What is Reddit's opinion of Affinity Publisher?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Hey, everyone has their own niche, and it works for you and gets the job done, then it works! Someone here also recommended Affinity Publisher and I have to say, this is completely winning me over. It's super intuitive, FREE, and has an amazing dark theme. I can't actually believe it's free.

These are…not great. But that's ok! You're brand new at this and it sounds like you kind of stumbled into things.

The good news is that playbills seem pretty simple and minimal from a layout standpoint. It looks like there's a good archive online that you could take layout ideas and inspiration from.

What programs are you using to create these? It looks like they even have an online generator of sorts, but it looks like that might be digital-only and the several that I browsed through had some large formatting errors in them. You're probably better off learning some InDesign basics (or honestly, just score a copy of Affinity Publisher for ~$40) and setting up a template for yourself.

Yeah not having basic editing features is the main problem. I can handle anything more advanced in Affinity Publisher (which is an InDesign alternative, not free but is a one-time purchase), but that requires importing and exporting and is just overkill for the basic stuff.

Unfortunatly though I only use Windows and Linux.

I've done three TTRPG micro-projects with Affinity publisher, so I'm far, far from an expert. That said, here's my observations of things that make the process easier:

• Text styles are powerful. Start by setting up a base style (font and font size), and derived from that, a body, a couple levels of headings, and bullet point style if think you might use it. Makes it very much easier to shift large details (e.g. font choice) or small details (line-spacing, kearning, etc.) later on.
• Similarly, set up a table format in your preferred style - alternating row or column colors if you like, header format, etc. I made one for my Isle on Loch Greve one-page OSR location that I re-usefn.
• If you also have Affinity Designer and/or Photo, they integrate into Publisher as "personas," allowing you most of the functionality of those programs right inside publisher without opening those programs separately. I find this helpful for either doing quite image manipulations with the photo persona, or adjusting vector diagrams (maps) in the designer persona. Worth picking those up when they're on sale if you don't have them already.
• The text wrap settings aren't entirely intuitive, but good to get familiar with, allowing you more interesting page-flows around images.
• I could probably get more use out of master pages to guide formatting and layout, I mostly use them for page numbers.

For print, I'd highly recommend Affinity Publisher: US$55 as a one-time price, much more reasonable than Adobe InDesign, and you'll be able to design a page exactly the way you want and generate a PDF you can use to print to paper.

You can also distribute the PDF as an ebook, but if you want more standard ebook formats, you'll need to be familiar with at least the basics of CSS for formatting and layout, and use something like Sigil [free] to generate the files.

If you'd like a couple of suggestions to get started, designers will always to well with Affinity Publisher. If you'd like to get something physical produced, you can always go with The Game Crafter.

A subscription to an online gaming platform like Roll20, FoundryVTT, or Fantasy Grounds is always a good idea too.

And as a bonus, here's my recipe for Creativity Juice, which is guaranteed to improve your writing speed with a dose:

Take one serving of Blue Monster energy drink, mix with your favorite dark rum (I like to unleash the Kraken, with Kraken rum) and consume. This will get your creative juices flowing with one serving, but cause them to crash with a second.

Affinity Publisher is 30% off at the moment: One time payment of $37.99. Could do the free trial and see if you like it.

Agree that InDesign is where it's at, but Publisher (NOT Microsoft) is a solid alternative.

I use the free Quantum Elephant Bookbinder program to convert to ordered 16-page signatures.

Basically if you plan to print on letter paper (8.5x11 in US) and fold it in half, you can set your page size in Word or Libre Office or whatever to half that (5.5x8.5 in US), lay it out how you like with footers with page numbers, etc., then export to PDF.

That bookbinder program then imports any PDF and reorders the pages into signatures (so it will give you a PDF of full 8.5x11 sheets with two pages on each image). You can either generate individual signatures for printing that way or one big pdf. I do one big PDF, and since my printer can duplex, I just set it to 2-sided and it all prints correctly. Then I take the stack off the printer, grab the first 16 pages off and fold them in half together to have my first signature ready to sew. And so on.

If you want fancier software to lay out your pages, I heartily recommend Affinity Publisher, which is currently half off for a lifetime license--$25. They have tutorials on their website and youtube, etc.

Affinity Publisher is on sale for $25 right now if you want good, inexpensive software dedicated to laying out books. (Like Adobe InDesign, except you don't have to do that subscription nonsense.) THey have video tutorials to help with getting started, and for me what really helped was to finally just grab some books from the shelf that were similar to what I wanted to make and measuring their layouts. There's lots of little things that go into books to make them feel nice and professional, so it's good to have a book handy to compare to what you have on the screen and say, "What's different?"

