AffinityPublisher (Beta) for important projects?

[Alibre Design 1]

Hello together

Can I already use AffinityPublisher 1.7.0.227 (Beta) for important projects?

We're writing a new book and we need to be sure that the data will be transferred cleanly in future AffinityPublisher beta versions.

Can anyone confirm this?

Thank you in advance for a statement from Serif (Europe) Ltd.

Best regards
André

[A_B_C 1,623]

Hi there,

and welcome here … 

Without the intention to anticipate an “official” answer, I doubt the Serif staff will tell you anything different from what is said, and quite clearly so, at the beginning of each new Beta thread. Quote:

Quote

As this is a beta it is considered to be not suitable for production use. This means that you should not attempt to use it for commercial purposes or for any other activity where you may be adversely affected by the application failing, including the total loss of any documents. 

I am sure you read the “total loss of any documents” bit … personally, I would believe what they are saying here … 

Alex

[Seneca 229]

3 hours ago, Alibre Design said:

Can I already use AffinityPublisher 1.7.0.227 (Beta) for important projects?

You need be be careful. You need to pick your fights.

A lot of people have used Publisher for "important projects" without any problem but those who did so also accepted potential loss of information.

In the end you know best whether a given project is worth the risk and whether you can recreate it using another tool if need be, time permitting.

[PaulEC 51]

If you do decide to use Publisher for any important work, I would suggest always keeping a PDF version as a "backup" in case you need to try to recover it in another application. (Might not be perfect, but better than nothing!)

[dominik 340]

3 hours ago, Alibre Design said:

We're writing a new book and we need to be sure that the data will be transferred cleanly in future AffinityPublisher beta versions.

I concur with the other forumsters above but I want to add another thought. If you were doing a flyer or anything other that has only a short time of use you certainly can accomplish a good layout already.

But in the case of a book that needs to be preserved and edited over a longer period of time I would hesitate to do this with the current beta. It is just too risky that you are loosing some of your work. Not because of missing capabilities of APub, but because of the unfinished state of the software.

Just my 2cent.
d.

[walt.farrell 793]

5 minutes ago, dominik said:

It is just too risky that you are loosing some of your work.

We have already seen situations where a file created in one of the beta releases would not open in a later beta release. While Serif undoubtedly tries to prevent that situation, and might be able to help with recovery, I wouldn't risk it for a long-term project.

[Alibre Design 1]

Hello everyone!

Thank you very much for the information.
We will leave it at that and continue with Serif PagePlus 9.

Does anyone have any information when Affinity Publisher is out of beta?

Best regards
André

[v_kyr 854]

When it is ready for an initial release, meaning no obvious bugs with initial features, no UI glitches, all localization is done right ... and so on.

[Alibre Design 1]

@v_kyr: Thanks for your info. My question was rather to find out an approximate date...

[VolkerMB 17]

Sorry, that you won't get. Neither by Serif nor anyone else here in the forum. Bugs - and APub still has plenty of them - tend to appear always at the most inconvenient time... (= two days before the intended launch date). Therefore Serfi has chosen the best strategy: to keep quiet about that. I know, that does not help... But with PagePlus X9 already installed you have a capable fall-back at hand.

[allen57301 5]

The best way is to export your projects to PDF. In any case you'd able to open it in future versions. 

I tried out to work with APublisher without any loss. It work great! Yees.

PDF can be opened with ADesigner, Photos or Page Plus X9, thus your work  will be not lost forever.

On my side I use APublisher everyday to crerat covers of books and flyers. never encountered a crash!!! 

[A_B_C 1,623]

But … and please don’t forget this when creating a book … all text flow between text frames will be cut when re-opening a file from PDF. 

[allen57301 5]

1 hour ago, A_B_C said:

But … and please don’t forget this when creating a book … all text flow between text frames will be cut when re-opening a file from PDF. 

Yes... it's a huge limitation in this case! Page Plus X9 isn't better on that! or any tools.

For a customer I needed to open a file he created with LibreOffice to make the layout of his book. He needed to remove some folios on blank pages and few light adjustments here and there. With APublisher I could do the job without difficulties. Even better than using Acrobat Pro!

Of course, in this very case text flow was ineffective but all blocs were intact at the right place, texts with font and illustrations as well.

APublisher can be a comprehensive tool for layout designer and printer!

So, we need a lot of functions AP lacks right now. But, don't forget: it's only a beta!!!! Even better than the very first Indesign versions (1, 1.5 and 2)!