Overview
This guide provides a walkthrough of the Affinity Designer for iPad interface, highlighting key tabs, tools, workspaces (Personas), and navigation features essential for effective document creation and editing.
Home Screen and Navigation
- The home screen shows the “Liv dos” tab with current documents as large thumbnails.
- Tabs on the side offer options for creating new documents, browsing files, accessing templates, lessons, help resources, account info, and app settings.
- Users can create new documents from scratch, clipboard, or templates, and organize them into projects.
- The “Open” tab connects to your file browser for accessing existing documents.
- “Lessons” tab provides sample files and educational resources.
- The “Help” tab offers documentation, quick start, and update information.
- Account and settings tabs provide license, version, add-ons, and customizable app preferences.
Document View and Tools
- Opening a document presents it in the workspace center, known as the document view.
- The left-side tools panel contains creation tools like pen, pencil, and shape tools, with groupings indicated by small gray triangles.
- The move tool is primarily used for selecting and moving objects.
- Use the X icon to deselect and the bin icon to delete objects or layers.
- Two-finger gestures enable panning and zooming, while the top zoom button fits the document to the view.
Personas (Workspaces)
- Designer Persona: Default mode for vector art creation, ideal for logos and illustrations.
- Pixel Persona: Switches workspace to raster tools like paintbrush and eraser, suited for texture-rich art and photo edits.
- Export Persona: Allows precise export of document areas via slices, enabling multiple simultaneous exports.
Top Toolbar Features
- Document Menu: Access document settings, print/export, place images, and manage artboards.
- Command Controller: Provides quick access to tool modifiers (Shift, Command, Option, Control) and can be repositioned.
- Edit Menu: Offers clipboard, conversion, insertion, and fill mode options.
- Context Toolbar: Dynamic tool-specific settings (e.g., stroke, font, formatting, stabilizers).
- Magnifying glass and zoom preset menu for document scaling.
- Preview Mode: Temporarily hide guides, margins, and bleeds.
- Snapping Tools: Enable object alignment and offer customizable options.
- Hui Icon: Hides all panels for maximum workspace area.
Right-Side Panels (Studio)
- Color panel for choosing stroke/fill colors.
- Layers panel for managing document objects.
- Adjustments panel for editing visual properties.
- Transform, Navigator, and History panels for layout control and undo history.
- Help button for instant tooltips and feature explanations.
Quick Menu
- Long-press the document view or swipe down with three fingers to access a menu of commonly used commands.