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Are Templates available?


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Hi DougStevens,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
This is the initial/first Publisher's release. There's no third-party templates available yet as far as I'm aware. It's possible we provide sample files or add-ons with its release/launch but I don't know for sure yet.

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Please provide templates, such as for a side fold greeting card, trifold flyer or brochure, recital program, and especially a newsletter. One blank template for each kind of publication is all I need, along with printer support to handle a side fold greeting card of four pages printed 4 up on a single sheet as I described elsewhere in the following post.

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/89633-how-do-i-make-a-greeting-card-in-afpub/

From its earliest release, MS Publisher included many, many templates for all kinds of publications. Without templates for standard publications Affinity Publisher is no more than a toolbox for professionals and not a desktop publishing package for the rest of us who would normally be looking for publishing software in your price range and who need some examples to get started.

Affinity Photo 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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6 hours ago, Granddaddy said:

Affinity Publisher is no more than a toolbox for professionals

Well, that is what it is intended to be...

 

6 hours ago, Granddaddy said:

templates for standard publications

Other professional applications tend not to have these either - QuarkXPress does not, for example.

 

6 hours ago, Granddaddy said:

a side fold greeting card of four pages printed 4 up on a single sheet

Wow, this reminds me of Print Shop on the Apple II series... with an ImageWriter II you could print in all of 7 colors using a 4-color ribbon.

Now we use printers that can print in full color to both sides of the paper.  One fold instead of two.  Add crop marks to show where to cut to the desired size, print on card stock, and you can make a much more professional-looking card without the extra fold.  Publisher can do all of this if your printer can (except cut and fold it for you).

If your printer can't print both sides, you could flip the paper over and send it back through to print the other side.  In this case, add bleed to the design...

 

6 hours ago, Granddaddy said:

trifold flyer

Create a document with a master page, in landscape format, do not use Facing Pages mode (leave that unchecked), create the document with 2 pages.

Switch to the master page and set guides at 1/3 and 2/3 of the way from whichever side of the page.

Switch back to the normal pages and you now have a blank trifold flyer.  On one page, the rightmost section is the front cover, the middle section the back, and the leftmost section is the page that is facing you on the right side when you open the first cover and still have the third part folded in.

On the other page, the leftmost section is the flip side of the front page (inside), the middle section is the (initially hidden) flip side of the back cover, and the rightmost section is the (initially hidden) flip side of the folded-in page.

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Thanks @fde101 for outlining how to make a trifold flyer.

See my post at 

 https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/89633-how-do-i-make-a-greeting-card-in-afpub/&do=findComment&comment=476342

for my thoughts about templates. AFPub beta testers requested templates more than a year ago. I assume beta testers are professionals who have need of the advanced capabilities of AFPub that I'll never need. At least some of them also want templates.

Also in that thread, @stokerg included an afpub file for producing a greeting card in the manner of MSPub. It requires a lot more manual effort than MSPub, but it is not difficult once you see the concept. MSPub does it as four pages which at print time are printed on one side of a single piece of paper in the appropriate locations and orientations. In AFPub it is made as four separate frames on one side of a single sheet of paper with two of the frames printed upside down.

You compared AFPub to QuarkExpress in the sense that neither provides templates. I remember looking at QuarkExpress in 1987 when it first came out. It did not seem appropriate for the needs of my group. We ended up using MS Publisher for newsletters, tutorial documents, and other printed matter. QuarkExpress still limits its market to publishing professionals, as reflected in its price of $975 for one year of upgrades and support.

AFPub at $50 can surely tap into the market of millions of people who are not publishing professionals but who can benefit from a publishing application. That's what happened with AFPhoto. It was not just for professionals wanting to escape Adobe but also for hobbyist and enthusiast photographers wanting something more powerful than the several amateur level photo editors, all of which cost considerably more than AFPhoto.

 

Affinity Photo 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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I got a chuckle while searching for DTP software reviews and found this statement at

https://www.g2.com/categories/desktop-publishing

To qualify for inclusion in the Desktop Publishing category, a product must:

  • Provide templates for constructing layouts of publishable materials (e.g. newspapers, flyers)

That was the very first requirement. DTP software lacking templates will not be reviewed. The review site uses an interesting interactive grid to display the relative merits of different DTP applications.

Affinity Photo 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/7/2019 at 10:53 AM, ALUVALIFE said:

People can submit work and others can take it, and improve upon it. Tap into the resources of the community. 

