--- description: Review of Affinity Publisher Software: system overview, features, price and cost information. Get free demos and compare to similar programs. image: https://gdm-localsites-assets-gfprod.imgix.net/images/software_advice/og_logo-55146305bbe7b450bea05c18e9be9c9a.png title: Affinity Publisher | Reviews, Pricing & Demos - SoftwareAdvice GB --- Breadcrumb: [Home](/) > [Graphic Design Software](/directory/4151/graphic-design/software) > [Affinity Publisher](/software/228505/affinity-publisher) # Affinity Publisher Canonical: https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/228505/affinity-publisher Page: 1 / 4\ Next: [Next page](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/228505/affinity-publisher?page=2) > Affinity Publisher is a graphic design software that helps publishers and creative professionals create and modify designs or layouts for books, magazines, website mock-ups and other marketing materials. Key features of the solution include double-page spreads, text wrapping, custom table formats, image frames, live master pages and layer effects. The platform enables administrators to create vector graphics, add drop caps among paragraphs and align the baseline of the text across columns. Additionally, Affinity Publisher allows teams to import or export files in JPEG, PDF, PSD, PNG, TIFF, GIFF and other formats. Affinity Publisher offers preflight checking functionality, letting businesses identify spelling errors, overflowing texts, poor image resolution and other errors. Pricing is based on a one-time license and support is extended via forum, video tutorials and email. > > Verdict: Rated **4.7/5** by 62 users. Top-rated for **Likelihood to recommend**. ----- ## Quick Stats & Ratings | Metric | Rating | Detail | | **Overall** | **4.7/5** | 62 Reviews | | Ease of Use | 4.4/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Customer Support | 4.4/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Value for Money | 4.9/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Features | 4.6/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Recommendation percentage | 90% | (9/10 Likelihood to recommend) | ## About the vendor - **Company**: Serif ## Commercial Context - **Starting Price**: US$29.79 - **Pricing model**: Flat Rate - **Pricing Details**: Affinity Publisher is available on a one-time license basis. - **Target Audience**: Self Employed, 2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000, 5,001–10,000, 10,000+ - **Deployment & Platforms**: Mac (Desktop), Windows (On-Premise) - **Supported Languages**: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish - **Available Countries**: Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom ## Features - CAD Tools - Content Management - Data Visualisation - Design Management - Design Templates - Image Editing - Preview Functionality - Text Editing ## Integrations (2 total) - Affinity Designer - Affinity Photo ## Support Options - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum ## Category - [Graphic Design Software](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/directory/4151/graphic-design/software) ## Alternatives 1. [Canva](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/241577/canva) — 4.7/5 (13253 reviews) 2. [Adobe Photoshop](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/221524/adobe-photoshop) — 4.8/5 (2434 reviews) 3. [GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/213277/gimp-gnu-image-manipulation-program) — 4.4/5 (3493 reviews) 4. [Adobe Illustrator](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/222562/adobe-illustrator) — 4.8/5 (8644 reviews) 5. [Fotor](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/177418/fotor) — 4.5/5 (1092 reviews) ## Reviews ### "Gotta Get Them All, Part Three" — 5.0/5 > **Jeremy** | *30 September 2021* | Writing & Editing | Recommendation rating: 10.0/10 > > **Pros**: The master pages feature is the highlight of this app, in my opinion, as it creates templates based on ODD pages, EVEN pages, FIRST pages, various conditions, and considers not just text layouts but also image layouts. Need a bottom right page number on “recto” pages? Done. Bottom left on “verso” pages? Got it. Need that first page of the chapter to have no headers or footers? No problem. Every odd page to have a bleed graphic behind the text, or wrapping around it? Sure. Whatever the layout need, Affinity Publisher can do it (probably) easily and repetitively with the master page feature. The fact that Publisher accounts for several dozen page sizes and layouts makes it even more versatile. Who needs MS Word for “design”? Of course, it doesn’t benefit just novelists or book designers. The layout features work well for magazine designers, too. Heck, Affinity posted a video a year ago of its product specialist designing a branded restaurant menu. It can do just about anything you need a print designer to do. And that’s not even getting into the weeds about its “Studio Link” feature. Thanks to that feature, users can update book or magazine photos directly in Photo or Designer without having to import or export out of Publisher. Not even Adobe does that with its tools (so I hear)\! > > **Cons**: Barring the fact that I can never remember all the hotkeys (I’d have to remove the cut-out hotkey sheet from the back of my Affinity Publisher Workbook to remember them all, and I’m not going to deface my book that way\!