Affinity Publisher - Table of Contents/Form creator/Feature list?

[DerHerr]

Hi awesome Affinity Team!

 

If those questions already came up, then I'm sorry asking them again:

 

1. Will it be possible to create a Table of Contents with hyperlinks to each headline? e.g. when you click on it then you jump to page XYZ (for PDFs)

2. Will it be possible to build a form with Publisher? also for PDFs

3. Is ther a list or something that shows what will be doable with Publisher?

 

Thanks a lot already!

 

Kind regards

DerHerr

 

[Dave Harris]

1. Eventually, but not in the first release.

2. Eventually, but not in the first release.

3. Eventually, but not until nearer release.

 

[DerHerr]

Ah, good to hear  thanks for the fast update!

[000]

If you don't mind, Dave, I'd like to have a quick answer to a variation of question 1:
-- Will Publisher be able to create a Table of Contents at all, when it comes out? Or is that something for a release after 1.0?

 

Thanks. :o)

[soundmanbrett]

I'm wondering if you are planning on making Publisher so that it will open PagePlus files. I have been using it for years and have recently bought a Mac. I have both Affinity Designer and Photo and will need to replace PagePlus once you come out with Publisher.

[MEB]

Hi soundmanbrett,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

There's no plans to support old legacy Serif's file formats no matter the app, sorry.

[soundmanbrett]

Old file formats? I'm using the current version of PagePlus. It's the current software you sold me last year, that will be replaced. I'm sure I'm not the only PagePlus user who wants to switch, who has over a thousand files created in your software. Software companies who develop new versions of software usually accommodate their current customers when they develop a new file format. 

[MEB]

Hi soundmanbrett,

The Serif Plus line was discontinued. Affinity is not a replacement for the old Serif Plus line. It's a new suite of apps created entirely from scratch to take advantage of the new technologies/API's available today. There's no feature parity between Serif Page Plus and Affinity Publisher (at least during the first versions) so a number of Page Plus specific/advanced features would be lost as there's no equivalent ones in Affinity Publisher or their translation would also lead to some inaccuracies. For this (and other reasons) we advise to continue using Page Plus for your existing projects and in case you really do want to move a few to the new format export them as PDF and perform the necessary adaptations in Publisher.

[dmstraker]

Potential confusion with Affinity Publisher. AD is Designer. AP is Photo, So how do we abbreviate Publisher?

[kaffeeundsalz]

Current practice I've recently seen here in the forums is to use [APh] and [APu] for differentiation between the two.

[R C-R]

Some use AF for Affinity Photo or APub for Publisher.

[soundmanbrett]

Okay, thank you for the explanation. I never used photo and draw plus very often so I didn't think much about it when I started with Affinity. I have found that there is nothing to compare with PagePlus so I have been looking forward to APu. I was hoping for something like what Microsoft did with Office. They came up with a new file format (docx) while maintaing support for the old (doc) files.

[Alfred]

9 minutes ago, dmstraker said:

Potential confusion with Affinity Publisher. AD is Designer. AP is Photo, So how do we abbreviate Publisher?

 

I've been using 'APh' for Affinity Photo for as long as I can remember, partly because I knew that Affinity Publisher was in the works but probably more because my initials are AP! I tend to shorten the Affinity Publisher name to 'APub', but I confess that I may be somewhat influenced by 'APu' sounding like a character from The Simpsons.

 

As @R C-R has observed, some use 'AF' for Affinity Photo, but (a) its name is Photo, not Foto, and (b) 'AF' may sometimes be too easily misunderstood to refer to autofocus.

[dmstraker]

APu also could sound noxious ('ay-poo').

Maybe to allow more flexibility for future products, use four letters: APho ('ay-foh'), ADes ('ay-des'), APub ('ay-pub').

This could sound trivial, but it's a branding decision!

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, soundmanbrett said:

I have found that there is nothing to compare with PagePlus so I have been looking forward to APu.

