Can I insert a PDF File into a Publisher document

[Michael Hopcroft]

Just got Publisher over the weekend to be the DTP client for a one-man game publisher. I specialize in role-playing games, and am currently working on a book for Dungeons & Dragons' current edition.

There are several web apps that do the formatting work for characters, monsters, items and the like. They export to PDF, and ideally, I would like to not have to mess with their formatting and keep the image of the PDF intact. Problem being that I don't think Publisher supports that functionality.

I wonder if there is a workaround like converting the file to .TIF or a similar graphics format, which could then be read as an illustration in Publisher. But where and how does one do that?

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @Michael Hopcroft 

There are certainly some issues Placing PDF files in Publisher, for some purposes.

One is that Publisher doesn't make use of any fonts embedded in the PDF file. At a minimum you would need your own copies of the fonts. And even then things might not be pixel perfect.

But they might be good enough for you.

Or, if you're only working with graphics, not text, they might work for you.

I would try one, and see if you get acceptable results for your purposes.

Yes, converting the PDF pages to images may work better, and you're right that Publisher can't do it well today for PDF files that don't work when you just Place them.

I'm not sure what to recommend as an alternative for doing that kind of conversion. Are you on Mac or Windows?

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

On 7/6/2019 at 12:35 PM, walt.farrell said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @Michael Hopcroft 

There are certainly some issues Placing PDF files in Publisher, for some purposes.

One is that Publisher doesn't make use of any fonts embedded in the PDF file. At a minimum you would need your own copies of the fonts. And even then things might not be pixel perfect.

But they might be good enough for you.

Or, if you're only working with graphics, not text, they might work for you.

I would try one, and see if you get acceptable results for your purposes.

Yes, converting the PDF pages to images may work better, and you're right that Publisher can't do it well today for PDF files that don't work when you just Place them.

I'm not sure what to recommend as an alternative for doing that kind of conversion. Are you on Mac or Windows?

 

Windows 10, current build (as far as I know). I am planning to use a template specifically designed for Dungeons and Dragons modules (from the Dungeon Master's Guild publishing house for third-party official material). The reason I am thinking about this pasting job is that I want to be able to grab official-format stat blocks (the list of attributes for a specific character/creature/etc.) for things I build there are several websites that offer this in official formatting, including one run by Wizards of the Coast themselves) and then put them directly into my pages (because the formatting for these blocks is very tricky for a new user).

Would converting those PDFs into a TIFF or PNG file, so they can be placed as a picture, be at all possible or beneficial?

 

Edited July 8, 2019 by Michael Hopcroft

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

Would converting those PDFs into a TIFF or PNG file, so they can be placed as a picture, be at all possible or beneficial?

Placing it as an image will probably give you better fidelity to the official format than placing as a PDF. But you could try placing the PDF and seeing how it comes out.

The conversion to image format should be possible, but I'm not sure what other software to recommend for doing that. Sorry.

[Michael Hopcroft]

29 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Placing it as an image will probably give you better fidelity to the official format than placing as a PDF. But you could try placing the PDF and seeing how it comes out.

The conversion to image format should be possible, but I'm not sure what other software to recommend for doing that. Sorry.

Knowing it is possible is enough. Thank you!

 

[Fixx]

Apple's Preview exports PDF to TIF just nicely. If the originals are mostly pixel images this is good. If originals have (a lot of) text quality may suffer, and exporting to .ps to save text as curves is better.