—even if it’s designed for that purpose), the biggest “con” I have with Publisher is with the limitations it has with font design. Specifically, drop cap layout with margins can be improved, as well as the ability to combine bold and italics to form special case typographical designs. That said, this probably isn’t a fair con, since Affinity Publisher (and all three Affinity apps, for that matter) respects each fonts’ native design, and most of them aren’t designed with bold italic versions. But it would be nice to have the option to force a design style that merges bold and italics together, just in case. It’s fine, though. I’m really only annoyed with my margin limitations. The page design features more than make up for any con. > > As a self-published writer, I need a tool that will help me create the best editions of paperback or hardcover books that I can, and I refuse to pay an expensive monthly subscription for that privilege, especially if I’m designing these interiors only when I’m ready to print, which can be as infrequent as two or three times a year. Do I want to spend $600 a year to design the interiors of two books (and maybe the odd pamphlet) a year, or do I want to spend $50 once for the same ability? (Actually, I bought it during the 50% off sale, so I paid only $25 for it.) Maybe Adobe InDesign is better. Maybe I don’t care. Maybe Affinity Publisher does exactly what I need it to do without it throwing a bunch of stuff at me that will ultimately confuse me. That professional-looking paperback novel sitting on my bookshelf three feet to my left tells me that Affinity Publisher is just right. Those fancy PDFs I’d like to give as subscriber bonuses to my new and future readers also benefit from Publisher being cheaper than Adobe InDesign and better at formatting than Microsoft Word. I think anyone who cares about the quality of printed material needs to add this one to his or her toolbox, especially if they’re ready to toss out the subscription model from their budgets. ----- ### "An indispensable all-in-one design shop" — 5.0/5 > **Michal** | *8 March 2023* | Telecommunications | Recommendation rating: 10.0/10 > > **Pros**: It allows my team to quickly produce both digital and print creative, including company magazine, has a clear no-nonsense interface, is tightly integrated with Affinity Designer and Photo, allowing to use both programs without having to switch to another app window, and is much more affordable than alternatives > > **Cons**: My positive review is based on Affinity Publisher v1. We have already purchased a business version of v2 suite but have not been able to activate it so far due to a software glitch. > > Streamlined and pleasant to use even for communication professionals (as opposed to a creative designers) ----- ### "If you need data merge, this product isn't for you." — 3.0/5 > **Leah** | *9 June 2022* | Nonprofit Organization Management | Recommendation rating: 5.0/10 > > **Pros**: It's inexpensive. If all you are doing is designing flyers or other static publications, it's fine. > > **Cons**: If you need mail or data merge, don't get this product. I've been using it for over a year and I still can't make it work. It mysteriously skips creating left or right side pages of two page layouts, and/or skips data records for no apparent reason. I've spent my entire career figuring out software, and this just doesn't work. > > Disappointed. ----- ### "One of the best\!" — 5.0/5 > **Bryant** | *16 December 2021* | Airlines/Aviation | Recommendation rating: 7.0/10 > > **Pros**: I like how easy it is to select what you'd like to do with photos. With drone photography (especially at night), you most likely will be taking photos with the auto exposure bracketing (AEB) setting which takes several photos really fast to allow the most light into the sensor to help the photos appear brighter at night. You'd simply take all of the photos and combine them. With a drone, you have to account for any type of movement like wind and the drone itself adjusting to the gps position where you have it hovering so each photo may be slightly off. Affinity has a photo combining/stacking option. When you combine the photos... it does a great job at stacking without it looking blurry. You can choose 3 settings that will show the difference in any effects used. You have a before/after (side by side is best), the before and after split photo then the regular photo itself that will show you the difference once applied. > > **Cons**: I haven't figured this out yet, but when working with stacked photos I have a hard time seeing the difference in the before and after photo when doing side by sides. Maybe it's just me but I don't really see the difference unless I do a large effect like making the contrast really dark. > > This is probably the best software that I've used where it's advanced but not overly difficult. It's difficult at first, but there really wasn't a huge learning curve for me compared to Photoshop. I like everything streamlined and right where I need it. The menus in Affinity are well organized where other programs I ask myself why they put something here or there and it doesn't make sense. ----- ### "Yet another amazing product from Affinity" — 5.0/5 > **Sebastian** | *17 February 2023* | Design | Recommendation rating: 10.0/10 > > **Pros**: The integration of Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo is just superb. It provides a 3-in-1-functionality for the whole program and makes the suite just perfect. > > **Cons**: Export for inDesign-Files, which is the industry standard is sadly still missing. Other than that, i am not missing any Features for my use ----- Page: 1 / 4\ Next: [Next page](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/228505/affinity-publisher?page=2) ## Links - [View on SoftwareAdvice](https://www.softwareadvice.co.uk/software/228505/affinity-publisher) ## This page is available in the following languages | Locale | URL | | de | | | en | | | en-AU | | | en-GB | | | en-IE | | | en-NZ | | ----- ## Structured Data