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[IDML Implemented] How can I open Indesign (indd and idml) Files in Publisher?


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7 hours ago, ashf said:

It think that may depend on how good IDMarkz is on converting indd.
if it's better than Affinity's IDML import, people would buy it.
Since Affinity's psd interoperability is kinda poor, I won't expect much to IDML import.

Yeah, what Patrick wrote...

IDML export, no matter how its done, has no "black box" control. Even if it did, it would also be available via scripting.

Besides, the bar has been raised: Viva Designer 10 can convert InDesign files directly. VD has had the best IDML import (and export) for years. And while its direct ID import hasn't reached the same quality level as its IDML routine, it is a first implementation and likely will get better.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's a bit difficult to go through all 25 pages of the thread. So my question is: As of December 4th 2019, is there is still no ETA on IDML importing?
I bought this program because I really like Affinity Designer. However on the contrary to others, not being able to open Industry standard files (indesign files) is actually a deal breaker for me.

I guess this is mostly on me, because I could've/should've done more research before buying Affinity Publisher on sale.
I just assumed that this would be possible, as it is a necessity for a lot of people. Oh well, you know what they say about assuming.

Edited by rrcplus
assuming makes an ass out of u and me
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12 hours ago, rrcplus said:

It's a bit difficult to go through all 25 pages of the thread. So my question is: As of December 4th 2019, is there is still no ETA on IDML importing?
 

You only have to go back one page and your answer is there

 

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On 11/14/2019 at 1:50 AM, Patrick Connor said:

I don’t know how many of you have noticed but beta testing of 1.8.0 is well underway on the public beta forums, and yesterday we have released a new Affinity Publisher 1.8.0 beta which includes IDML Import and Excel import.

We would really appreciate you looking at the Affinity Publisher Beta and try using it on copies of your files, whether Excel or IDML are important to you or not.

The 1.8.0 builds are in links at the top of these forum posts

From the release notes there are some IDML and Excel features that have no equivalent in Affinity Publisher yet, and so are not yet supported.

From the release notes

 

This version imports short IDML documents just fine. But when I try to import a multipage book I'm working on, of more than 400 pages, Publisher crashes. I suppose I could import sections of the book and then paste the pages in. But I won't go to the trouble until IDML support haas matured. At least they're making progress. I'm glad this app isn't sold by subscription. That would be a real waste of money. I bought it at an early adopter discount. We'll have to see if they get us again when a substantial update/upgrade arrives—you know, with full IDML support, for instance. Right now I think they're working on building market share; they've got a holiday sale going on. 

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1 hour ago, Whitedog said:

I'm glad this app isn't sold by subscription. That would be a real waste of money. 

I am very, very thankful that they stick with the old license model and stay away from subscriptions, but suggesting that the current version of Publisher a waste of money is harsh just because you can't import a 400 pages book.

Even in the current 1.7 version (without any import at all) it is a delight to work with most of the time when creating new stuff, even if there are missing features and rough edges. Publisher is the only reasonable replacement for InDesign that I've ever come across so far. And the price is very low, even reasonable for consumers and a steal for professionals. Especially if you compare to the cost of Adobe CC.

(Also, I think you're setting yourself up for a disappointment if you expect a ”full IDML support” that handles every edge case and huge projects. Not every feature from InDesign will have a perfect match in Publisher.)

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3 hours ago, Whitedog said:

This version imports short IDML documents just fine. But when I try to import a multipage book I'm working on, of more than 400 pages, Publisher crashes.

It would help if you would create a new topic in the appropriate Publisher Beta forum describing your crash. Serif might like to have a description of the problem there, and can provide a private upload link so you can give them a copy of the IDML file that caused it. That will help them fix the problem.

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3 hours ago, AdrianB said:

Publisher is the only reasonable replacement for InDesign that I've ever come across so far.

I gave up Quark Express many years ago, I'm still surprised that nobody ever, ever mentions it as an ID replacement other than the occasional "Are they still in business?"

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14 minutes ago, dcrosby said:

I gave up Quark Express many years ago, I'm still surprised that nobody ever, ever mentions it as an ID replacement other than the occasional "Are they still in business?"

I use it every day. QuarkXPress (note the spelling...) is mentioned in various articles, just not a lot. QXP also opens IDML.

AdrianB's statement you quoted is simply ill informed because there is also, in the context here of IDML, Viva Designer which both opens and writes IDML--and with version 10, can also directly open .indd files without going through IDML (but as a new features/capability) has birthing pains. Like with VD's good IDML conversion, their direct INDD support will only get better.

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19 minutes ago, MikeW said:

I use it every day. QuarkXPress (note the spelling...)