 

If you read Dave Harris's reply to the OP, you'll see that Affinity Publisher's capabilities will lag behind those of recent versions of PagePlus for quite some time.

 

6 minutes ago, soundmanbrett said:

I was hoping for something like what Microsoft did with Office. They came up with a new file format (docx) while maintaing support for the old (doc) files.

 

It would be nice if we had the ability to open native WritePlus (*.stt) files, but it doesn't look as though we're going to get that. Your best bet is to publish as PDF from PP, and then open the result in APub.

[R C-R]

Regarding AF for Affinity Photo, there are quite a few languages that do not normally use "ph" for "f" so for some AF is the most logical abbreviation. 

[kaffeeundsalz]

But it's irritating – because the application's name is not internationalised of course. In any language, Affinity Photo is still called Affinity Photo.

[v_kyr]

Yeah let's go to a pub to have a beer.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

But it's irritating – because the application's name is not internationalised of course. In any language, Affinity Photo is still called Affinity Photo.

 

Maybe they should have forgotten about a name such as Affinity and just called it i18n Foto.

 

[dmstraker]

1 minute ago, Alfred said:

Maybe they should have forgotten about a name such as Affinity and just called it i18n Foto.

or iAffinityt, which all Dingbats fans will recognise as 'Affinity, innit'.

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, dmstraker said:

or iAffinityt, which all Dingbats fans will recognise as 'Affinity, innit'.

 

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, kaffeeundsalz said:

But it's irritating – because the application's name is not internationalised of course. In any language, Affinity Photo is still called Affinity Photo.

But this is about informal abbreviations, not official product or brand names. For such things, people tend to use whatever seems right to them. Not much you can do about that.

[dmstraker]

7 hours ago, R C-R said:

But this is about informal abbreviations, not official product or brand names. For such things, people tend to use whatever seems right to them. Not much you can do about that.

Truth here. Informal stuff spreads through socialisation. Can be a pig's ear, but what people use is what other people will pick up and also use.

And yet influence is unequal. Core members and frequent posters can bend probabilities. 'Fake' abbreviations can hence become accepted.

[Dave Harris]

On 05/01/2018 at 6:41 PM, Jens Krebs said:

If you don't mind, Dave, I'd like to have a quick answer to a variation of question 1:
-- Will Publisher be able to create a Table of Contents at all, when it comes out? Or is that something for a release after 1.0?

It's not currently planned at all for 1.0.

[puredesign]

I am an old pro with desktop publishing and have been using Indesign for many years, and Quark before that, and PageMaker before that. 

 

Some things I need in APub:

• Ability to import native Indesign and PDFs and edit them as native APub elements, not as graphics.
• Ability to preview color separations and overprints.
• Ability to flow text to multiple text boxes, break text flow, reverse text flow, insert text boxes, delete text boxes and maintain flow, etc.
• Full paragraph and character style support with nested styles and auto apply styles
• Robust table support with cell styles, copy and paste rows and columns, repeating headers.
• Full PSD and AI support, along with AD & AP support
• Find and replace fonts throughout document
• Find and replace text by story, document
• Basic effects such as dropshadow, feather, fade, blend
• Full corner options
• Library support
• Object styles with size and attribute controls
• Script support such as importing multipage pdfs on each page and calendar creation
• Ability to embed, unembed, relink, break link, etc for all kinds of links
• Robust text alignment such as lock to baseline, multiple baseline grid, vertical justify within box.
• Preview with bleed, without bleed, with and without guides
• Robust spell and grammar check
• Support for different binding beyond saddle-stitch, including perfect bind and coil bind
• Warning if multiple page sizes exist in a document
• Industry standard pdf output with full transparency support, RIP tested pdfs
• Full spot color support from day one
• Logical master page behavior, link pages to master, break link to master, convert objects from master to page level objects
• Presets for pdf export, text import, document setup, print
• Easy and logical header and footer, page number and section support

Well, that is what comes to mind right now. Could go on and on. Hope this helps.