Tables across more pages

[grapher]

1 hour ago, NNN said:

Just an overview of InDesign features since version 1. You can see if they had implemented all the features in v.1 that we use today or it was a long journey:

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://creativepro.com/downloads/A_Brief_History_of_InDesign.pdf

well its not 1999 and its not that exactly same - Serif had its own program for DTP was called PagePlus from 1990 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PagePlus oh yea, it was nearly 30y of development. - and it was officialy REPLACED by affinity publisher. So nice PDF but ... well... no. Not exactly a NEW product built from scratch.

 

 

[Petar Petrenko]

10 minutes ago, grapher said:

well its not 1999 and its not that exactly same - Serif had its own program for DTP was called PagePlus from 1990

PagePlus is history and Publisher is a brand new product. It has nothing in common with PagePlus except the company.

[PaulEC]

13 minutes ago, grapher said:

Not exactly a NEW product built from scratch.

Actually that's exactly what it is! Affinity Publisher was "built from the ground up". It did replace PagePlus, (in the sense that they are both DTP apps from Serif) but is a completely different piece of software. (Having said that, I do agree that it's about time APub supported spanning tables across multiple pages!)

[grapher]

i know its "new product" but if you have 30y of dev in DTP publishing software, you have a LOT of experience and code to make new product properly.
This a bit controversal post of mine was just because NNN wrote about indesign 1.0  I just wanted to say, that history in development matters.
If they make now some "next gen DTP publishing software" "made from ground up" - i still think that those 32y of dev will be seen from day one of the release.

[Petar Petrenko]

8 minutes ago, grapher said:

i know its "new product" but if you have 30y of dev in DTP publishing software, you have a LOT of experience and code to make new product properly.

Experience without enough time to do it is nothing. Publisher is 2-3 years among us and you want to have everything that InDesign or Quark... have today. We, also, have to bear in mind that Affinity team is not as big as Adobe. They had experience of making PageMaker behind them and yet, they couldn't be number one with InDesign v.1.

[PaoloT]

15 minutes ago, grapher said:

i know its "new product" but if you have 30y of dev in DTP publishing software, you have a LOT of experience and code to make new product properly.

Adobe had fourteen years of experience with PageMaker, yet when building InDesign they came out with a software that was inferior in features to both PageMaker and the ruling competing product, QuarkXPress. That's how it works, in software development and other things: having done something before doesn't mean your experience magically materializes as done work.

Paolo

 

[PaoloT]

1 hour ago, grapher said:

well Paolo, then you r happy customer. But that doesnt mean that all companies have the same needs - we have many products in portfolio and in marketing materials, and each contain table with parameters... so many tables.

Most of my main job is made of documents with multi-page tables. And my secondary one of footnotes and endnotes, go figure. I do it with suitable tools. I don't feel any need to call Serif developers stupid because they don't offer me tools there aren't in their software. I don't even feel compelled to use something that can't do what I need, just because I would like it did it.

Paolo

 

[grapher]

argumenting with 14 years of deving dos/mcintosh/windows 2.0 app is a bit off, dont you think?
 

 

[grapher]

Im calling stupid the fact, that this feature isnt in 2022 DTP publishing software. Thats miles away from calling devs stupid.

[PaoloT]

4 minutes ago, grapher said:

argumenting with 14 years of deving dos/mcintosh/windows 2.0 app is a bit off, dont you think?

If you are alluding to my reference to PageMaker, it was a Mac and Windows program. Adobe had to rewrite InDesign from scratch because old software not always meet today's expectations. It's the same with PagePlus versus Publisher: the first one was never conceived to run on the Mac, go figure on an iPad. I don't see much to reuse.

Paolo

 

[Petar Petrenko]

6 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

...old software not always meet today's expectations.

Yes, there are new development tools, new hardware, OS are not the same...

[AdiJu]

Hi!

I've never used QXP. But I've used Page Maker and InDesign (CS2 was powerful enough to provide everything I needed at that time, but now it is very old and I can run it only on a virtual machine) and for more than a year I use AP. I have paid for it! But I am half happy...

Unfortunately, two basic but very important things still misses: table across multiple pages and footnote/endnote management (and this two are crucial in DTP!)...

Six months since the last update... Maybe with the next update? Hope, at least one of them...

