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This is bad news. The Affinity offers a genuine and very high class alternative to the Adobe suite. Its HDRI workflow is league ahead of anything else. As for

by Daub 3y ago

This is bad news. The Affinity offers a genuine and very high class alternative to the Adobe suite. Its HDRI workflow is league ahead of anything else. As for Canva, all I can say is that I downgrade any student who makes their research slides using this dumb service. The slides are template-driven horror with each exported pdf slide being rasterized pngs: stupidly large files with text that is impossible to select and copy.

blowski 3y ago
> I downgrade any student who makes their research slides using this dumb service I really hope you’re exaggerating
- edu 3y ago
  From another comment, he teaches design. As a designer, I find it’s legit to downgrade a design student for using Canva.
  - shufflerofrocks 3y ago
    That's important context then. Using Canva for a design assignment is obviously a mis-step by the student, not a flaw of the tool itself For short-term & quick usage, canva is a perfectly fine tool for editing/formatting stuff
  - blowski 3y ago
    On what basis? Is Canva somehow cheating? I don't know, as I'm not a designer in any way.
    - GlacierFox 3y ago
      Yes.
      - chrisoconnell 3y ago
        Explain why it's cheating? I'm a designer. I have been for over a decade. I don't use Canva, but I use Sketch, Figma, etc., and create templates or utilize templates made by others as starting places. How is Canva any different than this? Part of design is being able to recognize what good design is, and utilizing the tools available to you. If Canva get the job done, and looks good, and has been sufficiently modified to meet the specified criteria supplied in the assignment or spec, how is it cheating? The only way I could see is if they didn't modify the slides and part of the assignment was to create a unique branded slide presentation and they just used an out of the box design. In which case, no design work was done. Someone shouldn't be penalized for the outcome based on the tools utilized unless the spec specifically excludes it. It's like telling a clothing e-commerce company that they shouldn't use Shopify. If the work is done, why waste your time building an e-commerce site from scratch if it meets the specified need? Canva is a great tool, and saves my clients thousands of dollars, while I get to avoid doing the completely mind numbing process of working in PowerPoint or designing social media posts. It's a win/win.
        _xivi 3y ago
        > Explain why it's cheating? how would you feel about a student presenting stock images in a photography class? > I use Sketch, Figma, etc., and create templates or utilize templates made by others as starting places. Working professionaly has a different objective than school assignments. I think the distinction is very clear on many levels. Also, students using blatant off-the-shelf templates is very different professionals using templates "as starting place". > If Canva get the job done, and looks good, and has been sufficiently modified to meet the specified criteria supplied in the assignment or spec, how is it cheating? Well, that's not the case here. OP has explained that the design students in question aren't even using their low-effort canva templates right and exporting them as flattened pdf. It's very unlikely those who are this sloppy and careless have put any attention to the assignment or polishing other areas. The key point is you can't delegate the main task. To use your Shopify example, if you enrolled in a "Web development using nodejs" class, and presented a premade shopify website that you purchased in a couple of clicks, the instructor won't be impressed, less so when you tell them you did it in 5 minutes "why waste time". If that's the student goal, fine, but they are in the wrong classes.
hhh 3y ago
Why would you downgrade a student based on the tool they use to create their presentations instead of the content itself?
- ttoinou 3y ago
  Because they made a bad tool choice for their own convenience ? That leads here to big images and unselectable text, no accessibility.
  - Daub 3y ago
    Exactly: large files, ugly slides (I teach design) and impossible to select text. The template driven nature on Canva also makes it really hard for them to learn multi page layouts and structured documentation. The one thing in its favour is that it supports collaboration.
  - upsuper 3y ago
    In Canva we do care about accessibility. While I admit our editor may still have a long way to go on providing an accessible editing experience, unselectable text in export result is more likely an overlooked bug than anything intentional.
    - skeeter2020 3y ago
      And if you're coming from the Affinity side, don't worry your new corporate overlords DO care about people, and employees are their #1 priority </empty_talk>
      - compootr 3y ago
        > #1 priority sorry $MEGACORP, but the employees never actually mattered to you. it's all money. every company wants money.
- Terretta 3y ago
  Tapping into both my own uni graphics design and a past life as senior exec at a mega corp: because designers that use bad tools to make unusable presentations are failing "you had one job", to make something presentable across the variety of business modalities. Being able to email the presentation and copy text from it are generally more important to communications impact and utility in the workplace than how it looks. Being aware what your tool does to the presentation is part of the job you're learning in school.
