Creating PDFs on iPad Pro?
Discussion
I have been using Serif's Affinity Publisher (DTP) for creating 2-30 page PDFs for documentation. Using a Win7 laptop. Couple of Google fonts embedded, and all works well enough.
But the iPad Pro's camera and increased power - probably better than my i5-3210 laptop - means that there could be some workflow benefits from doing the PDF design on the iPad. The Apple Pencil support is also useful. But I'm struggling to find a DTP design programme. I can find design programmes aimed at multi-layer drawing and illustration, but the multi-page, multi-column, flowing text approach seems to be missing.
Anyone got an insight into this?
(This is for publishing manuals/guides to the Web. Customers print any pages they need for reference on their home printers. So image files are not huge as nothing has the resolution needed for professional print output.)
But the iPad Pro's camera and increased power - probably better than my i5-3210 laptop - means that there could be some workflow benefits from doing the PDF design on the iPad. The Apple Pencil support is also useful. But I'm struggling to find a DTP design programme. I can find design programmes aimed at multi-layer drawing and illustration, but the multi-page, multi-column, flowing text approach seems to be missing.
Anyone got an insight into this?
(This is for publishing manuals/guides to the Web. Customers print any pages they need for reference on their home printers. So image files are not huge as nothing has the resolution needed for professional print output.)
Escapegoat said:
I have been using Serif's Affinity Publisher (DTP) for creating 2-30 page PDFs for documentation. Using a Win7 laptop. Couple of Google fonts embedded, and all works well enough.
But the iPad Pro's camera and increased power - probably better than my i5-3210 laptop - means that there could be some workflow benefits from doing the PDF design on the iPad. The Apple Pencil support is also useful. But I'm struggling to find a DTP design programme. I can find design programmes aimed at multi-layer drawing and illustration, but the multi-page, multi-column, flowing text approach seems to be missing.
Anyone got an insight into this?
(This is for publishing manuals/guides to the Web. Customers print any pages they need for reference on their home printers. So image files are not huge as nothing has the resolution needed for professional print output.)
What about using the built in Pages app?But the iPad Pro's camera and increased power - probably better than my i5-3210 laptop - means that there could be some workflow benefits from doing the PDF design on the iPad. The Apple Pencil support is also useful. But I'm struggling to find a DTP design programme. I can find design programmes aimed at multi-layer drawing and illustration, but the multi-page, multi-column, flowing text approach seems to be missing.
Anyone got an insight into this?
(This is for publishing manuals/guides to the Web. Customers print any pages they need for reference on their home printers. So image files are not huge as nothing has the resolution needed for professional print output.)
I've only used InDesign, Quark Xpress, and Word in the past for creating magazines, catalogues, training materials and technical documentation (and Aldus/Adobe Pagemaker in the early 90s before we moved to Quark...and of those only Word is available on iOS...and I wouldn't recommend it.
I've found very few apps that offer an equivalent, fully featured experience on the iPad as they do on the Mac/PC, but then I don't use a Pencil for driving the screen. I know Affinity were working on Designer for iPad, but don't know how far along that is. However the introduction of the new Apple M1 chip and conversion to a native version of the Affinity apps, might just be the catalyst to move it over to iPad too, as they should be cross-platform.
I still prefer to work on my PC/Mac though as I like the 27" screen more than the 12.5" one, and can't get on with the zoom in, zoom out, scroll, zoom I have to do to work on detailed layouts on the iPad.
I've found very few apps that offer an equivalent, fully featured experience on the iPad as they do on the Mac/PC, but then I don't use a Pencil for driving the screen. I know Affinity were working on Designer for iPad, but don't know how far along that is. However the introduction of the new Apple M1 chip and conversion to a native version of the Affinity apps, might just be the catalyst to move it over to iPad too, as they should be cross-platform.
I still prefer to work on my PC/Mac though as I like the 27" screen more than the 12.5" one, and can't get on with the zoom in, zoom out, scroll, zoom I have to do to work on detailed layouts on the iPad.
Spent many years pushing Quark XPress around. I don't need 100% of its features, though, so I don't really want to go for a full-blown Mac app. Serif's Affinity Publisher does enough for my needs. But the iPad version of it is waaaay delayed.
(I was about to check out Pages on Mac, but this iMac which is running Mojave is no longer allowed to download the correct version.)
jhoneyball said:
What about using the built in Pages app?
I should look deeper into that. Will do tonight. The interface is a bit simple, but it looks like it might be deep enough. Thanks for the reminder.(I was about to check out Pages on Mac, but this iMac which is running Mojave is no longer allowed to download the correct version.)
sparkyhx said:
what do you want PDF's for?
I use Print to PDF on windows to 'protect' content and you can use any app to create the content - obviously thats a very limited usecase and might not be relevant
Yes, I can make PDFs with anything, but then I am limited to the design capabilities of the 'anything'. Those aren't the PDFs I want to make, though.I use Print to PDF on windows to 'protect' content and you can use any app to create the content - obviously thats a very limited usecase and might not be relevant
The ones I do have benefited in the past from being DTP-designed. Have a look at Affinity Publisher or Adobe InDesign, for example.
I'll see if Pages does the job.
On the iPad you can use any app that supports printing to create PDFs of whatever your content is.
Go to the print function, and follow it as far as the 'printer options' dialogue. That shows you a preview of your content. Do a two finger spread on the preview and it'll turn it into a PDF that you can save/ share as normal. This works even if the app itself doesn't have a PDF export function.
In terms of apps, I've always found Pages to be a good call, or Keynote slides are exportable as PDFs. I've always found both to create more aesthetically pleasing results than the MS Office suite - though obviously that's subjective.
Go to the print function, and follow it as far as the 'printer options' dialogue. That shows you a preview of your content. Do a two finger spread on the preview and it'll turn it into a PDF that you can save/ share as normal. This works even if the app itself doesn't have a PDF export function.
In terms of apps, I've always found Pages to be a good call, or Keynote slides are exportable as PDFs. I've always found both to create more aesthetically pleasing results than the MS Office suite - though obviously that's subjective.
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