Until then, what was the name of the open source DTP software?

[MikeW]

On 7/19/2022 at 8:48 AM, PaoloT said:

If you are alluding to my reference to PageMaker, it was a Mac and Windows program. Adobe had to rewrite InDesign from scratch because old software not always meet today's expectations. ...

Adobe purchased Aldus, the then owner of Pagemaker. Aldus had begun making a new DTP application at the time of Adobe's purchase that became InDesign 6 or thereabouts later.

[MikeW]

2 hours ago, AdiJu said:

... Until then, what was the name of the open source DTP software?

Scribus.

[PaoloT]

13 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Adobe purchased Aldus, the then owner of Pagemaker. Aldus had begun making a new DTP application at the time of Adobe's purchase that became InDesign 6 or thereabouts later.

InDesign was new code. Either started when the team was still in Aldus, or then acquired by Adobe, InDesign has no roots in PageMaker.

Paolo

 

[MikeW]

49 minutes ago, PaoloT said:

...  InDesign has no roots in PageMaker.

True enough. Never said it did. 

But if we want to get picky, Adobe followed Aldus' plans: develop ID to surpass Pagemaker's and QXP's capabilities, not releasing it until then, all the while keeping PM afloat until that time.

Which was definitely a different plan than Serif's plan when it came to PagePlus versus APub. Adobe also was able to provide a means to open PM files in ID for several major versions of ID...again, a different plan than Serif's. Serif shot themselves in the foot in that regard. 

[grapher]

So years in development, version 2 and STILL no multipage tables? Really?

[grapher]

Or im missing something?

[walt.farrell]

18 minutes ago, grapher said:

Or im missing something?

Multi-page tables have not been implemented yet. 

[grapher]

<-------  sad monkey... At least designer have now non destructive box warp tool - thats last thing i was waiting for to completely switch.

[Glinkot]

Yeah, I have to say, I scrolled down the 'whats new' page and couldn't believe there were no multipage tables.  How many catalogs, scientific documents, tech specs etc need this?  It makes me sad, but with no sign of this after waiting years for v2, I'm not inclined to upgrade.  Some of the 'nice to have' items they've done without ticking this off - the prioritisation seems really off.

[Giovanni Pietri]

🔍I was looking for the same thing, multipage tables and also tables nested in other tables, etc, thank goodness that for the moment there are few annoying tables that I have to work with...

 

Serif, when will the tables requested by the users be ready? are they at least in the planning stage?

[PaulEC]

I agree. It was rather disappointing that multi page tables have not been added. They have been requested by a number of people for quite a while!

[Gregor Agnes]

Started using Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer and was very suprised at the rich featurs and funcions. Loving to use them.

But when testing Affinity Publisher and learning that it is not possible to stretch ab table across multiple pages I was very disappointed. This is a needed feature for most professionals and the workarounds that exist are no workarounds but alternative solutions that do not do the job in every days work.

Can't us it till this is fixed.

@Chris_K Are there any plans to fix this?

[piovasco]

On 10/27/2018 at 12:45 PM, grapher said:

"Serif - Professional creative software". Its statement on their pages. Its not fun free project. I must insist on what i said. At this stage its not suitable for professional work. (i mean, by the functions , not because it may fall / die / delete your data). To me its like betatesting car with square wheels. You CAN move forward. Yes.  You can make rich publication, but when you change two sentences in the beginning, you have to manually move all the images, elements, tables etc. Fun in 50 pages publication with more than 100 images, icons. But, yes, you can.

Another thing is, where i just simply dont understand it, Serif have long term development of other DTP products, like pagePlus. How its even possible they release (even to "beta") such incomplete version? When they know, how people work with their products?

If you will start telling me that they may add the features... I asked about inserting objects into text, anchoring. Answer was - not in distant future, not in version 1.7 Too complicated. If this is true, serif didnt change their mind, and i didnt understood it wrong, than we have months, maybe year+ of development till first usable version for professional use. (.1 version in designer is 1y+ as far i follow the builds)

I dont think that im insulting the dev team. Im very impressed by their work. They work hard. Im still thinking, that this project is needed as salt.
Still, if there are not such basic things , its maybe alpha testing. really not beta testing of software for professional use.

 

 

 

I agree. That's a must have for professionals.