If, like me, you have been working with layout and typesetting programs for decades, you usually notice such changes more clearly than those who have only recently entered this world. I have seen many things come and go over the years: In the early nineties, I worked on the Atari ST with Calamus SL and later, under Windows, with CorelDraw! Later came QuarkXPress, then iCalamus, Adobe InDesign - and finally, a few years ago, Affinity Publisher. Since then, the Affinity suite has accompanied me through almost all my book projects. Over the years, it has been a reliable tool, pleasantly straightforward, clearly structured and free of the ballast that many large software houses have added to themselves over the years.<\/p>\n
This makes the change we are now experiencing all the greater: Serif, the British company behind Affinity, was acquired by Canva in 2024, and \u201eAffinity by Canva\u201c has been available in a completely new form for a few weeks now - free of charge, \u201efree forever\u201c, as they say. The three separate programs Designer, Photo and Publisher no longer exist in this form; everything is now in a single application. For the masses, this sounds like a gift. For long-time users like me, it's a change that deserves attention. Because when a tool that you have relied on for years suddenly changes its basic structure, you traditionally take a closer look. That's how it used to be done - and it usually saved you from unpleasant surprises.<\/p>\n