thing is almost already obsolete in the day of release, as in that minute, new stuff is coming out, much better or just (as often , very often happens) just the new trend, the IN thing, not always being a better solution.... I mean, is like a way to end up killing every effort... I totally applaud making it an apart app, as is a very serious endeavor (which I doubt would be worth it).  Maybe... making that future app to be able to import 1:1  (but seems is a given, among the Affinity apps, luckily...)  from APub in native file, sounds to me a total win. And so, don't compromise/force the internal structure and/or flexibility of APub (neither use eternal development hours on it) , just make the future one read a much richer format than any web code, that is, native Affinty files from Apub, then let that specific app do its export, and focus that one of keeping up to date with the craze of the web (a bad business, IMO, anyways, but that's just me, I'm sure. ). IMO, tho, the best web editor one can have is a really good text coding editor focused in code production and maintenance (besides highlight and auto-completion, auto indent depending on the language of code, numbered lines, bookmarks, folding, etc. None of that is wysiwyg, and still, amazingly good for web code. U have it all in great free editors in every OS. Notepad ++ comes to mind, but there are many.). And I speak from quite some experience, not a random thought. If anything, I give more value that one of these apps has some way to cross platform upload to Git or SCP (but anyways, there outstanding free utilities for that, too!  ...winSCP, Putty and a number of also free tools for git is all you need ....) than any "wysiwyg", as that never works well.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Bogdan said:

Hello,

I'm interested to know if I could use Affinity Publisher to export to HTML and keep the same layout. For example, if I already have a layout for print, with images and text, if I could export and make an HTML webpage that has the images and text in the exact same positions. (InDesign doesn't do this, so I have to redo the layouts in Muse... which is double the work obviously)

Thanks!

This would be pretty hard to do correctly for multiple reasons:

  1. HTML isn’t made to create a certain layout but to structure content semantically, i. e. it’s about content and giving it a meaning. For this you’d have to first define a meaning for any text object (the simple ones are heading, paragraph, list; more complex are tables with headers and data cells, and even more obscure things like forms with fields of various types (text/number/date etc.), sectioning elements and what not).
  2. Websites aren’t static objects like printed pages. They are viewed on a multitude of devices with different aspect ratios, display dimensions and rendering capabilities and therefore need to be responsive. Also, websites are usually more or less interactive (with hyperlinks and possibly some behavior (e. g. mouseover interactions)). If it should just be the print layout viewed in a web browser you might as well just export and display an image.

Affinity Publisher would have to take a serious effort to become web designing tool with proper code export. There have been attempts at something like this with Macaw but I don’t know how good the code was that it produced. In any case, this would be a vastly different approach than creating print layouts, so I don’t know if Serif will ever go this way. Even if APub would include UI designing capabilities (which I’d very much appreciate), proper code export for production (and not just for prototyping) is a whole nother level.

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I don't know if Bogdan is thinking of web site(s)/page(s) proper. Or whether Bogdan is talking about transferring say a page from a layout application or even a magazine and producing html(5) to place on a web site. I took it as the later. For this, the above mentioned methods/applications are applicable

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If you want to publish a designed document on the web then use pdf, just about every device understands them and they are a usable standard.

 

I create a club newsletter using swift publisher, all of the old newsletters are on the website for people to refer to them.

 

are they in spub format - no they are in pdf. How would you deal with all the different alignments, screen shapes, formatting etc.

 

when the event reports are put on the website they are rewritten into html, and the pictures scaled to fit the page and inserted in the appropriate locations.

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@VIPStephan, @MikeW, Thanks for your replies!

 

I'm interesting in having very basic, static html pages. Something very simple.

I don't think I should have a subscription for WIX or Squarespace or Adobe Muse for a basic page with some text and some images. It's simply not worth it. 

 

And if I do a printed presentation for a client I would like to have the same material in the same order, looking exactly the same, online, static html. 

