When an Illustration App Becomes DTP

[DaveEdwards]

Having been an original Pagemaker and Corel, I'm so glad to see Serif attacking these markets. But I wanted to pass on some of my experience from the past.

Most major applications feature one of two "key" object types. For DTP it's linking columns which can run over multiple pages. For Illustration programs, it's a bezier bounded, filled shape. By adding these objects types to a different application, you can take over that applications function. We've seen this with Photoshops support for bezier splines and thus lessening the need to Illustrator. 

 
I witnessed the same thing with CorelDraw and Pagemaker. CorelDraw would handle illustrations and Pagemaker, page layout. However, by the addition just two features into CorelDraw, I stopped using Pagemaker all together and could use Draw for everything. This being multiple pages and linked columns.

 

For Serif, if they would add multiple pages and linked text columns, there would be little need for a separate Publisher application.

 

Dave Edwards

[Gerard O]

I an not too sure what linked columns are so can't comment but I have found a work around for multiple pages in designer.

Create a multiple page document and convert to pdf. You can do this in Word, etc. Open the file in Affinity Designer. Designer maintains the multipage of the original document. 

I discovered by opening a document template, originally created in InDesign and exported as a pdf template. All layers etc. were retained. I have since check by creating a simple document in Word and saving as a pdf. My documents had two pages so not too sure what limits there might be.

It is working for me as a work around on a small document with tables , vector graphics and bitmaps and a lot of text. Obviously Publisher would be much better, when it arrives.