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

[Franky Drappier]

33 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

It is amazing for multi page documents, too. But you can't expect text styles to be preserved, because Adobe doesn't allow that. Or, better said, they are not preserved during the conversion.

Exact, Petar. I just select the text in the converted pdf document and save it as a new paragraph style or Chacter style and build from there. I'm sure you do the same.

In this Beta version I'm missing (or haven't figured out how to): use tabs (cfr to indesign), how to name color swatches and hyphenations in Dutch. I'd also like the color picker to have the same feature as in indesign where it can pick and release the characteristics of texts or graphical elements (I use that a lot). I think I'd find it useful to have some sort of 'packaging' system, not so much for the exchange of files but because I like to group source material together in my archive. The package option is a great tool for that.

It is however an amazing and very promising piece of software, don't you think?

Regards.

[Patrick Connor]

@Marco Taietta

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums

You are welcome to ignore the free beta come back to use a trial when this feature is eventually added, but why not just try it now as if you were making a new document to see if it is going to suit your needs once it can load your InDesign files.

[nwhit]

On 9/12/2018 at 11:58 AM, dannyg9 said:

... happy to say that selecting all and copying from an ID CS5 file and pasting into new Publisher file works quite well. All formatting intact, including the feathering of the background image. Importing a PDF works about the same. So far just experimenting with single pages.

As for transitioning, just do it. In the Beta there's ways and means to pull in InDesign files via Copy and Paste or placing a PDF of said InDesign file. Of course larger documents will take a bit of effort and cleanup. Move forward. Don't stay stuck in the Adobe rut. They don't care about you and if you think they do, have I got a bridge for you.

Sadly, the ability to copy/paste from ID files apparently no longer works after the last beta (58) and newest (128) updates. Now get all text as singles lines of text and not the ID text blocks. Same happens when using Place with a PDF. Can't even select a single ID text block and copy/paste. End up with multiple lines of text as a "group" but not functioning as a text frame (block).

Opening a PDF does keep most text blocks intact, although it also ties multiple blocks together that don't belong together. I hope they get this fixed since we can't really proceed with much testing since everything we do is related to past ID docs needing updating or serving as a template, etc. 

Running Sierra on iMac.

[Patrick Connor]

4 minutes ago, nwhit said:

Sadly, the ability to copy/paste from ID files apparently no longer works after the last beta (58) and newest (128) updates

I am not aware that this code has been changed. If you are sure this is true of the same ID file coming into #58 and #128 please can you make a new thread in the Affinity Publisher bugs forum and attach a file that shows this regression (tell us which part you copied and what version of ID you are using to do the copy). Thanks

[Rocketdrive]

On 8/30/2018 at 5:35 PM, pinky said:

Well that is just not good enough then, with no way to open commercial templates and Affinity not having their own for Publisher I think I'll pass to purchase the final version if it ever comes out. Good luck forcing people to work without templates.

Even if it's hard to believe: You can make Your own designs or templates. Those possibly having the advantage of not looking like the stuff that everyone else has.

[lettergothic]

On 9/4/2018 at 5:38 AM, Whitedog said:

If you can export it to PDF, most printers can handle that just fine. Indeed, the ones I know prefer PDF—assuming you've proofed it properly. On the other hand, if you want the printer to be able to make adjustments, a native InDesign document is preferable.

All of my printers strongly prefer to receive PDF files. For a long time now, I haven't sent native QXP, InDes or Ai files to print. Also, while I don't know the name of the application, all of my printers—going back years—have told me that they have software that they use to open PDF files and make whatever changes, repairs or adjustments are necessary. So, good news! 

That said, I use QXP almost exclusively for multi-page stuff and I would really like a seamless, format-retaining way to import linked, multi-paged QXP 17 files into AfP. Then I'll export AfP as a PDF for print. 

lettergothic

[Whitedog]

3 hours ago, lettergothic said:

All of my printers strongly prefer to receive PDF files. For a long time now, I haven't sent native QXP, InDes or Ai files to print. Also, while I don't know the name of the application, all of my printers—going back years—have told me that they have software that they use to open PDF files and make whatever changes, repairs or adjustments are necessary. So, good news! 

That said, I use QXP almost exclusively for multi-page stuff and I would really like a seamless, format-retaining way to import linked, multi-paged QXP 17 files into AfP. Then I'll export AfP as a PDF for print. 

lettergothic

That would be Adobe Acrobat. I never got the hang of it, but no doubt service bureaus have worked it out.

[Hokusai]

1 hour ago, Whitedog said:

That would be Adobe Acrobat. I never got the hang of it, but no doubt service bureaus have worked it out.

