Affinity released its much-anticipated version 2.0 of Designer, Publisher, and Photo today. For professional graphic designers, Affinity is the primary competitor to Adobe's Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop.
Unfortunately, the upgrade still provides no support for variable fonts. As a graphic designer, I was hoping to finally sever my ties to the Adobe subscription model and switch full-time to Affinity, but that won't be happening yet.
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In 90% of software projects for design purposes, probably including this one, nobody realizes what all is REALLY involved in global text layout until it is far far too late. At that point, they already have their own text engine not built on Harfbuzz, and… everything is integrated into THAT and they are f*cked for real global language support.
It would be noticeably more effort to get it right from the start than to just do it wrong, but also VASTLY less effort than doing it wrong and changing later. The problem is, they don’t know that at the time they make the decision… sigh.
However, without the ability to map styles, text import is still a pita. As well, too many reports of footnotes coming in without the original's formatting--for instance, all in small caps, a different font with overrides, etc.
Still no scripting. No tagged text import (which I use a lot).
I still don't believe it's ready for primetime usage.
On the other hand, that was April 2005. InDesign added that function over 17 years ago, so comparing the current speed of progress between the two apps seems a bit wacky. Affinity could progress faster for many years, without catching up.
EDIT: It's probably me… Things are just sorted differently.
I bought Publisher 1.0 as an impulse purchase myself. I had the same mix of success and frustration Evie reports. Eventually I decided Scribus was more worth my time to learn to use, for the kinds of documents I build at least. It has its own frustrations. I still want Affinity Publisher to succeed and grow.
It's possible to keep older versions of CC apps installed alongside the current version. But I tried this, installing Photoshop 2021, and it doesn't recognize Type 1 fonts either. Presumably this is because it depends on some low level CC system framework (not part of the Photoshop app itself) that gets removed with the 2023 version install.
I wonder if this presents an opportunity for a third party to make a plug-in for Adobe apps that would restore Type 1 support, assuming that's even possible.
Check your EULAs. I have a very old license for BQ Whittingham. It allows one to "convert and install the FONT SOFTWARE into another format in other environments." But: "the converted FONT SOFTWARE is used only for your own customary internal business or personal use".
(Which makes me wonder why Adobe didn't use the still-existing OS level Type 1 support instead of completely dropping it. There are probably reasons.)
When stylistic sets were first introduced, there was no mechanism for naming them. That was added some years later, IIRC, so at first apps did not expose them, and font creation apps did not all support the naming right away either.
exporting to pdf can be a nail biter. I had a 1 color pdf that needed to have the panels fixed for a trifold. That worked great, could not get the pdf to export as 1 color. That has been fixed in subsequent updates.
Try this in InDesign. Open a pdf that needs editing. Can't be done. Publisher, no problem. I have set type and extended bleed and swapped out images.
I have set of files that come in process that need to be black and Pantone color. I created a master page with the spot color and it's 7 minutes completed vs 15 for pitstop.
Check folios for positioning. InDesign you have to import and position each page. Publisher, set one page and you can move down the pages.
I have used Publisher as a varnish check, which has worked out quite well.
I keep using Publisher more and more as I can. Will it completely replace InDesign? Not yet, but they keep pressing closer.
PANTONE colors. hmm, absent from Adobe products. Affinity has them. Big deal in my environment.
Type one fonts, lol. Don't you dare update them without purchasing them again (Vinyl to CD to Download...)
Rent a Center vs purchase once at cost of less than two months. Mac Windows Ipad. Why wouldn't you try it and see? Isn't it nice to see some life in the segment? What, been 19 years since Macromedia gave up the ghost (oh Freehand, I still miss you!).
I am old. I remember the promise of the desktop revolution. One day you could work in one program to edit type, vectors and photos. Welp, Deneba Canvas tried and failed. CGS PDF Tuner does it, but it's expensive (rather was expensive, but now only offered with other products not standalone). Affinity has put them all together in an ingenious way and it's really nice to not have to wait for photoshop to open to edit, or illustrator.
Good on Serif for bringing a program and kicking up a racket to graphic arts.
Support them even if you will barely use em. You may end up being surprised how much it can handle for your work. Given the price tag it's worth looking into.
I do admit I use photo the least, but Publisher and Designer are quite good.