PSD text not editable, "Bad text data"

[borislav]

Hi,

I am evaluating Affinity Photo 1.6.5.135 on Windows 10 as a replacement for Photoshop and the first thing I wanted to try is how it handles importing PSD files.

I have some PSD files created in Photoshop 7 (I believe), but it imports text as "Pixel" instead of text. I've tried to turn on the "Import PSD text as text rather than bitmap" option, but when opening the file I get the message "Bad text data" for each of the text layers. The rest of the layers look exactly as they did in Photoshop, which is awesome.

I've  attached one of those file as an example. It has a single text layer.

I know PSD format is purely documented, but I would be very happy if it was somehow possible to import as editable text in Affinity and then save as affinity's default format. I don't care about saving back to PSD.

Thanks,

Borislav

sometext2.psd

[Alfred]

4 hours ago, borislav said:

I get the message "Bad text data"

I get the same thing in both Affinity Publisher beta and Affinity Designer. Curiously, when I close the file after opening it in APub beta I get a warning that it has been changed (and asking if I want to save it before closing) but I get no such warning in either APh or AD.

When I open the file in Photoshop Elements 13, it offers to "update" the text layers:

If I decline the offer, attempting to edit the text results in the following warning:

[PaulEC]

I have the same problem trying to import files including text, that were made in PS7. I'm pretty sure that Adobe changed the way text is handled in later versions of PS. So I assume that Affinity can only import PSD text produced in the newer versions of PS.

This basically means that I can't replace PS with AP at work, because we have so many PS7 files with text that needs to be regularly updated. (I still us it at home though!)

[borislav]

Just to share a new finding with developers.

I've tried an open source (turned out it's not open source, just had a GitHub account for issues) editor called Photopea, it manages to open the PSD file, but replaces the font with another one. I understand that, as being browser based, it does not have access to my system fonts.

This app initially shows the text layer rasterized to keep it identical to the original, but allows you to edit the text by clicking on it, which saves the retyping and even keeps the original text colour.

A similar feature could be very useful in Affinity. When a bad text layer is clicked, ask the user if he wants to recover what is possible, keeping text, colour or font (ideally all).

Update: Actually after preloading the font in Photopea (File->Open->Font) it opens and edits the PSD file exactly as it did in Photoshop 7.0. It even handles alignment and text wrapping. I really hope this "Bad text data" error in Affinity is fixable.

[Sean P]

Thanks for the file borislav, I've passed this on to development.