If, for example, I have 20 pages with text and images and so on, I want them to become 1 static html5 page with the same layout. (without doing the work twice using Muse)

 

And my alternatives are too expensive for such a simple task. I'll try some PDF to HTML converter, or maybe the Ajar plugin...

 

And here's a good point from GitHub Pages regarding simplicity:

 

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If you want to just create web pages, Serif's WebPlus is a bit clunky but will do a good job. There is also the free OpenElements

Affinity Designer 2.2.2075 & beta 2.3.1.2212 Affinity Photo 2.2.2075  beta 2.3.1.2212Affinity Publisher  2.2.2075 & beta 2.3.1.2212

Windows 11 Pro Version    22H2
OS build    22621.1928
Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz   2.90 GHz
Installed RAM    16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable)
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

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36 minutes ago, Bogdan said:

...And if I do a printed presentation for a client I would like to have the same material in the same order, looking exactly the same, online, static html. 

If, for example, I have 20 pages with text and images and so on, I want them to become 1 static html5 page with the same layout. (without doing the work twice using Muse)...

If it's more printing material (like text and images) of pages in the sense of GitHub and markdown documents etc., then something like Typora (WYSIWYG markdown) will may be enough for you here. It can export as PDF, HTML, Word, OOffice,... etc.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Or just pay me to get you the html + css + graphics identical to your layout..... I'm joking, of course. But I mean, if you would put together the pains many of these tools bring, and the lack of control one has with  them, way too often (yeah, even, or specially, Muse) it might worth it to learn a bit, not as to become a frontend person, just what you need (what you want to do is quite basic, very) of html and very specially, CSS, as, is true what is said, html is not thought for layout, there's a ton of situations where its default tags wont allow you to bring exact pixel to pixel appearance, but!....CSS allow you doing this by classes that affect those tags (and I don't mean inline css parameters, of course), perfectly. The rest is good image editing ability ! . I got very often the gig and/or company task of making blogger's blogs (and, WOW, do those have reaaaally convoluted and weird html+css+dynamic code all mixed (not bashing that, surely they have their reasons for doing so, as wix does), outputting chunks of not so nice code... thankfully, is google's property, and the algorythm treats blogger very nicely (how could I be surprised about that), so it gets compensated) the task was to make them look EXACTLY the same than even the most over-complex graphic design (some ppl do have  very complicated web layouts) , this because there was quite a number of ppl wanting blogger's (and other blog/whatever the SaaS thingy) great capabilities as a blogger, but at same time, not looking cheap by using it... And I mean, THAT was (is) complicated as you are forced to use their weird template and css, and dynamic chunks. But doing it on your own ? Not hard. One month of using some free time chunks here and there to learn it....maybe.  And it'd pay in the long run. As stuff like Wix, Muse, etc, (squarespace I think was a bit better in that regard(but I hate the limitations and/or paying for basic stuff), but don't quote me on this...) do often one of the two big issues (or both) , they output terrible code(no good for promotion, and other stuff), or simply they give you very little control or none, so you step too often into sth you can't make it exactly look like you want, no matter what you do (if you don't/aren't able to touch the actual code). There are great free tutorials for this. People is afraid of it maybe because they believe is like programming, while is just a markup language and getting familiar with certain specifications. 

 

I do know nooone is going to go for learning xhtml (or html 5, pretty similar)  and css. I just wanted to mention it ain't that hard, at all. I believe the practical solution (as you really need to factor in the actual developers plans, it's their idea and their business, maybe they count, too... ;)  And we got very recent their statements about the matter)  is IMO to hope that there'd be a future app for web making made by Affinity, which would import from APub with identical (visually at least) layout than what you had in there. Maybe further edit ,and export to web from there. But yeah, that can be a very long wait... I can only see sense in doing that only once APub is very mature as a product, and all the other fronts are in a great state, too, needing only light updates. I dunno. I see a ton more important (as they don't have infinite resources) to get a first beta of apub, keep improving + growing it after that while they keep polishing AP and AD, an strategy that I see it's clearly going well, looking at every beta released.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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