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Open PagePlus (*.ppp) files


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If I am going to have to recreate all my legacy documents I will certainly not be moving on to Affinity.  Sorry.  An import program should be an essential element of the new design if you want your existing customers to upgrade.

Saving as pdf from x9 and importing chops up text into small portions and imports some as a non editable picture, especially for complex documents.

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Agree with others, I have multiple ppp's that need importing. The workaround is to get Pageplus X9 to export to pdf. Affinity publisher picks these up quite well for simple documents. Nevertheless, without the import from the previous publisher product it is an unnecessary fuss. 

Working in a group, we have people using X9 and used to it, unwilling to move to affinity, so the ability to write ppp would also be very useful. 

 

Dave Lyons

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3 hours ago, BalouM said:

I have tested the import of PDFs. That works amazingly well. There is no reason to waste too much energy on the missing function of importing PagePlus files. And I have a lot of these files too.

But hey, I currently have problems to export PDFs from Affinity Photo's new version. But not in Publisher. That works great and without errors.

It doesn't work 'amazingly well' if you have a complex document! Text boxes aren't linked and anything made up of multiple shapes has them all grouped in random ways...

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On 8/30/2018 at 5:36 PM, Patrick Connor said:

@Medwaymike

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums :) 

We do not plan to support the legacy file formats (.PPP, .DPP or .SPP) in the Affinity range, sorry. The latest versions of those programs continue to work and we would suggest you continue using them for projects you have already invested a lot of time in, and use the Affinity range for your new projects going forward, or import PDF where you want new functionality provided by the Affinity software.

What incentive would I have to even contemplate investing in Publisher just for new projects when  my files archived  from  PP3 up to PPX9 have to be converted to pdf and re-imported.

Oh and  maybe it's only a beta thing but embedded fonts in a pdf are not recognized so i can not even re-import  the work as a pdf..

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I am a long time user of Page Plus (and WebPlus for that matter).

I notice that the current Affinity Publisher for windows desktop does not offer backwards obvious compatibility with PagePlus files, why???
Are there any plans to provide a migration path from PP to AP either as an integrated import function or a stand-alone conversion utility?
I have been using PP since version 1 and I have accumulated an rich library of projects and designs in that format. I frequently reuse and cannibalize them, and would like to continue doing so. As it stands now it looks like, if I want to move to AP, I have no choice but to start from zero.
It does not make sense!
Most software companies not only offer good backwards compatibility for their line of products but also import functions that allow importing projects from competing software....
At this point in time, I see little reason to switch to AP and I would rather continue using PP instead.

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@Alexander Don-Doncow

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums :) 

I have merged your post into this longer thread in the Publisher beta suggestions forum. We are not planning on adding PagePlus file conversion, and the new Affinity range shares no common code with the legacy range, so this would be a huge undertaking.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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It is absolutely clear to me that by their actions Serif are only interested in 'professional' users and regard Windows users as 'amateurs'. This means they only target Apple users to whom they can sell both desktop applications and iOS apps.

The need to support Windows/PagePlus users would have been discussed very early on in project meetings and the supporters of a means of opening / converting ppp files clearly had their views dismissed. I guess the business logic is that when PagePlus users see how close APub is to why would they look to an inferior third party product that would be then have to learn? In addition those users have to gamble that future versions of Window support the ppp format.

Edited by beegeeblueboy
First sentence, second paragraph
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2 hours ago, Arun Sarkar said:

If I need to import a PDF into Affinity from PagePlus the I export the PDF with "Optimize for DrawPlus" profile so that PP will not embed the font. Then import in Affinity (as I have the same fonts in my all computers)

 

I think in the same way about My lovely "DrawPlus" before I start a design of 40ft x 20ft Hoarding on AD.

I often receive pdf for modification from my clients with fonts already embedded which I can import into PP if i have all the fonts.  So Publisher really needs to be able to do the same as PagePlus or it is no good to me.

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10 minutes ago, Papertigerprinting said:

I often receive pdf for modification from my clients with fonts already embedded which I can import into PP if i have all the fonts.  So Publisher really needs to be able to do the same as PagePlus or it is no good to me.

As Alfred wrote, PagePlus can make use of embedded fonts. Affinity products cannot. This is different than what Arun is writing about. 

Eventually Affinity applications may also be able to utilize embedded fonts. Maybe not. Few applications can.

This capability isn't important to me, I understand it is to you.

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On 8/30/2018 at 10:32 PM, Patrick Connor said:

@sclg

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forum :)  I have merged your post into this relevant thread with the answer to your question

@CGP & @jk1

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums :). Although PagePlus files are Serif's own format we have looked at what is involved and this is not straightforward and our limited time is unlikely to be well spent doing PagePlus "import" (which is what it would be as PagePlus and Affinity Publisher share no code whatsoever)..

your limited time is very likely to be well spent  searching for alternative jobs if you loose your loyal base of PagePlus users!  Every user  not converting is a lost sales revenue.

