Where can I get a manual for Publisher?

[World View]

I know about the tutorials. The problem is, that they do not show how the software works.

The first, for example, creating a new document. 

He opens a print document. I don't want to print. How do I create a digital magazine?

No answers.

Also: during the demo, the demonstrator swishes his cursor around fast . He clicks first and then says what he's doing. It would be better to tell me first what he's going to do, and THEN click on the button in order to give eyes a chance to see where it is happening AFTER you know what will happen. Otherwise you'd have to always roll back the recording.

For a beginner, those tutorials have very little value. If you know about Adobe InDesign, it might be OK.

So my tip is: if you want to get new customers, show them how your software works. 

Imagine someone wanted to learn Photoshop and there was no book, just a few tutorials. Absolutely impossible.

So, if I'm a desktop publishing newbie, how can I learn how to use your software? Where is the manual?

Edited April 18, 2019 by World View

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, World View said:

So, if I'm a desktop publishing newbie, how can I learn how to use your software? Where is the manual?

There will be better video tutorials when the product is available for sale. Perhaps they will help you. The tutorials for the other Affinity products have proven very helpful to me.

There is the built-in Help information, which is the closest thing that exists to a manual for any of the Affinity products.

Question: what do you mean by "digital magazine". To me, that term does not seem well-defined.

As long as you mean "a PDF file that you let someone download from your website" then yes, you can do that with Publisher. If you mean something else, involving generating HTML and CSS and building a website, then no, you can't do that with Publisher.

It is, fundamentally at this point, a tool for creating something that looks like a traditional book or magazine.

[World View]

Yes, I meant a pdf - that a client or potential client can access via a link.

I'm not trying to build a website.

 

I just want to create a readable design where I can publish articles and images and maybe the link to a podcast or a film I made.

Edited April 18, 2019 by World View

[walt.farrell]

Good. Then, simply ignore the fact that a tutorial talks about creating something to print, because it's simple enough to create a PDF instead, and focus on the techniques that are common to build what you need.

Note, though, that the current beta release has many functions not described in the Tutorials. For those, you read the Help, or you experiment, or you ask questions here. Again, they will have more (and better) tutorials when Publisher is available for purchase.

Someday there will probably also be a Workbook for sale, as they have provided for Photo and Designer. But like the other Workbooks, it probably won't be a true manual, but a guided exploration of some specific projects that will help provide education on using the application.

[Kimbo]

I have to say I would love to see a pdf manual available for publisher, but as this is still in beta, I imagine they have other things to do.

I came across this tutorial on you tube and found it extremely helpful, not sure if we are allowed to post those links here, but feel sharing is a good thing. I feel it may have a lot of the information you are looking for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDfq4zOmmKk

 

[walt.farrell]

It is unlikely they'll produce a PDF manual. They have had several years to do that for Photo and Designer and haven't done so. They haven't even produced a PDF of the Help contents, though several users have done so and Serif doesn't seem to have objected.

[larsh]

Hi, I don´t understand your problem. Afpub is most self explaining. Create first one Master pages, later some more, you will find the way. Click to make frames, one for pictures, one for text. Write something and see what type... I think you know that all. The PDF is done by export (may be there is a problem with 72 dpi, change bilinear to lanczos 3 in MORE). And then you see some real problems by working and find aswers here... lars

[World View]

7 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Good. Then, simply ignore the fact that a tutorial talks about creating something to print, because it's simple enough to create a PDF instead, and focus on the techniques that are common to build what you need.

Note, though, that the current beta release has many functions not described in the Tutorials. For those, you read the Help, or you experiment, or you ask questions here. Again, they will have more (and better) tutorials when Publisher is available for purchase.

Someday there will probably also be a Workbook for sale, as they have provided for Photo and Designer. But like the other Workbooks, it probably won't be a true manual, but a guided exploration of some specific projects that will help provide education on using the application.

How do I create a pdf? My only options were print/cmyk, devices, and photo, and I picked photo.

[World View]

6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

It is unlikely they'll produce a PDF manual. They have had several years to do that for Photo and Designer and haven't done so. They haven't even produced a PDF of the Help contents, though several users have done so and Serif doesn't seem to have objected.

Where can I get such a pdf of the help documents? Do you know a user who has one?

