Definitely make use of the 90-day trial before you buy, as you may be unhappy with the results.
-Deozaan
All too true. I've been bitten several times myself, and I'm struggling with Affinity Publisher. I think there are several reasons:
- I haven't ever done desktop publishing before, and barely understand what the program is trying to do.
- It's a big complicated program, so there's a steep learning curve anyway.
- Too much if it is hair-trigger; too easy to change things inadvertently.
- I suspect its Mac heritage might be causing difficulties for anyone used to Windows. UK magazine 'ComputerActive!' thought Affinity Photo ran better on a Mac than a PC.
- I'm using a laptop. It's probably better on a big monitor. Some of the dropdown icons are tiny.
- I suspect I might have run into a bug...
noticed some bugs and issues, including a serious performance issue. Then I posted on their forums to report the bugs or otherwise get support, and. . . nothing.-Deozaan
I've only posted once, and received a couple of helpful replies from experienced users rather than Serif. I haven't posted about what I think might be a bug yet, until I get a handle on it.
I bought the Affinity Designer Workbook. When it arrived, I opened it up and started reading through it so I could learn how to use the software. A within the first ~15 pages or so, still within the introductory chapter which explains the UI and basic tools, I noticed a few discrepancies between what the book showed me and what the software showed me.-Deozaan
This is annoying, but the book is always going to be behind the software ("Documentation - the worst part of programming"). The books seem to me very expensive. If they want people to use, and evangelise for, the software, maybe Serif should make the books freely available as a PDF or something. They would be easier to keep up to date in a purely electronic format.
So far, getting Publisher to do what I wanted has been a nightmare, but bear in mind the issues I mention above. At the moment, I feel like I never want to go through this again, but I assume it's much better than I give it credit for ("can't be much worse") and the pain is mostly because of my own ignorance. Even so, the learning curve is far too steep.