Affinity Publisher

What do you like best?

Affinity Publisher's perpetual license was a welcome change to users of Adobe Indesign who are bound by the monthly subscription shackles of the Adobe Creative Cloud. The learning curve was easier in comparison and the plethora of onboarding videos and tutorials was very helpful and one can set their foot well and learn the basic tools in less than a week. For users who are acquainted with Abode's creative cloud, the switch is even easier. While it's a finished product, it's much better than one usually expects from a first release. One of the best standout feature of affinity publisher is the StudioLink feature, which lets you switch to either Affinity Photo or Affinity Design workspace right from your Affinity Publisher window and makes changes on the fly in a non-destructive manner.

What do you dislike?

The ability to export IDML files or IDNN files is a major missing feature which makes the experience slightly difficult when one is working with a larger team that uses Adobe Creative Cloud. There are certain minor features that are missing which I expect to be introduced in the future updates.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

If someone is on the fence on switching to Affinity Publisher, I would suggest downloading the trial version and using it. Compared to other similar software packages, Affinity Publisher doesn't limit functions and features in its trial version, one gets the full deal for the mentioned period. The performance benefit in general is faster in comparison to similar tools.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

For freelancers or smaller studios, Affinity Publisher is a great edition without the burden of monthly subscriptions. The pricing is also affordable but that does not affect or limit the software package in any way. It's a professional tool which can be used by first time adopters, amateurs to Industry professionals. The potential is huge and with a lot of user adoption since its inception, Affinity is here to make its mark.