It wouldn't always be Acrobat, many, if not most, printers and service bureaus use software like PitStop or others that have give you more control over what you can change and edit with PDF files. 

[Marco Taietta]

@Patrick Connor

Quiet Patrick...I think to try Affinity Publisher also because I'm tired of the hegemony of Adobe. Only that the possibility of working from old Indesgn documents, I believe that in the final version is indispensable...

[Simon K]

On 9/17/2018 at 11:54 PM, nwhit said:

Sadly, the ability to copy/paste from ID files apparently no longer works after the last beta (58) and newest (128) updates. Now get all text as singles lines of text and not the ID text blocks. Same happens when using Place with a PDF. Can't even select a single ID text block and copy/paste. End up with multiple lines of text as a "group" but not functioning as a text frame (block).

...

Running Sierra on iMac.

I haven't had a chance to try this in the latest beta, but I have seen both these effects in the previous beta. If you highlight a text box in ID and copy and paste it into AP, then it sets all the text as single line blocks. If, however, you use Text mode in ID and highlight all the text in a story and copy and paste that into a text block in AP, then it comes across as a single block of text with all the styles copied over too. Might this be what you are seeing?

[Franky Drappier]

On 9/18/2018 at 1:01 AM, Patrick Connor said:

I am not aware that this code has been changed. If you are sure this is true of the same ID file coming into #58 and #128 please can you make a new thread in the Affinity Publisher bugs forum and attach a file that shows this regression (tell us which part you copied and what version of ID you are using to do the copy). Thanks

I tried it a moment ago out of a CS 4 document on Apple iMac (Sierra) - it copied everything correctly however it did split the body text up into separate textframes for each line.

Hope this info is of use.

Question: is there an easy way to change the hyphenation to Dutch? (I think I've read here and there that people use some Libreoffice file to enable this?) If not, I'll patiently wait untill it becomes standard.

Love the software so far! Love the fast pace with which improved Beta versions are coming out. Thumbs up!

[SillyWalk]

6 minutes ago, Franky Drappier said:

I tried it a moment ago out of a CS 4 document on Apple iMac (Sierra) - it copied everything correctly however it did split the body text up into separate textframes for each line.

Hope this info is of use.

Question: is there an easy way to change the hyphenation to Dutch? (I think I've read here and there that people use some Libreoffice file to enable this?) If not, I'll patiently wait untill it becomes standard.

Love the software so far! Love the fast pace with which improved Beta versions are coming out. Thumbs up!

Hyphenation (Czech) on Mac works for me this way. 

 

 

[SillyWalk]

8 minutes ago, Franky Drappier said:

I tried it a moment ago out of a CS 4 document on Apple iMac (Sierra) - it copied everything correctly however it did split the body text up into separate textframes for each line.

Hope this info is of use.

Question: is there an easy way to change the hyphenation to Dutch? (I think I've read here and there that people use some Libreoffice file to enable this?) If not, I'll patiently wait untill it becomes standard.

Love the software so far! Love the fast pace with which improved Beta versions are coming out. Thumbs up!

 

[Petar Petrenko]

3 hours ago, Simon K said:

I haven't had a chance to try this in the latest beta, but I have seen both these effects in the previous beta. If you highlight a text box in ID and copy and paste it into AP, then it sets all the text as single line blocks. If, however, you use Text mode in ID and highlight all the text in a story and copy and paste that into a text block in AP, then it comes across as a single block of text with all the styles copied over too. Might this be what you are seeing?

Heeey, it works great. The only problem so far are pictures (not imported with copy/paste) and footnotes. Styles are OK.

[nwhit]

4 hours ago, Franky Drappier said:

I tried it a moment ago out of a CS 4 document on Apple iMac (Sierra) - it copied everything correctly however it did split the body text up into separate textframes for each line.

Hope this info is of use.

 

Thanks for both of you confirming that you are getting the same thing — text blocks from ID pasted in as separate lines of text. 

I could have sworn that in the first beta I had successfully copied entire pages from an ID file and pasted into APub with text blocks intact, but perhaps my drugs were improperly adjusted. 

Hopefully this gets fixed since it appears to be the easiest way to get existing smaller ID files into APub. All of our company's work involves using a client's past work as the basis for any new items, so right now having to start from scratch on any new item wouldn't be approved by the clients since it would simply cost way too much in time charges.

Is there anyone who actually has been able to copy ID text blocks and paste into APub intact? While the two posts about seeing the same thing I'm now seeing reassures me that my version isn't "broken", I just wonder if I was hallucinating back when I tried it with a few different ID files. 

Thanks.

