No difference in Document-Size (linked / embedded)

[MartinHH]

Hi,

according to my understanding the file size should change depending on whether I embed or link an image.
I just tested with a very large document containing about 200 images.  I saved the document once with embedded and once with linked images. The file size is exactly the same in both cases. Is that normal?

Thanks and br

Martin

[Patrick Connor]

Yes, I think so. I understand that "linked" is (currently still) adding the files to the document (and previews too), but Affinity Publisher notices when the linked files have changed, and the embedded version does not take any notice of those changes. This behaviour is not what many will expect but has been done for architectural reasons and speed/reliability of opening.

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, Patrick Connor said:

This behaviour is not what many will expect but has been done for architectural reasons and speed/reliability of opening.

Does this mean that, being ‘by design’, the behaviour is unlikely to change?

[Patrick Connor]

I do not know if we have settled on this. Initially it was by design, but I understand that it may change (or be optional). I will let you know if I find out any more. Assume "by design" for now.

[MartinHH]

57 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

Yes, I think so. I understand that "linked" is (currently still) adding the files to the document (and previews too), but Affinity Publisher notices when the linked files have changed, and the embedded version does not take any notice of those changes. This behaviour is not what many will expect but has been done for architectural reasons and speed/reliability of opening.

Hi Patrick,

I think that this behaviour is effected by the general preferences settings: "Automatically update linked resources when modified externally". Affinity Publisher asked me to link all the images due to the document size. In my opinion this means that linked images should take up much less space in the document. But I can't confirm that at the moment.

[iaing]

Just seen this in the Designer Beta too, (though there's no mention in release notes yet of Designer gaining linked images) - I agree with Martin -  sounds to me like the intended result is smaller file size, just not working that way yet.

[Patrick Connor]

2 hours ago, iaing said:

Just seen this in the Designer Beta too, (though there's no mention in release notes yet of Designer gaining linked images) - I agree with Martin -  sounds to me like the intended result is smaller file size, just not working that way yet.

Hmmmm, quite so

[Matthias]

Patrick, I think Affinity/Serif should decide to have linked files not also embedded in the document. The convenience of automatic updates is one thing. The other thing is that it is much easier to handle Publisher files when they are not in the x-hundred-megabyte range.

I use to keep a few iterations of a given project as different files, just in case. With even the linked files embedded Affinity documents unnecessarily gobble up huge amounts of SSD space on my Mac that I had better uses for.

[randomjames]

Any updates on this issue?

[Patrick Connor]

8 minutes ago, randomjames said:

Any updates on this issue?

Affinity Publisher can link to files without a significant increase in the filesize. Currently Affinity Designer doesn't offer linked and doesn't have the resource manager that allows easy access to this.

[randomjames]

Hi Patrick,

Is there something I'm doing wrong? I'm using publisher and am linking to a number of Designer files. My Publisher file is over 400 MB in size. Is this normal? My expectation is that the Publisher file should be very small if it's simply referring to linked files. 

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, randomjames said:

Is there something I'm doing wrong? I'm using publisher and am linking to a number of Designer files. My Publisher file is over 400 MB in size. Is this normal? My expectation is that the Publisher file should be very small if it's simply referring to linked files.

The cost savings are not as great currently when linking to .afpub, .afphoto, or .afdesign files. I think there's a bug report open abut that. Or maybe there's no saving at all; I'm not sure.

But other files work fine.