Serif launched Affinity Publisher on 19 June 2019 during a live keynote by Ashley Hewson, managing director of Serif, from its headquarters in Nottingham, UK.
Through Serif’s new StudioLink technology, owners of its vector design app – Affinity Designer and image editor – Affinity Photo can use them in an Affinity Publisher layout, simply by clicking the relevant product icon. While Affinity Publisher has its own selection of built-in vector and photo editing tools, StudioLink allows editing graphics and images in a layout using a full array of professional tools, without the need to switch to a different app. The result is a massive streamlining of the creative workflow.
The company also revealed that it has updated the pioneering iPad versions of Affinity Designer and Photo to handle Affinity Publisher documents. While Publisher itself will come to iPad later, owners of Affinity Designer and Photo on iPad will be able to open, edit and export Publisher documents, on the move.
Hewson said, “For too long, millions of creative professionals have found their workflow hindered by incompatible file types, apps which don’t work properly together, and awkward workarounds which cost valuable time. Affinity Publisher with StudioLink takes all that pain away by allowing you to instantly switch to the advanced photo editing features of Affinity Photo and precise vector tools of Affinity Designer without ever leaving the app. It’s the most fluid workflow ever conceived in a creative suite of applications, and we think it’s a game changer.”
From creating simple text-based documents to posters and flyers, or complex brochures and books combining words, images and graphics, the meticulously engineered features of Affinity Publisher make it easier, even on the most content-heavy documents. With essentials like Master Pages, facing-page spreads, grids, tables, advanced typography, text flow and full professional print output, Affinity Publisher delivers all the requirements for a modern-day layout app, tailored for optimum utilization of the power of the latest hardware.
Other key features include OpenType support and glyph browser, text decorations and drop capitals, linked text frames with advanced flow options, text wrapping with fine padding control, artistic text including text on a path, baseline grid and text frame rulers, and place PSD, AI, PDF, JPG, TIFF, PNG or Affinity files. It can also correct and enhance images with non-destructive adjustment layers and has smooth gradient and transparency controls and auto-generated indexes and table of contents. It also allows RegEx search and replace, customizable keyboard shortcuts, saveable undo history, smooth pan, and zoom at 60fps, end-to-end CMYK and spot color support and PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4 output for a professional print.
Affinity Publisher’s enormous flexibility means it can import and export all major raster and vector files, including layered PSD, PDF, EPS formats. Furthermore, it can output print-ready documents in the latest PDF/X formats, including hyperlink support for documents shared online.
“Affinity Publisher with StudioLink is the realization of the initial vision we had for our apps nine years ago and I could not be more thrilled to finally reveal that vision. This is the reason we called our apps Affinity,” said Hewson.
Affinity Publisher is available with a 20% discount (priced US$ 39.99) for a limited period, and all Affinity apps have no subscription.