Those are not apps, and there are already app stores for all three platforms that the Affinity products are released on and it is available on those app stores.

There is no reason that starter documents could not be shared on the forum if anyone is interested in doing that.  If there is enough interest perhaps Serif would consider making a separate section of the forum dedicated to the sharing of user-created resources such as starter documents, templates (if/when this gets implemented), assets and the like?

 

In fact... they already have:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/11-resources/

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I haven't purchased Affinity Publisher yet (I do own Designer), but I'd like to chime in and also say I'd also love templates.

I'm not a graphic designer and have only basic design skills. However, I like to create original greeting cards for friends and family and occasionally I like to create short newsletters and other small projects.

For the past few years, I have been using Swift Publisher by Belight Software for my needs. (Belight also has a program called Printworks that's slightly more advanced than Swift Publisher; I've tested the trial version.)

A great feature of both Swift Publisher and Printworks is that they come with lots (hundreds?) of free templates for all sorts of projects.

Belight's programs are definitely made for the average person and not design professionals. However, Swift Publisher and Printworks are limiting in some respects even for the casual user. For instance, their text wrapping features only allow for rectangular wrapping around images even if the images have a transparent background.

I tested the trial version of Affinity Publisher and liked it a lot. However, I haven't bought it yet because I'm not a designer and definitely could use some templates to get me started. If there were some good templates, I would replace Swift Publisher.

Anyway, I realize Affinity Publisher is geared towards design professionals who use InDesign, but I think Affinity Publisher would also appeal to non-professionals who use cheaper programs such as those by Belight. Affinity Designer costs only $20 more than Printworks yet has many, many more features. So I think you (Affinity) could attract more casual users with at least some templates.

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, dot24 said:

What exactly 'quickly discredits that review site and gives you reason to move on '? .. can you be a bit more specific?

The fact that they consider the availability of templates to be a key factor in determining whether or not a program could be considered a desktop publishing application worthy of even being listed on their site.

QuarkXPress was THE professional desktop publishing application at one time and did not offer templates.  Including that as a criteria for a generic review of a desktop publishing application (as opposed to a review for such an application to meet a specific need or set of needs which may include the availability of templates) in my opinion discredits the review site.

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28 minutes ago, MickRose said:

Anyone looking for templates & design items could do worse than buying Pageplus. There's quite a bit of stuff there and it could be exported to PDF & opened or placed in APub. Very cheap as well.

Be quick if you want to purchase it! There have been indications on CommunityPlus that Serif will stop selling it soon.

https://store.serif.com/buy/pageplus/

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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  • 10 months later...

While professionals will never use templates ("Sir, isn't this that you are trying to sell me the same template I have in my word processor?!?"), I think that templates will help Serif monetize by having a product that can also serve people with more everyday needed. The program would still be too complicate for beginners, but a simplified layout of tools would hide any complexity.

Paolo

 

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  • 1 year later...

I really don't understand the reluctance on providing some FREE and ready to use templates for beginners who wish to use Publisher in their communications toolbox. All the obfuscations  on a template not being useful for pros or there being too many variations etc etc. is  to be blunt tiresome poppycock. I have used temaplest as starting points for InDesign Apple Pages and back in the day Pagemaker.  All the templates were great starting points. and helped in making them over to suit my particular needs. But having a starting document was crucial.  So much easier to customize using a starting document that has thought about master pages, columns baselines etc etc. Enough already... get the template showroom open...

iMac late 2012 / OS 10.14.6 / Affinity newbie /

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7 hours ago, bici said:

I really don't understand the reluctance on providing some FREE and ready to use templates for beginners who wish to use Publisher in their communications toolbox.

Why not import templates from InDesign which has a much greater user base and therefore examples?

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I’ve just done a quick web search for affinity publisher template.
The first three results were for:

  • “35+ Best Affinity Publisher Templates & Assets 2022”
  • “Affinity Publisher Templates - Design Shack”
  • “54 Best Affinity Publisher Templates To Use In 2021”

... and the list goes on, not to mention the Resources section of these forums (as linked above).

It seems that there are plenty of templates available, so is there any real need for Serif to supply some?
Or, to put that another way, how would people benefit from Serif-made templates over what is already available?

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On 6/25/2019 at 8:27 PM, fde101 said:

I saw that too...  quickly discredits that review site and gives me reason to move on.

It is, in fact, one of the ost useless sites around. There are no reviews, but just useless comparisons of raw numbers, without any real relation.

