Replacement for Adobe Design Premium CS 6

[ThePrimate]

I currently use Design Premium CS 6. I refuse Adobe's model of eternally renting its CC versions. I am looking for package that replaces my software. Does Affinity do this? Will it have an integrated package for my desktop publishing. Will it be able to read all the files I created with the Adobe Suite? I belong to InDesign Secrets. There is a group of us, about 25%, that haven't or won't upgrade to the CC versions. Is Affinity our savior?

Lou

[Gabe]

Hi @ThePrimate,

Welcome to the forums. 

At the moment, we do not have a publishing software. We are working on one, but there is no ETA as of now. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

[toltec]

24 minutes ago, GabrielM said:

Hi @ThePrimate,

Welcome to the forums. 

At the moment, we do not have a publishing software. We are working on one, but there is no ETA as of now. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

 I'm sure I saw "summer" mentioned somewhere 

At least for the beta.

[ThePrimate]

Gabe,

How can I get announcements from Affinity? I am feeling an optimism about Affinity as a place to go as Adobe retreats from my interests and money. If I move piece by piece to equivalents (Illustrator, Photoshop, and eventually InDesign) will their be a big learning curve? Same features? Updates? With your pricing, you could create enthusiastic apostles to spread your share of the market.

Lou

[toltec]

There is a news forum here

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/4-news-and-information/

 

Spotlight is a dedicated Affinity web service

https://affinityspotlight.com

you can sign up for emails

 

and it is worth looking at Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/affinitybyserif/

 

I recommend Spotlight

[Mithferion]

18 hours ago, ThePrimate said:

I currently use Design Premium CS 6. I refuse Adobe's model of eternally renting its CC versions. I am looking for package that replaces my software. Does Affinity do this? Will it have an integrated package for my desktop publishing. Will it be able to read all the files I created with the Adobe Suite? I belong to InDesign Secrets. There is a group of us, about 25%, that haven't or won't upgrade to the CC versions. Is Affinity our savior?

Lou

Just to a certain point.

• PSD. Affinity has a very good Importer for PSD files, but there isn't 100% compatibility.
• AI. Affinity can read only the PDF stream inside those files.
• INDD. No. And I wouldn't expect it, from what I gather.
• IDML. It's something the Affinity Team would like to support after the official launch of Publisher, but it's not certain when it will be available.

Best regards!

[Rocketdrive]

I was in a similar state of mind when Designer was released. A couple of years have passed since then, and I have an ongoing transition from Adobe. I can tell You that

• creating new documents in Designer is a joy
• typographic tools are fine, but not as polished as Indesigns'
• there is no text frame linking. Documents that do not exceed a couple of pages work fine, but forget books

I have ported many designs which I originally created in Indesign by opening the exported PDFs in Designer. Some things are just fine, some objects need to be fixed. I am commited and that isn't a problem for me. However there is no one click solution for porting Indesign files to Designer.

Designer does not yet utilise external file linking, instead all artwork is embedded. This always results in very large files. PDF export times are slower, while PDFs are larger. I had quite an extreme case: Indesign exported a file in under 30 seconds, and the resulting PDF was around 3MB. That was on a 2GHz MacBook Pro. The flie, rebuilt in Designer as close as possible, took about 8 Minutes to export, and the PDF is around 50 MB. On a 20 core / 40 threads Xeon workstation.

Even with those limitations I love working with Designer because it is a fast and versatile tool that fits my needs. I do hope however that linking, export size and PDF creation speed will greatly improve over time, especially when Publisher comes out. Photo is a great addition, and a cool feature is that they share the same file format. Hell, I can even open and edit Designer files created on the desktop on my iPad in Photo for iOS. I see artboards, special grids and everythig else. If You are into that kind of platform independent work, You'll like Affinity.

As always: try if the app is useable for Your specific kind of work. Spend some time watching tutorials, even before You start Your trial.

[ThePrimate]

Thanks for the details. I use InDesign CS 6 for my newsletter, three times/year. They range from 15 to 35 pages. I do a few color prints, but the majority is sent via email with pdf files. I have 34 years of issues, so compatibility is a must. I also have done 5 self published books. I have no reason to abandon CS 6, and much less reason to upgrade. However, with your response, I am hopeful that several years down the road, I can buy products from Affinity. They will replace Adobe for my upgrade path.

 

Lou