There are lots of ways for preparing the final PDF for printing, but I use this PDF Bookbinder program: http://quantumelephant.co.uk/bookbinder/bookbinder.html

After laying them out in Affinity, I just export the full text as a PDF and then use that Bookbinder program to rearrange them into the proper order for printing signatures.

Hello!

So I went looking and seems a fair few users are asking about the ICC profiles you are asking about. Some have issues but are being looked into.

Affinity Serif - Searched PSO

It does have an ICC profile manager that should auto detect any installed.

For PDF Standards Export I have the following in Publisher:
PDF/X-1a:2003
PDF/X-3:2003
PDF/X-4
Because I don't have an older version of Adobe Acrobat installed I don't have anything beyond 1.4 (Acrobat 5) You would need Adobe Acrobat 4.0 to get the 1.3 standard or at least an older install that would carry the standard instructions to save out a file in that version. Have you tried a PDF/X-1a:2003 file with your printer?

Here is the tech specs for Publisher and should be the same across the board for Designer and Photo.

Professional Color, Compatibilty and Output

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Hope this all helps out. It does take a bit to train your brain to see a different workflow and maybe names of things that are a little different from what you are use to. Their help file/tutorial videos and other documentation are all really good. Usually asking Google what the command or how to do something in Affinity [Product] that you are use to in Adobe generates the answer.

The best value in layout IMO is Affinity Publisher. It's $50, one time, no subscription.

It is absolutely professional-grade, and while InDesign may have more tutorials and a bigger ecosystem, if you have the whole Affinity suite, I would argue the tool integration is vastly superior to the Adobe suite.

You can try it out yourself with a free demo.

But software isn't the answer alone - you need to study design and typography at least a little to get a good idea what you want to accomplish.

We have a community-made font that has all the dice symbols and the Power Level symbols from the EPG.

As for the layout, Affinity Publisher currently is 50% off in order to support creatives during this time of global pandemic.

Heck, there's even a 90-day free trial (for all of their apps) if you'd like to try before you buy.

I've been an Adobe PS/AI/ID user for many many years... I finally ditched them and use Affinity. Took some adjustment but I figured it out.

Their Publisher is strong and does everything I need it to. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/

Not too sure how updated Ready, Set, Go's Windows version is, but you could attempt to run that in virtual machine if the compatibility is there.

Has he tried Affinity Publisher? It was just released within the past year so it'll be here for years to come which is good for his business. You only have to purchase it once unlike Adobe and he can try a free trial to see if he can get used to the interface and familiarize himself while still using his Mac Mini with the Ready, Set, Go for his current business needs.

Here's a link to the website: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/

If he has a hard time with the learning curve, Affinity has tutorials on their website if he has any questions, which is found here: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/tutorials/publisher/desktop/

I have an answer for you:

Affinity by Serif.

Here's the thing about Adobe. Sure, they have a literal monopoly and are the industry standard. But having completely killed my Adobe sub for Affinity, I can tell you I've never been happier.

Affinity has 3 programs:

Photo (Photoshop)

Designer (illustrator)

Publisher (InDesign)

They are all powerful tools in their own right, but Publisher can use the tools of Photo and Designer, which means they function as an all-in-one program. It's amazing. You really should check them out.

They don't have every program you'd need out there. But they've got the big three and I've never been happier with my design software.

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/

For the price of like 2 months of InDesign rental, you can own Affinity Publisher outright. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/

For zero money you can use Google Docs and the rest of their suite or LibreOffice.

I'd keep a close eye on Affinity Publisher. It's in a free beta right now and will be pretty affordable when it's released. It might be the hobbyist Indesign alternative many have been waiting for.

You generally want to lay these out in a dedicated piece of publishing software, because that lets you adjust the position of elements (like text and images) on the page while also having fine control over visual elements. This definitely has a very Microsoft Word feel to it, because Word has a lot of very specific constraints that makes layout a pain to manage. I use Word/Google Drive for working drafts, but I'd never use it for overall layout.

Check out Affinity Publisher; I'm hearing that they're a lower-cost alternative to Adobe InDesign, and they're currently offering the beta version for free.

Affinity Publisher is aiming to replace indesign. It's in free public beta right now if you want to check it out. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/

InDesign is easily the most popular (and relevant) desktop publishing program, but it might be looking into Affinity Publisher's beta. I've used Affinity Photo quite a bit and was pretty happy with it, especially at the price.

I have not laid out anything like this but I hear that Affinity Publisher is the new hotness -- it's free while it's in beta. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/publisher/