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It looks the Publisher is mainly oriented towards graphic designers. I did not see any places to import XML tagged text. To replace the mostly used publisher apps I see a need to import dynamic text to create catalogs and brochures. No idea if this is planned as a future extension or option, or if the focus is as mentioned before mainly for designers.

Would be interesting to know.

Göpf

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I don't work for Affinity so I can't tell you what's planned in the future but what I can tell you is that Publisher has just been released as a beta. Things will come indue course.

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8 hours ago, Seneca said:

I don't work for Affinity so I can't tell you what's planned in the future but what I can tell you is that Publisher has just been released as a beta. Things will come indue course.

:34_rolling_eyes:

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9 hours ago, Goepf said:

It looks the Publisher is mainly oriented towards graphic designers. I did not see any places to import XML tagged text. To replace the mostly used publisher apps I see a need to import dynamic text to create catalogs and brochures. No idea if this is planned as a future extension or option, or if the focus is as mentioned before mainly for designers.

Would be interesting to know.

Göpf

Would be interesting indeed. 

+1

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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I have never had much luck with XML tagged text but I am all for including this functionality in Publisher. So that is a 

+1

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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  • 6 months later...

I'm in the same situation re: creating catalogues from text exported from a database.

In the past I've done that by adding Style Tags - XML and long before that, Quark XPress tags! The tags referred to style sheet names in Quark. I added these tags to an export table in the database. On importing into Quark, the styles were automatically applied, without me having to go through and do it manually. Bliss!

It would be great to know if Publisher could provide the same functionality, as it would greatly enhance its usefulness. What are the chances?

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58 minutes ago, BillCMartin said:

I'm in the same situation re: creating catalogues from text exported from a database.

In the past I've done that by adding Style Tags - XML and long before that, Quark XPress tags! The tags referred to style sheet names in Quark. I added these tags to an export table in the database. On importing into Quark, the styles were automatically applied, without me having to go through and do it manually. Bliss!

It would be great to know if Publisher could provide the same functionality, as it would greatly enhance its usefulness. What are the chances?

I would agree regarding tagged text. And at that, QuarkXPress-style versus InDesign's version, which is too verbose for my liking.

re QuarkXPress and XML. Quark did away with XML in QXP beginning in version 10. Because QXML is used in their server product, Quark may bring it back to the desktop product. It would be nice. I think. But I've already switched existing customers to use tagged text out of their data back-ends (with one exception for which I still use QXP v. 9  to do).

Mike

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On 9/13/2018 at 4:56 PM, Goepf said:

It looks the Publisher is mainly oriented towards graphic designers. I did not see any places to import XML tagged text.

Obviously, the later (XML handling) is more the domain of tools like FrameMaker, which always offered much stronger capabilities in this text and translation related electronic publishing regard.

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2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Obviously, the later (XML handling) is more the domain of tools like FrameMaker, which always offered much stronger capabilities in this text and translation related electronic publishing regard.

I was thinking about XML handling last night while I was working on some text styles. What about using XML to define the Paragraph and Character values in Publisher?  You export the text styles catalog as an XML file, then you could edit it in a text editor, then reimport it to update the styles in the document.  You'd be able to search and replace values in the XML to make major tweaks to the way the text is laid out.  That would also make it easy to keep a master set of text styles separate from a document.  

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2 hours ago, Michael117 said:

I was thinking about XML handling last night while I was working on some text styles. What about using XML to define the Paragraph and Character values in Publisher?  You export the text styles catalog as an XML file, then you could edit it in a text editor, then reimport it to update the styles in the document.  You'd be able to search and replace values in the XML to make major tweaks to the way the text is laid out.  That would also make it easy to keep a master set of text styles separate from a document.  

Easier said than done, we would need to know the proper tags and their allowed values to use in the XML file. Perhaps even the correct ordering of them too. There is some merit to your suggestion about keeping a master set of styles, I just doubt it would result in quicker editing of the various styles.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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5 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Easier said than done, we would need to know the proper tags and their allowed values to use in the XML file. Perhaps even the correct ordering of them too. There is some merit to your suggestion about keeping a master set of styles, I just doubt it would result in quicker editing of the various styles.

But what I was thinking is that If I export the default style list, it would be in the right structure already.  I could potentially edit that as a starter kit and copy and paste the basic structure to make as many text styles as I wanted.  And your suggestion of a master set of styles would also be a great addition.  

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A lot of things are possible with XML with proper DTD or XML schema definitions etc. here.

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Believe it or not, I'm still using legacy Macs with Framemaker 7 for basic database publishing. I need dictionary-style headers that update on the fly, i.e., the first and last entry on the page have to be copied into the headers automatically. I also need at least two, but usually 4 indices. From Wikipedia:

FrameMaker 7.0 

Released in 2002. FrameMaker 7.0 introduced combined SGML and unstructured version, XML application support introduced, Save As PDF fixed, tagged PDF support, improved running header/footer support, document info stored in XMP format. FrameMaker 7.0 was the last version to run on the Macintosh (OS 8/9), HP/UX and IBM AIX.

LaTex can do this but the learning curve is steep:

https://www.latextemplates.com/template/dictionary

 

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8 hours ago, TechWriter said:

FrameMaker 7.0 

Released in 2002. FrameMaker 7.0 introduced combined SGML and unstructured version, XML application support introduced, Save As PDF fixed, tagged PDF support, improved running header/footer support, document info stored in XMP format. FrameMaker 7.0 was the last version to run on the Macintosh (OS 8/9), HP/UX and IBM AIX.

LaTex can do this but the learning curve is steep:

https://www.latextemplates.com/template/dictionary

 

Ah, the good old days.  My first experience with FrameMaker was version 3 running on Sun IPCs. 

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Well my first contact with FrameMaker was on this platform ...

FrameMaker_next.thumb.gif.7f675c329c716f2b357559aea176beeb.gif

 

... arrows handling >25 years ago and still much better than today seen in some actual products here ...

 

NS1.thumb.gif.4a74f56b4b5520056977dd66b04f6d6a.gif

... later used FrameMaker then on Windows platforms.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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