[Kimbo]

When you create a document, and save it (file / save), it will save in the native affinity publisher format of .afpub. When you export a document (file / export) you will have options as to what format you want to export it in including pdf. So create a document, add your content, export a document in a format that meets your needs.

If you go to open new document and you select the different presets, such as print, devices, web etc, you will see that the settings such as dpi and document size change, this is providing you with a basic setup to work with, which is very handy for those of us who aren't experienced with this stuff. It provides a starting point but you can set it up however you personally want it.

Edited April 19, 2019 by Kimbo
add more info

[larsh]

May be this helps to start...

 

start.afpub

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, World View said:

How do I create a pdf? My only options were print/cmyk, devices, and photo, and I picked photo.

Pick one of the Print options. One will default to RGB, the other to CMYK. Probably you want RGB.

Do all your work. Then use the menu File > Export and export as a PDF.

[Fairportfan]

On 4/18/2019 at 7:31 PM, walt.farrell said:

It is unlikely they'll produce a PDF manual. They have had several years to do that for Photo and Designer and haven't done so.

As a long-time Serif PublishIt user {i think i started about Version 5}, used to the sort of documentation Serif used to provide, this is very disappointing to me.

Does anyone have any idea why they do not provide manuals?

[fde101]

19 hours ago, Fairportfan said:

PublishIt

I don't think that was ever a Serif product?  The link you gave is to a PDF of a PagePlus manual...

 

Does anyone have any idea why they do not provide manuals?

Many, many companies in today's world of digital distribution have stopped doing that.

 

 

[Fairportfan]

2 hours ago, fde101 said:

I don't think that was ever a Serif product?  The link you gave is to a PDF of a PagePlus manual...

Yeah - it was the DTP i used before PP {on an Apple IIgs} - i think my first PagePlus version was about ver 5 - and i had a senior moment there while i was typing.

Oddly enough - before i bought PP5, i had another DTP that i got from a cut-rate software publisher for $5 ... and it was identical to Page Plus.

[muggy]

Why can't I import PagePlus files? I've got many documents created by PagePlus.
I can only do it  by creating a pdf file in PagePlus, exporting it and then ikporting it to AffPub - a pain

The tutorials are poor, especially to those new to this program.

For instance the program tells me when overflow on a page is reached but doesn't tell how to load the next page.
'Overflow' is not covered in  the help seaction

What is needed is amanual in simple plain English like the original PagePlus programs.

[mswift]

On 2/26/2020 at 2:32 AM, muggy said:

For instance the program tells me when overflow on a page is reached but doesn't tell how to load the next page.
'Overflow' is not covered in  the help seaction

Add another page then look up "Linking text frames" in the Help Affinity Publisher Help window.

Also I have a couple of PDF tutorials that might help here, I will add more over time.

[Hilltop]

7 hours ago, mswift said:

Also I have a couple of PDF tutorials that might help here, I will add more over time.

Thank you for the tuts and the templates. Very nice work!

[ellaryk]

I am a long time PagePlus user, about 20 years, currently using X9. During the trial period for Afpub I tried importing the PDF of my publication. It didn't work very well, requiring lots of effort to make it right.

Any software company that rewrites a product provides a migration path for their current users, especially if they want those users to upgrade. I should be able to open a PagePlus file in Afpub then save it as an Afpub file.

Since  PagePlus X9 satisfies my needs I'll continue using it until Serif provides that migration path.

[fde101]

8 minutes ago, ellaryk said:

rewrites a product

Serif didn't rewrite the Plus series to create the Affinity series of products.

The Affinity apps are newly-developed and are completely independent of the older Plus series.

 

9 minutes ago, ellaryk said:

I'll continue using it until Serif provides that migration path.

There is a strong possibility that they never will.  This has been discussed a number of times and when Publisher was first launched Serif initially said this would never happen.  Later they softened it a bit with "if we ever..." and indicated it would not happen until there was a more significant level of support in Publisher for the various features of PagePlus that Publisher currently lacks, but they still have not committed to ever providing import support.

The general consensus of most users is to continue using PagePlus for older documents and to create new documents in Publisher instead.  As the need for the older documents drops off you can gradually transition to the newer product.