15 years ago I would have been the one correcting the spelling ;-) 

Glad it's working for you, if it wasn't for the price and bad memories I might consider using it again.

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49 minutes ago, dcrosby said:

I gave up Quark Express many years ago, I'm still surprised that nobody ever, ever mentions it as an ID replacement other than the occasional "Are they still in business?"

I've worked with Quark ages ago, but I was always an Aldus PageMaker guy and never really liked Quark. Different kind of approach (at least it was back then). 

What I meant with ”the only reasonable replacement for InDesign” is in the spirit of PageMaker och InDesign, and for my needs. I'm not trying to speak for everyone.

I was quite happy with InDesign but I did not like, and could not motivate paying for, the subscription of Adobe CC. Moving on from Photoshop and Illustrator was easier, there are other good graphic applications for Mac that meet most of my needs, but I never found an replacement for InDesign and I kept using my old CS5 version as long as I could.

Also, QuarkXPress is way more expensive than Affinity Publisher. Their licence model is better that Adobe's but the "two years of upgrades" is like ten times the price of Publisher (I'm guessing updates to the current 1.x of Affinity Publisher will be free until 2.x is released, an that will probably be at least two year after I bought 1.7). 

27 minutes ago, MikeW said:

AdrianB's statement you quoted is simply ill informed because there is also, in the context here of IDML, Viva Designer which both opens and writes IDML--and with version 10, can also directly open .indd files without going through IDML (but as a new features/capability) has birthing pains. Like with VD's good IDML conversion, their direct INDD support will only get better.

I wasn't speaking in the context of IDML import or any kind of specific handling of InDesign documents. I was talking about desktop publishing applications in general, that I felt could make me leave InDesign, and Affinity Publisher is the first for me. I really like it the same way I like InDesign, it is low friction and I can be as productive as before. 

There might be other applications out there that I've yet to discover, that's why I ended my statement with "that I've ever come across so far”.

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QuarkXpress – never ever again! I had my experiences with this company and this was enough (, although knowing, that they have a new management since some years).

Every former Quark-User will remember the so called „Superpixel“ bug, where under certain reproducible circumstances images with clipping path or placed EPS files got a badly ragged contour. This was not easy to detect, because the document preview of EPS files was very poor. You cn imagine, that this  provoked quite a lot of unnecessary expenses regarding the proof & print process.

When I talked to a high level supporter of Quark about this known(!) issue and asked, why this heavy bug wasn’t fixed until version 5 (don’t know about the later versions), he simply laughed and literally answered: „If you can promise, that we sell only one more copy of our software, we will think about fixing this issue."

That was the day, I changed to InDesign …

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7 minutes ago, dcrosby said:

Glad it's working for you, if it wasn't for the price and bad memories I might consider using it again.

I have current "bad memories" trying to use APub for even simple books.

3 minutes ago, AdrianB said:

... Also, QuarkXPress is way more expensive than Affinity Publisher. ...

Yep. It is "vastly" more expensive. One gets what they pay for and that buy-in cost isn't directly related to the software's cost.

8 minutes ago, AdrianB said:

I really like it (APub) the same way I like InDesign, it is low friction and I can be as productive as before.

Really? I'm not. I've recorded the time it takes formatting 3 books, from simple novels to more involved ones (and a few other projects) done concurrently in both Q & APub using the same source documents and it isn't even close. Still, I keep using APub to stay on top of it and suspect it will continue to get better.

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4 minutes ago, mac_heibu said:

QuarkXpress – never ever again! I had my experiences with this company and this was enough (, although knowing, that they have a new management since some years).

Every former Quark-User will remember the so called „Superpixel“ bug, where under certain reproducible circumstances images with clipping path or placed EPS files got a badly ragged contour. …

Never had the issue myself starting with version 3 forward. But I read the reports. Of the few times I got involved, opening and resaving the EPS files solved the issue.

As regards ID...you do know why Adobe goes out of its way to repeatedly tell their users to never use EPS files? (Well, there are a host of reasons.) One of those reasons has to do with clipping paths is certain EPS files. But again, it's never happened to me with ID.

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3 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Really? I'm not. I've recorded the time it takes formatting 3 books, from simple novels to more involved ones (and a few other projects) done concurrently in both Q & APub using the same source documents and it isn't even close. Still, I keep using APub to stay on top of it and suspect it will continue to get better.

Clearly, we have different needs, and that's ok. I'm not trying to convince you to use Publisher and it's still a young application. I do use it as my main app and I'm very happy with it so far, even with some glaring issues (trying to work with tables in Publisher was not fun). 

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6 minutes ago, AdrianB said:

Clearly, we have different needs, and that's ok. I'm not trying to convince you to use Publisher and it's still a young application. I do use it as my main app and I'm very happy with it so far, even with some glaring issues (trying to work with tables in Publisher was not fun). 

