![]() There just wasn't enough specificity.Īs I said, given Serif's history, I am afraid they simply won't put out a really useful book on how to use the program. I bought ALL the documentation books Serif had: 100% useless. I found PagePlus and was immediately in love - until it came to laying out my book and trying to find out how to do certain things. ![]() I am a writer and wanted to lay out my own books. Years and years ago I searched for a desktop publisher that was easy to use. For example the QucikStart guides by Peachpit Press: Simply put, I want Affinity to put out documentation that is as good as what is available for Quark XPress and InDesign. This will make it very hard for me - a non-professional - to use advanced features. What I fear is that Affinity Publisher won't either. What most of you missed is the fact that Serif NEVER had good documentation. I'm not affiliated with Serif or Affinity in any way, other than a happy customer who likes what they are creating. I was lucky working for large software companies that had dedicated staff to develop the documentation and training materials. ![]() Based on my experience, the technical documentation and training are usually the last things that people focus on. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the number of tutorials available for a public Beta. The current tutorials are short, have gaps and do assume a certain level of basic knowledge, but I think that over time the Affinity team will be adding to the library of videos (as will the user community). To I would ask for patience as the new application is developed and enhanced. Finally, I fully expect that Serif will create the master Workbook for Publisher similar to the ones they created for Photo and Designer. I've also been using AF Photo and Designer for a while now and people are still adding new video tutorials on how they completed tasks in those applications. I didn't expect to see the full breadth of tutorials needed to fully use this application for commercial work. I've viewed most of the tutorials and for an application that is in Public Beta ahead of its first launch, they are good to orient you to some of those topics but there needs to be more to really help the user master the tool. Last is how the pieces of the book are managed. Finally, I need to understand how the automatically generated content (TOCs and Indexes) are managed. When approaching a new DTP tool, the first thing I want to understand is how the tool facilitates the layout of the page and the flow of the text across those pages: How do the Master pages work to control that flow? Once I understand the text flow, then I start to go through how the paragraph and character catalogs are set up and how they interact with one another. As with any tool, becoming proficient takes a lot of practice, patience, and study. I see a lot of potential in the new Affinity Designer. No, I don't work for Serif/Affinity or have any connection to them, it's just that I am grateful they have allowed free access to their beta program and thereby given me the opportunity to share in its early development.Īs a technical writer with over 30 years experience, I spent much of that time using FrameMaker to write technical end user documentation. It is early days yet - I believe (I hope) better things are yet to come. It will take a bit of work yet to iron out any bugs and, of course, the real proof of Affinity's program will be in how much notice is taken of what we, the future users, say.Īll in all, I don't think you can realistically compare AP in Beta to those (much) older, wiser packages at this early stage. Not to mention Quark! Well I never did like Quark overmuch and the need for expensive third party software to get it to even shake hands with anything non-Quark was a real pain.Īlready I can see some real promise in what Affinity have created. I would like to support what jmwellborn says about being patient and give AP a fair chance.Īs someone who has used Adobe software since it first appeared, and Pagemaker before that, I can remember how difficult those programs were for early adopters.
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