I had someone contact me last week asking me to put together an entire 96-page magazine in Affinity Publisher. I’ve used Affinity Designer off and on for a year or so, but this has been the first chance I’ve had to really put Affinity Publisher (wish they’d named it something different) to the test. I’ve been using it for most of the week now.
It’s just similar enough to InDesign to be frustrating, but I’m impressed given that it’s still version 1.x. There are a few quirky things about it, like the way it handles the frames on placed images, but I’m getting used to it.
I have used it for a couple of smaller jobs and so far and have been fairly impressed, given, as you say, it’s early version. Also that quality vs price compared to indesign is amazing. Usually software at this price point is a little bit home market. A few more development incarnations and it could become a real giant-killer.
I hope not! Serif labs as a company has really earned my respect whereas Adobe has quite soundly lost my respect. Long live Affinity Designer / Photo / Publisher I say.
Hey you really dove into the deep end of the pool with that 96 page magazine. I’ve only dabbled with Publisher at home – making signs and flyers. The only rap on it I’ve got is the keyboard shortcuts. Since they’re different in many cases to Adobe, I have to get re-educated in that area. But that’s trivial. I agree it’s time Adobe had some competition and love the fact it’s not on the cloud.
What about QuarkXpress…? I used that long before ID was even made, but switched because it was bundled with my creative suite… does anyone use quark anymore?
Quark is still out there, but they shot themselves in the foot when InDesign first came out by not making a larger artboard (it was originally only 48" square for a LONG time) and they also had a huge problem with rude and obnoxious customer service. While the artboard is now larger, and I’ve had nothing but politeness from customer service, it’s too little too late, at least for the large stuff I do. It’s still used in publishing quite a bit, what’s left of that industry.
Quark is now pretty much an all-in-one software. I haven’t seen a file now for years (I do almost exclusively Wide format) and can’t imagine what hoops have to be juggled to get this kind of image editing through the rip. Illustrator gives us fits now with its embedded imagery that’s been edited on the fly.
