New documents can be created from presets, templates, or customised to meet your specific needs.
The New Document dialog.
Main Options
These iconified options offer a wide range of starting points. Your selection here affects what will appear in all other areas of the dialog.
Account—registers your app, accesses your Affinity account and synchronises with purchased content.
New—(default) creates new documents based on a supplied preset or a customised preset. The main area of the dialog displays a range of presets, depending on the Preset category chosen.
Open—use to locate and open previously created documents.
Recent—shows recently opened documents, which can be pinned to make them permanently available.
Templates—sets a folder for your templates, and imports additional templates.
Samples—shows sample documents created with the Affinity app.
New Document Presets list
Search box—filters the presets to those with names which conform to the search criteria.
Category—displays preset categories to set the aim and deliverable for your project. As well as Print (RGB desktop printing) and Press Ready (CMYK professional printing), you can work to specific Photo print sizes, specific Web screen resolutions, Architectural drawing sizes, and with the Devices option, design to iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and Nexus document specifications. Your selected category will determine the presets that appear in the main area of the dialog.
Show favourites—enable to limit restrict the presets list to just those presets tagged as favourites.
Landscape / Portrait—select whether to display your document in a landscape or portrait orientation.
Category options—lets you rename or delete the associated category.
Save Preset As—saves a new custom preset to a category.
New Category—creates a new custom preset category.
Rename Preset—renames the currently selected preset.
Remove Preset—deletes the currently selected preset.
Document settings
The New Document dialog also presents separate tabs which allow you to customise your current preset's settings.
Layout:
Page width / Page height—change these values to make a custom page size.
DPI—sets the resolution of your document. For example, for professional print quality, set your resolution to 300 dpi.
Document units—Displays your rulers and object dimensions in pixels, points, picas or using physical measurement units.
'Actual Size' Zoom—sets the device which is mimicked when presenting the document at 'Actual Size' (from the View menu). This option is only available when the document units are set to Pixel or Points. Select from the pop-up menu.
Image placement policy—determines whether placed images or documents are to be embedded or linked in the document by default.
Colour (management):
Colour format—sets the colour mode to RGB (8, 16 or 32 bit HDR), Grey (8 or 16 bit), CMYK (8 bit), or Lab (16 bit).
Colour profile—sets the colour gamut for the previously chosen colour format.
Transparent background—check to set your page background to be transparent.
Margin:
Include margins—check to configure page margins, which will be switched off by default. Make visible via View>Show Margins.
Left, Right, Top, Bottom—sets the printer margins, showing as non-printable blue lines.
For the same margin value: Enable the Link symbol at right, and set any margin value; all other values will update to this.
Document summary
The permanently displayed pane offers a summary based on the settings currently configured from the tab settings.
To create a new document from a preset:
From the File menu, click New.
From the dialog, choose a preset category (e.g. Print, Press Ready, etc.), followed by the page orientation (Landscape/Portrait) and a page size preset (A4 , Letter, etc.).
Click Create.
To create a new document from the last used preset:
With the File menu open, press the and select New from Last Preset.
This method bypasses the New Document dialog.
To create a new document from the last used preset:
On the File menu, select New from Last Preset.
This method bypasses the New Document dialog.
Customising document presets
Any document preset can be customised. Typically, customising just the page size may be needed with the remaining preset settings kept unchanged.
To customise a preset:
From the dialog, choose a category, followed by the page orientation (Landscape/Portrait) and a page size preset.
Adjust the document's settings using the Layout, Colour and Margins tabs. The preset name above the preview window displays an asterisk (*) to indicate the preset has been customised.
The settings will be remembered for future sessions, although you can save the preset to a memorable name for future use.
To create a new preset category:
Click New Category under the presets list.
To save a custom preset:
Click Save Preset As adjacent to the preset name, then save the preset to a name and preset category; use an appropriate icon for the type of preset created.
To overwrite an existing custom preset:
Adjust the preset's settings.
Click Save and Overwrite Current Preset adjacent to the preset name.
To rename or delete a selected preset:
Do one of the following:
Click Rename Preset or Remove Preset under the presets list.
-click on a custom preset and choose Rename or Delete.
If renaming, enter a new name for your preset and click OK.
Document templates
Document templates can be set up to contain reusable text styles, graphics, and layouts, giving you a file that's ready to go from the moment you open it. From the New Document dialog, you can set up your 'target' template folders to save templates to (File>Export as Template), as well as browse, preview and search for existing document templates.
Document from assets
You can create a separate document from an asset in the Assets panel by dragging one onto the Affinity title bar.
Account—registers your app, accesses your Affinity account and synchronises with purchased content.
New—(default) creates new documents based on a supplied preset or a customised preset. The main area of the dialog displays a range of presets, depending on the Preset category chosen.
Open—use to locate and open previously created documents.
Recent—shows recently opened documents, which can be pinned to make them permanently available.
Templates—sets a folder for your templates, and imports additional templates.
Samples—shows sample documents created with the Affinity app.
Landscape / Portrait—select whether to display your document in a landscape or portrait orientation.
Category options—lets you rename or delete the associated category.
Save Preset As—saves a new custom preset to a category.
New Category—creates a new custom preset category.
Rename Preset—renames the currently selected preset.
Remove Preset—deletes the currently selected preset.
For the same margin value: Enable the Link symbol at right, and set any margin value; all other values will update to this.
To overwrite an existing custom preset: