When it’s time to go beyond what Microsoft Publisher can offer in the way of professional document design, it has typically been necessary to rebuild such publications from scratch in InDesign, a process that’s both slow and fraught with the possibility of introducing errors. This means that documents created with Microsoft Publisher can not generally be imported into more popular applications like Adobe InDesign. Publisher’s proprietary file format is, unfortunately, unsupported by most other applications. This reflects Microsoft’s emphasis on Publisher as an easy-to-use and less expensive alternative to the “heavyweights” and also its focus on the small business market where firms do not have dedicated design professionals available to make marketing materials and other documents. Publisher is included in high-end editions of Microsoft Office. Publisher 2007 also includes the capability to output commercial press quality PDF with embedded fonts as an optional download from the Microsoft website. Recent versions of the program have greater capabilities concerning color separations and proper process coloring output. Microsoft Publisher, a Windows only application, has historically been less well-liked among professional designers and high end commercial print shops when compared with other desktop publishing applications like PageMaker, InDesign & QuarkXPress but its very ubiquity in the corporate environment ensures its wide usage. The magic part is that Markzware plug-ins do it quickly, accurately, and elegantly. As such, many of you may not be familiar with their products but in the world of desktop publishing Markzware is a name associated with a long history of wonderful document conversion utilities that make it possible to radically reduce the time it takes to import and use text and pictures from documents created in other desktop publishing applications.įor people who use InDesign, Quark and PageMaker, Markzware makes plug-ins that make it possible to easily import content and convert entire documents between creator applications without losing the appearence of the original document. Markzware is famous for their FlightCheck software and their PM2Q, ID2Q and Q2ID plug-ins for QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. Clarke put it, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic). (In fact, when my mother asks me about a lot of stuff she sees me doing on the computer I tell her that its magic. I’m hoping they can roll with it.In past issues of the DoubleClick we have looked at a lot of scathingly brilliant software from Markzware. It is, however, the first one with Affinity and I wasn’t expecting this hiccup. They simply asked for working files this time. If your printer still insists on packaged Indesign files then you can either use Indesign or find another printer. So you really have 1 option if you do not want to use Indesign, you need need to supply print ready PDF's. You will never have a perfect conversion. At the end of the day they are 2 page layout programs made by 2 different companies. Sure they may be able to improve things but it will never be 100% compatibility between the two. Regarding Serif addressing Indesign and their file I don't think this is not something they really can do beyond what they have now with IDML files. Cutting out a middle step that is really not needed. A properly made PDF with crops and bleeds gets things moving much faster then opening a working file and preparing a PDF after that for print. Personally I only want working files if I need to make serious changes or alterations. You addressed supplying them a PDF, which is something I know we prefer here as do other local printers. It saddens me because I much prefer this software and don’t care for Adobe in general. I will not be able to use Publisher in the future for large projects unless this is addressed. They get a PDF this time and hopefully they can use it. If you look at my other comments I addressed this. Make life easy on yourself and everyone else and stick to what the team is using. You will create nothing but headaches trying to make something work as it will never be 100% and only create more work for the team.Īffinity has some great software, powerful and extremely affordable, but it is not a replacement for Adobe in a collaborative environment. If you are collaborating you should all be using the same software. I would check with them if they can use Publisher as you may be wasting your time trying to get Publisher to package. Adobe is the standard here and I am assuming they would be asking for a packaged Indesign file. Are you sure your printer can even use a Publisher file? I don't know any print or design house that uses any of the Affinity software.
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