Copying text from InDesign to Affinity Designer

[MickRose]

I'm in the process of changing over from InDesign (CS6 Windows) to Affinity Designer for designing things like business cards & leaflets.and I've just found out that copying & pasting  text from InDesign to AD seems to keep the formatting, It even adds any paragraph styles. It doesn't include any inline graphics because I don't think AD can handle this. If the InDesign text frame has been scaled then that is ignored. I'm mentioning all this because I'm really impressed.

[dutchshader]

 

 

1 hour ago, MickRose said:

I'm in the process of changing over from InDesign (CS6 Windows) to Affinity Designer for designing things like business cards & leaflets.and I've just found out that copying & pasting  text from InDesign to AD seems to keep the formatting, It even adds any paragraph styles. It doesn't include any inline graphics because I don't think AD can handle this. If the InDesign text frame has been scaled then that is ignored. I'm mentioning all this because I'm really impressed.

have you tried paste without format ctrl+alt+shift+V

[Bri-Toon]

Welcome, MickRose.

Since you come from InDesign, also be aware that Affinity Designer is the equivalent to Illustrator, so it won't support a lot of the things InDesign can do. The actual equivalent to InDesign will be a new product called Affinity Publisher. The first beta will be launching this summer, but it will be several months from that point when the actual commercial release comes out.

[MikeW]

59 minutes ago, Bri-Toon said:

Welcome, MickRose.

Since you come from InDesign, also be aware that Affinity Designer is the equivalent to Illustrator, so it won't support a lot of the things InDesign can do. The actual equivalent to InDesign will be a new product called Affinity Publisher. The first beta will be launching this summer, but it will be several months from that point when the actual commercial release comes out.

 

Nor will Affinity Publisher do many of the things that ID can do. Not for several major versions. 

[dominik]

1 hour ago, MikeW said:

 

Nor will Affinity Publisher do many of the things that ID can do. Not for several major versions. 

 

Nevertheless, most of us are very much looking forward to the arrival of Affinity Publisher 

And I am confident that it will come with a good set of features to get things done like business cards and leavelets (and more complicated publications).

But I agree with @MikeW some more advanced features won't be there right from the start.

 

d.

[MikeW]

I'll purchase a license and likely use it too.

 

But what is considered fundamental, basic or advanced likely varies among the people awaiting APub.

[dominik]

13 hours ago, MikeW said:

But what is considered fundamental, basic or advanced likely varies among the people awaiting APub.

 

Agreed 

That is why I simply call them 'advanced features' without speculation what those will be. I like to think of them as the features 'that are not present in the initial release'.

The only thing I am curious about is the way of integration or interaction with AD and APh. I have to be patient about that.

d.

[MickRose]

I don't think APh will be aimed at the Indesign market. Users in the print industry who have CC files are stuck for life with paying the rental if they want to open older files so they might as well keep it as the main software. Personally I think ID CS6 is great for jobs involving tables, longer structured documents, outputting PDF files and many other things. But many people still use MS Publisher and Word for simple documents and I'd guess that is the market AP will be aimed at (as well as enthusiasts). My concern is that many people using these programs might not be that interested in improved software. We'll see.

[Bri-Toon]

22 hours ago, MikeW said:

Nor will Affinity Publisher do many of the things that ID can do. Not for several major versions. 

I understand that, but based off of his original post, I think it would be better to just open the InDesign file in a compatible program than to just keep copying and pasting the text into Designer. That is assuming that Publisher will be compatible with InDesign files. As far as his new post on creating tables, I agree that may be a feature that will come later on.

[MikeW]

49 minutes ago, Bri-Toon said:

...I think it would be better to just open the InDesign file in a compatible program than to just keep copying and pasting the text into Designer...

 

As far as I know, there are only two non-Adobe applications that are to whatever degree "compatible" with ID files and both are via the IDML route. Either get one quite close to the original layout or X percentage of the way depending on how the original was created. I have seen some horrible ID layouts that do not translate well to either application via IDML. Most have been somewhere between near perfect and acceptable. For Q there is a pretty good XTension available that does a somewhat more consistent and better job of moving ID file natively...but they stopped making a Windows version of it a couple versions back. So it is good Quark made the movement of ID files to QXP via the IDML route.

 

And that is what APub needs as well if it is to attract ID users that have need to move files to a new publishing system. However, as Mick writes, the larger shops and designers are simply stuck with ID if they wish to remain compatible with customers or agencies or even other designers on the Adobe Merry-Go-Round. I'm lucky in that regard as for 99% of my ID work, CS6 is sufficient and I use Windows and MickySoft hasn't yet broken it. For the few times I need CC, it's easy/cheap enough to rent for a month.

 

There will be small shops and agencies that will make a switch to APub. Those that are in near full control of what applications are used for their clients will investigate switching. I've seen some of these make a switch from PS and AI already. Those professionals can/may make that switch to APub too.

[MickRose]

Because the price is likely to be pretty low I think it will sell very well. Some small companies will buy it with a view to using it as the main page design software. Larger ones might buy out of interest & use it sometimes (hopefully).

On a different point Serif as a company seem to be targeting the artistic market with AD rather than the bread & butter user and I hope they change this for Apub. Page design is about getting the job done quickly and without to much stress rather than creating works of art!

On the IDML topic I think its a red herring. I agree that the conversion I have seen from Quark isn't great. I've also had some IDML files not open too well in Indesign. Conversions which are thought to be 100% accurate but actually are not can be a nightmare. Serif might be better off sorting out the handling of embedded fonts when opening PDFs in AD - at least we know the PDF conversion might not be 100%.

[Wosven]

5 hours ago, MikeW said:

And that is what APub needs as well if it is to attract ID users that have need to move files to a new publishing system. However, as Mick writes, the larger shops and designers are simply stuck with ID if they wish to remain compatible with customers or agencies or even other designers on the Adobe Merry-Go-Round.

The larger shops using CS apps, that would need to upgrade computers and to pay monthly fees if they want to use CC apps, can think — the same as they did with QXPress — of switching to APub, and keep few CC subscriptions for old files they need sometimes to open or for specific works.

Instead of finding a large amount of money and/or laying people off… to switch to CC. Depending of the number of licences needed, it can be an important decision, since switching need to get a different worflow, teaching new apps, converting files…