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My main complaint remains that my pp9 files cannot be imported but as an author of nature and scientific publications there some features that affinity needs is the ability to see the full path of images and be able to copy that path. My current publication has some 3000 images and these are selected from about 20000. The only way to make sure all the images are uploaded to the publisher is to be able to make a list of them. In PP9 I simply double click on the image and copy the full path to a Word document, it is then sorted and a list printed in folder order so all the images can be moved to a separate folder to be uploaded to the publisher. Affinity shows the file name only but even that cannot be copied.

One problem with PP9 that I have not seen any complaints about is that the spell checker has regular heart attacks and the settings have to be reset. Even this does not always fix the problem and some chapters in my current publication cannot be spell checked. At the moment there does not seem to be any ability in Affinity to use your own dictionaries. Authors in the scientific world would all have their own with thousands of scientific names and it is essential that these can be used in Affinity.

Also, no desktop publisher is worth anything if it does not have the ability to write a book as in pp9. You need to be able to create separate files as chapters and have the program combine these in a book, work out the page numbers and then create an index. I hope these features are eventually available in Affinity or I certainly will not be buying it.

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On 8/31/2018 at 11:26 AM, Sam Neil said:

Well I cannot help you with the fact you have never heard of the product. My points were aimed at those like myself who have been using Serif products in particular PagePlus. Not everyone is a major player or needs to use Adobe products to produce printed matter.

I rather meant that PP is not really used in the industry, except maybe in Britain (?)

InDesign userbase is much bigger.

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22 minutes ago, Fixx said:

I rather meant that PP is not really used in the industry, except maybe in Britain (?)

You are correct, but the email about Affinity Publisher was sent to much of our Legacy user base and so there is bound to be a disproportionately larger response to this lack of support right now than others in the industry may expect. 

Having communicated directly with many of them for nearly 20 years I think that it is completely understandable how surprised or upset some customers are about this.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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Maybe it is just because users in Britain are less impressed by over priced slow complicated  products like the majority of Adobe offerings that  there is a big user base here.  When PagePlus entered the market it was like a breath of fresh air.  I am sure given about 10 years of development Publisher  will be as good a product as PagePlus X9! 

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On ‎8‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 3:12 PM, ChrisatBRIL said:

Yes, agreed very much. Those of us who have been very loyal Serrif users (for decades!) should not be forgotten. I am really surprised that you did not think of this right from the start, especially given the similarity of design and layour of your new Publisher. It means those of us with legacy documents that might be very important will have to maintain PagePlus and the new Publisher. So please don't just put this on the backburner, but get on and implement it.

I agree, I to have many PPP files and hours of work, I know that Affinity want to be taken seriously in the MAC market as well, but I have produced many a professional document in PPx9 or earlier versions. Now being told there is no intention of adding this file extension, well, it is Serif's own software after all, so why not.  I love the legacy software and a great follower but just get the feeling we are being cast adrift. I read that PDF forms will not be included and also, at present, I cannot paste Autocad DWG. into this program, whereas, PPX9 does it straight off. Are we getting better?  One thing is very welcome is the widow, orphan tab and a more robust baseline grid. I am sure some of this stuff will be sorted. I say Serif, please think again on ppp files.

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Hi Guys,

thank you for the Beta software for this new product

As an existing Serif customer for over 21 years using PagePlus, I find it somewhat strange that the one file type that this software does not read is .ppp files.

I know it reads PDF documents, but if you have not saved customer designs as pdf, do you have to then use PagePlus open the file you want and then save it as a PDF.

Seems a bit long winded.

Regards

Tony

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@Anthony Fuller

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums :)

I have moved your post into this long thread in the suggestions forum, which is made up of many similar requests for PagePlus support.

We are not recommending Publisher as a replacement so much as a new start with all new code and features. As such, support for the legacy Plus range files has not been added, sorry to disappoint. 

 

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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4 hours ago, Whisper3 said:

I read that PDF forms will not be included and also, at present, I cannot paste Autocad DWG. into this program, whereas, PPX9 does it straight off. Are we getting better?  One thing is very welcome is the widow, orphan tab and a more robust baseline grid. I am sure some of this stuff will be sorted. I say Serif, please think again on ppp files.

So how much time and investment  would it take to give PPX9  the baseline grid and widow / orphan  tab and do an update to PPXX.  Take advanced orders at say £100 a pop and pre-fund it Kickstarter style.  If not enough take up from us PP users then  we don't deserve an update!

Sell a slightly poorer version (no pdf forms  omg) to Mac  users and spend a little time and money on the people who have kept you business afloat for the past 20 years!   If you do not have any loyalty  to us  then  at least make it open source.  

 

 

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Hi all. I also have used PP since its early days. I understand Serif's difficulty in importing PP into AFP, but I would like to ask, have Serif any plans on a PP bulk Convertor to PDF, this would help with the extensive PP docs we have. Or is there a bulk converter out there that would fit the bill, I would consider this, but would prefere it to come from Serif.

Regards

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