Templates are nice, and it would be a good thing if Serif increases the number of templates shipped with Publisher. But if one needs a template, why not looking around for the tons of templates available in Idml? The number of creatives offering them in AfPub format is also quickly increasing.

Paolo

 

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2 hours ago, GarryP said:

Or, to put that another way, how would people benefit from Serif-made templates over what is already available?

I see some benefits:

- They would be there, ready when you create a new document.

- With the workbooks, Serif has shown that they have great designers to help making them.

The disadvantages:

- Everything will start to smell "factory templates" very soon.

Paolo

 

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I can understand the convenience of having some templates which come with the application but, by necessity, those templates will be of limited use and design.
On the other hand, a quick web search gets someone to hundreds of Affinity-native templates (never mind those that can be imported) with much more choice than those that could reasonably be supplied with the software.

Even if some templates were to be supplied with the software, this “I want some templates” request would simply ‘morph’ into “I want some templates that do what I want to do because those that are supplied aren’t relevant to me”.
And then we will have an endless list of:

  • I want an A4 company report template;
  • I want an A5 company report template;
  • I want a Letter size company report template;
  • I want a Legal size company report template;
  • I want a slightly-different-looking A4 company report template usable by a town solicitor;
  • I want a slightly-different-looking A5 company report template usable by a village hall committee;
  • I want an A4 company report template with Bleed using CMYK;
  • I want a Legal size company report template with 6 pages;
  • I want an A5 company report template with 8 pages and CMYK but no Bleed;
  • etc. etc.

When would people stop asking for new, different, templates?
At what point would there be ‘enough’ templates?

I don’t understand your point about the workbooks.

I don’t have a problem with people using templates to create documents which all look (pretty much) the same as, to me, that is the reason for using a template – I want something that looks like the template, otherwise I would use something different.

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3 hours ago, GarryP said:

so is there any real need for Serif to supply some?

IMHO - No!

There are so many possibilities (35/54 in the packs mentioned) and variations, how many do you include as "standard"? Premade templates are rarely exactly what you need; if you make similar documents on a regularly basis, just make your own templates and reuse them. It's a bit like people who want a "one click" solution to everything in Photo! Sometimes you have to put a bit of effort in to get the results you want, rather than just producing stuff that is the same as everyone elses just because it's easier.

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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20 hours ago, bici said:

I really don't understand the reluctance on providing some FREE and ready to use templates for beginners who wish to use Publisher in their communications toolbox.

 

Why would a company choose NOT to include templates in its DTP package?

We could speculate at length as to what the absence of templates indicates about such things as
company abilities
company staffing levels 
company attitude toward its customer base
company attitude toward widening its customer base
company understanding of its customers' needs, purposes, and desires
company attitude toward attracting new customers
company understanding of software usability
company understanding of world market
company goals and directions

I myself use DTP only a few times each year to make greeting cards, business cards, and sometimes a newsletter. I bought APub three years ago, but I always return to Microsoft Publisher because its templates  launch me easily into whatever project I'm working on. I recommend Microsoft Publisher to my relatives and friends because  the templates get one started. Templates have served that purpose in every word processing and DTP package I've used over the past 35 years. My young grandchildren also use Microsoft Publisher for greeting cards and school projects.

Affinity Publisher obviously is aimed at a market that does not include me and my granddaughters but one that does include those who argue vehemently against including templates. I do not understand that vehemence. If one does not need templates, why oppose them for someone who would find them useful?
 

Affinity Photo 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6; Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 (MSI) and 1.10.6. Windows 10 Home x64 version 22H2.
Dell XPS 8940, 16 GB Ram, Intel Core i7-11700K @ 3.60 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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16 hours ago, GarryP said:

I’ve just done a quick web search for affinity publisher template.
The first three results were for:

  • “35+ Best Affinity Publisher Templates & Assets 2022”
  • “Affinity Publisher Templates - Design Shack”
  • “54 Best Affinity Publisher Templates To Use In 2021”

... and the list goes on, not to mention the Resources section of these forums (as linked above).

It seems that there are plenty of templates available, so is there any real need for Serif to supply some?
Or, to put that another way, how would people benefit from Serif-made templates over what is already available?

i found those links ages ago. try and download a free template. Luckily years ago i downloaded a few InDesign ones. but damn it would be nice to have some .apub files.

Anyways i have exported a few idml ones and will re-purpose those.

iMac late 2012 / OS 10.14.6 / Affinity newbie /

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