Master Pages - Export and Import

[Trevor J Richens]

Not sure if this may have already been brought up - my apologies if it has.

I can't see a way of exporting Master Pages to a separate file so that they can be imported into a new document.

So... having designed my set of master pages I can simply export the design for later re-use in a new document.
Just open a new blank document, hit Import Master Pages, pick a file and they are automatically available in the new document.
Otherwise you need to keep a master publication for each set of master pages, and if you have created a publication and you think that you might want to utilise the master pages elsewhere there's not straightforward way of extracting just what you need.

An even better option would allow you to design a new master page layout and then import AND REPLACE the existing master pages in a document - but that would introduce a completely different level of complexity

Or am I missing something here?

[garrettm30]

I am not aware of any such feature, but you can currently copy master a master page in one document, go create a blank master page in a new document and paste on top of it.

Probably what I would do at this point is save a file that has all of my masters and styles set up but without any text or images other than perhaps placeholders. Then I would use that file as a template for future publications of similar nature, or at least as a starting point. There is currently no template feature per se, but all you need to do is lock the file at the system level so that you wouldn't accidentally overwrite it.

The ability to import and export master pages may be interesting. I don't think I would use it much myself, but others can chime in about whether this could be something that would be helpful to many people.

[Trevor J Richens]

The copy and paste method is the obvious way of doing this but if you had lots of pages and were doing this often it would be nice to have a quick, easy way of doing this "en masse".

I do have a set of master templates I use in PagePlus but it would be nice to be able to create a template from an existing publication by just exporting the master pages section and avoid copying and pasting and renaming, etc.

[JoeyStearns]

 I work as an instructional designer for a global team. It would be so useful if I was able to just create a set of master pages, table formats, and font format presets that could be exported easily and just given to a dozen or so team members. I think I can do it with font/character presets but I just started using Publisher last week so I'm still learning a lot about it. If anyone knows a way to disseminate this type of presets, that would be so cool to know. I'm trying to justify to my boss that we can use this globally as our new method of creating documentation for reference guides and such. 

[fde101]

On 1/7/2020 at 10:42 AM, JoeyStearns said:

if I was able to just create a set of master pages, table formats, and font format presets that could be exported easily and just given to a dozen or so team members.

Save them together in a template.

Use that template to create new documents.

 

With the currently released version, that "template" would be a normal document that would be copied to create the new ones.  More formal template support is currently in the betas for 1.8.

[JoeyStearns]

7 hours ago, fde101 said:

Save them together in a template.

Use that template to create new documents.

 

With the currently released version, that "template" would be a normal document that would be copied to create the new ones.  More formal template support is currently in the betas for 1.8.

Sounds great!! 

[willyt]

Ability to import export master pages would be great for Architects. We use desktop publishing software to create nice reports for the different project stages. Obviously we could just use a template with master pages for all the different scenarios but this would be quite a big file, and we like to evolve the project report as the project progresses over the course of a couple of years and during this time our templates evolve in parallel so it would be good to be able to import master pages as the project progresses so we can share content and layouts between different reports. Thus it would really speed things up if we could import/export master pages (and normal pages).

[Xanthe G]

I'd love to be able to export templates for documents I'm creating for clients that they will use for more than one project. Eg. Workbook template. Not exactly sure if this has been made possible since the previous posts about this...?

[GaryLearnTech]

Hi @Xanthe G - welcome to the forums!

On 8/19/2022 at 4:52 AM, Xanthe G said:

Not exactly sure if this has been made possible since the previous posts about this...?

Indeed it has!  I've recently (just about) finished updating an old design for use in Publisher and have shared it with the first of the colleagues in my team by saving it as a template and passing that file to her.  You'll find information about document templates here: https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/GetStarted/templates.html?title=Document templates

Hope this helps!