[ellaryk]

I only do one publication. It's a monthly newsletter. So I create the one for the new month by modifying the one for the previous month, updating those items relevant to the new month and replacing articles from the old month with new ones. So I never create a new publication. And if Affinity Publisher does not yet have all the functionality as PagePlus why would I migrate to it until it does?

I'm sure there are many PagePlus users in the same boat as I. So Serif is losing revenue by not creating an easy migration path.

[Fairportfan]

7 hours ago, ellaryk said:

I only do one publication. It's a monthly newsletter. So I create the one for the new month by modifying the one for the previous month, updating those items relevant to the new month and replacing articles from the old month with new ones. So I never create a new publication. And if Affinity Publisher does not yet have all the functionality as PagePlus why would I migrate to it until it does?

I'm sure there are many PagePlus users in the same boat as I. So Serif is losing revenue by not creating an easy migration path.

I bought Affinity Publisher when it was made available - i paid less than i had for my PPX9 upgrade - but i have yet to actually USE it, because it's pretty non-intuitive and it's hard to figure out how to do anything with anywhere the ease i can do them in PPX9.

I really assumed that there'd be some way to migrate my PPX9 files to AffPub, and that it'd be as easy as PP to figure out; i never had to actually read the manual as i moved from one version of PP to another, starting, as i said, with about PP5 {huh - looking back just now at the version-release dates on Wikipedia, i must have started with PP3 or so}; it was intuitive in the extreme.

Granted, i had to use "Help" or the manual occasionally to suss out some little trick, but that was pretty seldom.

AffPub?  Not so much.

So it's on the computer, and so long as it's getting updated for free, i'll keep it current ... and someday i may be bored enough to sit down and really work at figuring out how to use it to, pretty much, do what i already know how to do in PPX9.

Or until Serif actually publishes a genuine usable comprehensive manual.

And i shan't be buying any more Affinity products until they do.

As ellaryk said {more or less}, i see no reason to spend money buying a product that almost seems to be deliberately obscure that doesn't seem as if it will really do more for me than the product i already have and thoroughly understand.

[garrettm30]

21 hours ago, ellaryk said:

I only do one publication. It's a monthly newsletter. So I create the one for the new month by modifying the one for the previous month, updating those items relevant to the new month and replacing articles from the old month with new ones. So I never create a new publication. And if Affinity Publisher does not yet have all the functionality as PagePlus why would I migrate to it until it does?

To answer your question, it does not seem to be necessarily advantageous for you to migrate, and that is okay. I have never used PagePlus, so I can't rightfully compare the two. I would suppose that Publisher has some new exciting features or new approaches to old problems, but also the reality is that at the present Publisher is still rather young while PagePlus is mature and at the best state it ever will be. So staying with PagePlus is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it is what you like to use.

The main reason you might consider migrating sooner than later is if you do plan to migrate eventually, then the sooner you migrate, the more of your past work will be in the format that you eventually intend to use. However, in your case, that may not be very relevant at all, since I gather from what you have said that you just keep making a new file from the last file, and all old files are essentially just archived. PDF is the best format for those, since you are just preserving the result. In that case, you can keep working with PagePlus until Publisher develops to the point where it is compelling enough to motivate you to make the switch. At that time, since you work on just one document type, you would have to do the work to recreate it afresh in Publisher once (which is time-consuming but a useful exercise), but from then on you could continue making new documents from the previous, so it is really just a one-time thing.

[PaulEC]

On 1/4/2020 at 4:49 AM, Fairportfan said:

Does anyone have any idea why they do not provide manuals?

Presumably because it would cost too much money!

As I remember, Serif originally supplied a hard copy "user guide" with their software, then later they included a PDF version and charged some exorbitant amount for a hard copy. (Or, sometimes, there was a "special offer" to include a user guide in the price.) I also seem to remember that the "Plus" range was (basically) nearly twice the price of the Affinity apps, but there were so many special offers and upgrade pricing, that I'm sure I never actually paid the full price for any of them – I suspect very few people did! At least now-a-days the pricing is pretty straight forward, even if it doesn't include a manual.

As an aside, it's interesting to see how much the "Workbooks" for the Affinity apps cost, compared to the price of the actual software, especially as they are  bound to become rapidly out of date as the software develops.

 

[garrettm30]

44 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

As I remember, Serif originally supplied a hard copy "user guide" with their software

Software used to come on physical media back then. Is Affinity even for sale on physical these days?