Best workflow from Designer to Publisher?

[AT.HA]

Hi,

I have been designing a Logo Usage Guides Manual using Aff. Designer. A lot of pages/artboards...

Since Publisher is here and ordered .-) I thought I could finish this project in a proper DTP program.

Several pages, text, graphics, photography... Publisher will shine ,-) for this project, to start.

 

So; what is the best workflow from Designer to Publisher? From Designer artboards, where I have my logo designs, rules, colours, do & don´t, etc; to Publisher pages?

Should I simply copy/paste this vectorial artboards from Designer to Publisher (is it possible?) or should I export as images (TIFF or JPEGS?) and place those in my Publisher pages? For absolute best results.

The final format will be PDF, for now. But maybe for digital print later (not offset).

Longer texts, master layout, page numbers, etc; will be done on Publisher.

Thank you very much for your help.

[walt.farrell]

You should be able to just Open your .afdesign file with Publisher with File > Open.

Publisher will offer to convert your Artboards to Spreads. You should probably allow that, but you can try it both ways to see which you like better. Then you should save the file as a .afpub file for further work.

The file type doesn't matter too much, as either program can open the other's files, but Designer doesn't work well with a multi-page Publisher file. And I suppose, until the additional Publisher Personas are enabled, there might be a good reason not to convert the artboards to spreads. If you leave them as artboards, you will still be able to work on the project using Designer with full access to all your content. (Pages and artboards really are different, and treated differently by the Affinity applications.)

You can install the Publisher beta now, by the way. You don't need to wait for the official release to start playing around and seeing how this all works.

[AT.HA]

On 6/7/2019 at 2:48 PM, walt.farrell said:

You should be able to just Open your .afdesign file with Publisher with File > Open.

Publisher will offer to convert your Artboards to Spreads. You should probably allow that, but you can try it both ways to see which you like better. Then you should save the file as a .afpub file for further work.

The file type doesn't matter too much, as either program can open the other's files, but Designer doesn't work well with a multi-page Publisher file. And I suppose, until the additional Publisher Personas are enabled, there might be a good reason not to convert the artboards to spreads. If you leave them as artboards, you will still be able to work on the project using Designer with full access to all your content. (Pages and artboards really are different, and treated differently by the Affinity applications.)

You can install the Publisher beta now, by the way. You don't need to wait for the official release to start playing around and seeing how this all works.

Thanks Walt. 

my point is not "What I like"; but what give me best professional results in the end (both for PDF or print).

Better to open Designer files directly inside Publisher or Export as TIFF files in Designer before?

The best end result is what I am looking for. Not the simples workflow. I don´t mind to work more for better results.

:-)

[walt.farrell]

If your final format is to be TIFF or if your artboards all look like the pages you would want in a PDF, then there's no reason not to just use Designer. It can export your artboards as individual PDF pages via File > Export.

If exporting as a PDF from Designer does not give what you want, then perhaps you should try Publisher. But if you do that, there is no need for complicated copy/paste operations or exporting as TIFFs first. Publisher can open your Designer file.

In the end, how you proceed is really up to you, and the results you want to see. I really can't give any advice beyond that without having more time available for the next few weeks, and having a copy of your project to look at, and possibly having more knowlege of PDF and printing than I have

[AT.HA]

No problem using Designer; that is not my point; I am sorry.

The point is to start using Publisher instead of Designer for documents with many pages, text flowing across several boxes/pages, etc. That is what a DTP is for.

My only doubt is the best way to use Designer pages (direct open/copy/paste or export as images) in Publisher and take advantage of a proper DTP app.

No problem ,-) I will perform tests.

But all help is very welcome.

[Aammppaa]

I doubt anyone can give you a precise answer because…

1. There isn't that much experience within the community of this task (moving multi artboard files into Publisher).
2. The community at large has not yet experienced the forthcoming integration of Designer as a persona within Publisher.
3. Nobody else has your documents to work with, so we can't speculate on your exact requirements.
4. There is bound to be a degree of personal preference, and different working methods rather than one 100% right solution.

That said…

I would import the .afdesign file into Publisher, convert to spreads, and start work from there. Unless there is a large amount of reorganizing to do, in which case I might start with a blank Publisher file, and paste the elements in from Designer as required.

I would have very high hopes for the Designer persona, since it is the absolute core of Affinity's ambition for this product. I am sure they will have done a good job, so leaving your work thus far as editable and vector is a no brainer for me.

Exporting as tiffs seems to loose all the benefits that we are anticipating. 

[AT.HA]

Thanks for your useful feedback.

8 more days... And yes; I too have high hopes for the Designer Persona.

Meanwhile I will try the .afdesign file import method.