My needs are fairly simple. 

Tables are generally not very fun in any modern layout application. They are only marginally better in Q and ID. 

And yep, I'm not trying to convince anyone to use Q or ID. I'm mostly software agnostic and only care about using what gets a particular job done the most efficiently. Time is money and all that. 

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@MikeWRegarding EPS: Adobe considers EPS as a last millennium format. It is pure „one page postscript“ lacking all page related features and extended basically with some single page boxes. In addition, there were quite restricting limitations concerning the allowed amount of vector nodes. (Never saw the alert: „Vektor nodes out of bounds!“?)

EPS doesn‘t support a whole lot of modern requirements: no transparency, no spot colors, no color management to only name a few. To add those features, EPS was creepingly extended by proprietary features: Adobe added a tag to add (not really support) color profiles, Quark extended EPS to DCS/DCS 2 to allow spot colors – but ironically QuarkXpress wasn‘t able to read DCS. Only DCS 2 was usable in a way. If I think back, what a complex workflow was necessary to layout an image, knocked out by a clipping path AND using a spot color! Not to think of 2 spot colors! Using PDF, this Done in a twinkle of the eye.

So, Adobe decided to declare EPS as „End of Life“ and suggests, not to use it any more. But print industries are a very conservative branch of industries …

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DCS files were usable in QXP 3 and above. The main issue was people attempting to use either flavor of DCS for a composite work-flow. These people were clueless about how the format worked, especially the DCS1 type.

DCS EPS are still very useful for art separation, though I would argue that true multi-channel files are better if one is using a modern RIP.

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15 minutes ago, mac_heibu said:

@MikeW, Yes DCS was usable, but completely failed with clipping paths and spot colors due to a parsing error of Quark. DCS 2 finally works (– with all EPS inherited restrictions).

Like I wrote, I/we never faced that issue. As far as I remember, the parsing issue happened when composite printing to a non-true postscript printer, not using a reliable PS ppd and/or imaging to an outdated rip that could not composite the dcs1 separations back to a composite and instead using the low-res bitmap and/or barfing when attempting to process the clip path (too complex).

But hey, my memory is way fuzzy when it comes to 1990 details. All I really remember is that my shop had zero output issues during the twelve years I was dumb enough to have employees.

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Oh boy, those obsolete wayback layout machines O.o I just forgot all those old monolithic softwares, plugins when I stepped into that affinity studio :D

Those signsofthetime-layouts of those days got old so quick, even faster than myself. Seriously, I made many many layouts with Quark and then Indesign, but in 30 years I had  only one case to step back with indesign to an existing quark layout. We did that with a markzware-converter plugin for about 300 bucks, which wasn't perfect. My experience is that almost everything beside huge catalogues, books or periodicals (I never did such things) should be redone after some time. Because we meanwhile learned, saw, smelled, understood something, which gives us the better idea.

I appreciate the IDML import very much, because its a door-opener, a way-able bridge for switchers. And there is no need for quark conversions in my eyes, open your pdfs instead  and you're almost done. You don't have those? At this point let me say: You missed somehow someday an important part of the game. But this has nothing to do with Affinity.

With the Affinity Publisher/Studio we have such a brand new, intuitive, fast, modern and powerful software. I started to evaluate and use the suite this year, and it took me a little time to get rid of so much cs-thinking. But I was really surprised by that potential I discovered then. And it's easy to forget those old shoes. Thanks Affinity!

And let me say, this forum is the very best for design editing software on the planet. Period. This is also part of those great softwares. I'll buy shares on the first day you go public.

So back to the topic, IDML along with PDF import is sufficient to get everything you'll really need.

Affinity Suite since 1.7, now on 2.4.0 – I love it !
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5 hours ago, Marcocampo said:

With the Affinity Publisher/Studio we have such a brand new, intuitive, fast, modern and powerful software. I started to evaluate and use the suite this year, and it took me a little time to get rid of so much cs-thinking. But I was really surprised by that potential I discovered then. And it's easy to forget those old shoes. Thanks Affinity!

Well thought-out post. Some CS-thinking is good, some is just what we've gotten used to. The workflow between apps that talk to each other on Affinity's level is the most difficult yet exciting part of using the suite, I mean "range". Having a lot of fun with these apps right now. The potential is off the charts.

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13 minutes ago, dcrosby said:

Well thought-out post.

I second that. I've been working extensively in all three apps these past months preparing for a big event, discovering features and sometimes new ways to do things (like, draw a straight line in Publisher) and for the most part it has been just great, even fun actually. And these forums are invaluable whenever I hit a roadblock. 

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