[Franky Drappier]

50 minutes ago, nwhit said:

Thanks for both of you confirming that you are getting the same thing — text blocks from ID pasted in as separate lines of text. 

I could have sworn that in the first beta I had successfully copied entire pages from an ID file and pasted into APub with text blocks intact, but perhaps my drugs were improperly adjusted. 

Hopefully this gets fixed since it appears to be the easiest way to get existing smaller ID files into APub. All of our company's work involves using a client's past work as the basis for any new items, so right now having to start from scratch on any new item wouldn't be approved by the clients since it would simply cost way too much in time charges.

Is there anyone who actually has been able to copy ID text blocks and paste into APub intact? While the two posts about seeing the same thing I'm now seeing reassures me that my version isn't "broken", I just wonder if I was hallucinating back when I tried it with a few different ID files. 

Thanks.

I've opened a pdf of an old ad just now and here the textblocks remained unchanged (so not separated per line). I could easily copy the elements into a new document, get in and update the lay-ourt and pictures. So for now I only had it when I copied straight from indesign to publisher. To go via pdf seems to be the preferred way.

[nwhit]

15 minutes ago, Franky Drappier said:

I've opened a pdf of an old ad just now and here the textblocks remained unchanged (so not separated per line). I could easily copy the elements into a new document, get in and update the lay-ourt and pictures. So for now I only had it when I copied straight from indesign to publisher. To go via pdf seems to be the preferred way.

Yes, that has worked somewhat for us. However, on several documents text blocks in the Opened pdf are connected across a page — unrelated text blocks. But many of the text blocks do stay together fairly well. On anything more than a 2-page pub, would take a bit of work to clean up and create/correct all the text blocks, but better than nothing at the moment. Just be glad when they can at least get copy/paste to work, much less importing an ID file. 

We also just dead-ended on trying it for a job today where we could have Opened a previous ID pdf and worked with it, but the end product (PDF) required hyperlinks, which don't work yet. So much of what we do nowadays is to create our "print" projects as pdf's that can be electronically delivered, but they have to have hyperlinks back to the client's website embedded. 

[WoodchipWilbur]

... to add a rather belated "me too" to this fairly elderly thread.   Like many, I have a large collection of .indd using my increasingly elderly v6 software.  Opening these will be crucial for a successful migration to Affinity.  Export, for me, is less important but I am only among the bottom-feeders in this pond.  It's clearly a lot of work to implement, but it's also rather crucial that that work can be done asap.

[Anjo]

and EXPORT or SAVE AS too.

as Affinity PHOTO can open/save PSD proprietary files and that is why became so popular , PUBLISHER must have the same option.

I want to use it but my press center require the indd file to press my book. so how can I do?

THANKS

[Fixx]

1 hour ago, Anjo said:

press center require the indd file to press my book. so how can I do?

PDF should be good enough for them.

[Whitedog]

7 minutes ago, Fixx said:

PDF should be good enough for them.

I would say may rather then should.

[Anjo]

43 minutes ago, Whitedog said:

I would say may rather then should.

I know!!! I am thinking the same but not! i print (press center) is in india!!! 

[Tom Schülke]

On 9/2/2018 at 10:08 AM, Fixx said:

You are too dramatic. Just use the software, that is migration enough. Ability to open InDy files is just a bonus when it comes.

No not at all..   This is only true for smal companys and people who work alone..     my company , 500 architects are dependent on interdiscoplinary workflows, that for example include green Planing...     they just send their indesign document to the greenplaner who puts in what is missing from his side, and the file comes back...

without the possibility of exchanging with external people, affinity PHoto will cost us more workingpower maybe as we spare from switching away from adobe.

so im and export of indesign formats ore idlm formats is a killerfeature for all people who have to work with others together.. 

[Peter Jackson]

On 8/30/2018 at 2:39 PM, Chris_K said:

@Gabe Logan

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums

It's not possible yet, plans to be able to in the future

This is a critical prerequisite !

[MikeW]

4 minutes ago, Tom Schülke said:

...without the possibility of exchanging with external people, affinity PHoto will cost us more workingpower maybe as we spare from switching away from adob... 

IDML export from a non-ID source is not and never will be a good work-flow. IDML export back and forth between different versions of ID is not typically a good work-flow either.

If you need to work with contractors outside of a controlled environment—i.e., outside your own company that makes a switch from ID to anything else—either y'all must remain ID users or they too need to switch to whatever your company uses for your jobs.

I am a contractor. Which is why I have 4 different layout applications installed (aside from APub). I absolutely need to use what my clients are using if there is any hope of not causing downstream problems.

Mike