Affinity Publisher

[gwpriester]

For years I have been producing Mary's and other author's paperback books (two of my books of short stories) in Designer Pro (a dozen or more titles). But after finishing Mary's latest novel, I decided to try Affinity Publisher 2.0.

Bingo!

There are some things I would like to change. But then I have always advised people critical of Xara who think it should work the way their previous program worked to learn the way Xara works and learn the rhythm and logic of Xara. Affinity has created Publisher with industry standard features. And after a few wrong turns it is starting to make sense.

Thanks to Mike Wensloff for pointing me in the right direction.

My next book of short stories will be produced in Affinity Publisher.

Happily I will still create the covers and produce graphics in Xara and paste them into Affinity Publisher. The right tool for the job.

I have repeatedly asked for things like Master Pages, independent left and right pages. More control over tracking and letter spacing. But this has not been a priority with Xara. The odd features get added but almost as an afterthought.

[Egg Bramhill]

I've got AP but I can't say I've ever used it Gary. It just came exceptionally cheap when I purchased the three Affinity titles.

I understand and agree re Xara's shortcomings. These are also being eclipsed by AD which I'm tending to use more frequently these days (I just can't stand not having an undo button!)

Best of luck with your books

[handrawn]

good move Gary 'right tool for the job' is usually the best policy

I would never do documentation of any sort in xara; I used to use In-Design, but my copy is CS2 and long out to grass... I use AP now, have done since it came out

I once laid out a book in xara and it worked ok, but it was all cartoon drawings; laying out text is different

It seems to me these days that xara is less interested in providing a toolset for seat-of-the-pants designers and more interested in providing pre-designed elements for constructors - bit like when I 'build my own PC'; I plug components together that I have matched and chosen and so construct, no soldering iron required

I just hope they don't get trampled into the dust when the next big thing comes along - AI I am looking at you, any chance of a website please.....

[gwpriester]

Egg - Ctrl + Z

Steve - Because I worked in advertising for 15 years and had my own graphic design company after that for 12 more years, design and typography are hardwired in. And kicking and screaming I have been able to get Xara to produce the results I need. But it's time for this old dog to learn a new trick or two.

[Egg Bramhill]

Egg - Ctrl + Z

Cheers Gary, I know that but as explained in an earlier post I'm virtually a one handed operator so short cut keys require me to move my hand from mouse-keyboard-mouse which is api compared to clicking an undo icon.

[handrawn]

maybe look into an onscreen keyboard egg - there are lots around - a fully customisable one would let you assign a one click undo, and place it sensibly on the screen

using a pen rather than a mouse is another option...

[handrawn]

@Gary never too old

[ernie-f]

I'm using AP since v.1. First parallel with Indesign. Since v. 1.8 I quitt with Adobe.
I produce with it Books, Magazines, Catalogs … etc. All the stuff is to fiddly to do with Xara.

Here a screenshot of a anual Architekt-Magazine I do. The finish line for the printer is in four weeks.
A lott to do!

[gwpriester]

To be clear. I have worked with Xara since 1996 when I first saw it demonstrated at a Corel World Conference. I have used Xara as my number one graphics app since then.

But I have asked repeatedly for more professional page layout/publishing features which obviously are not a priority. So for book production I will now use Publisher. The price is unbeatable and the features give me the power to realize my designs.

[handrawn]

sure gary... I still feel affinity [pun intended] for xara because it was my first vector editor; but it isn't majoring on that anymore.. life goes onwards even if progress, in some, respects, does not

flood fill tool in xara? vector warp tool in xara? ... we should be so lucky...