skrebbel 3y ago
Wow sucks to be your student
goralph 3y ago
You don’t sound like a good educator. Perhaps withhold your personal and subjective gripes for the sake of your students
- rjzzleep 3y ago
  He does explain the rationale though. They’re both things I didn’t know about canva generated files. Makes sense for them to do that I guess, it means you won’t be able to reuse any of their stuff outside of their platform.
- neurostimulant 3y ago
  Telling their students to avoid locking down their works inside a subscription-based service is good imo.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bgirard 3y ago
    It's good advice sure. But downgrading their work, no. Unless you have explicit requirements that aren't met like your text being selectable, downgrading work because you have a prejudice against an authoring tool isn't cool. What if another educator has an issue with Power Point, and another with Sheets. Should students have to match their authoring tool with their educators for each lesson? Students are there to learn, no to cater to your preferences.
    - ipaddr 3y ago
      School is about learning to give information in the format requested. When you reach the real world these lessons are the important ones.
      - user_7832 3y ago
        What you're saying makes sense... if the OP explicitly tells the students to make their work available in a shareable and copyable format. The vast majority of presentations in schools don't live beyond the moment the presentation is finished.
Marciplan 3y ago
you don’t sound like a good educator
madjam002 3y ago
I feel sorry for your students. PS Canva can export PDFs with vector graphics
cangeroo 3y ago
You're a great educator! I'm surprised that other people here cannot separate their subjective opinions, whether they agree with your judgment, from fact, whether you're a good educator. It would be more reasonable to say: A good educator would help students understand that PDF files should have a small file size, and if a student fails to notice that, you will have to downgrade them for lack of attention to important detail. And, of course the acquisition is bad news. Americans are the only people I've encountered that seem to celebrate the dystopian monopolized unfree market that we're headed towards. Although I wouldn't be surprised if Canva has people to distort social media to downvote anyone who disagrees with them, as other companies do.
- blowski 3y ago
  If the course makes it clear that grading is affected by accessibility and efficiency of file size, and then submitted work ignores those factors - regardless of Canva being used - then downgrading it is justified. Perhaps it’s obvious to designers that Canva has these problems, but to a non-designer like myself, the comment sounds like snobbery, with students’ grades affected by the capricious whims of their teacher. > I wouldn't be surprised if Canva has people to distort social media to downvote anyone who disagrees with them Snide remarks about astroturfing are also off topic here.
  - huntedsnark 3y ago
    > Snide remarks about astroturfing are also off topic here. How is that off topic when there are literally people in this thread from Canva arguing the framing and not the main point he made? Everything you disagree with isn't off topic.
upsuper 3y ago
Hello, I'm an engineer in Canva's editing team, which is also responsible for rendering of designs. Text in our PDF export should generally be selectable and copyable. I just tested one presentation template I recently used, and it is indeed so. I know there were bugs forcing text to be rasterized in certain cases, mostly related to text effects. To my knowledge, they should have been worked around by adding a layer of transparent text on top. If you know any design that produces PDF file where text becomes not selectable, that might be a bug, and it would be appreciated if you can provide more details so that we can investigate and possibly fix.
- nrml_amnt 3y ago
  I love HN.
  - graypegg 3y ago
    "I wish the Xs at Y would make Y do Z" > "Hi, I'm a X from Y. Y already does Z. I did that last Tuesday." Always my favourite genre of interactions on this site.
  - layer8 3y ago
    There should be no need for HN to provide this kind of support channel. It exhibits how things don’t work.
    - thiht 3y ago
      It's not support at all in this case, don't mix everything. Someone says something wrong about a product you're literally working on, there's nothing wrong in responding.
    - dev_tty01 3y ago
      You are assuming the parent poster actually attempted to go through support and work through the issue. I don't see indication of that. If anything, this thread indicates to me that many people form an opinion of a product and never seek support or never seek to revisit the issue and see if it has been fixed.

by Daub 3y ago

blowski 3y ago

> I downgrade any student who makes their research slides using this dumb service I really hope you’re exaggerating

edu 3y ago
From another comment, he teaches design. As a designer, I find it’s legit to downgrade a design student for using Canva.
- shufflerofrocks 3y ago
  That's important context then. Using Canva for a design assignment is obviously a mis-step by the student, not a flaw of the tool itself For short-term & quick usage, canva is a perfectly fine tool for editing/formatting stuff
- blowski 3y ago
  On what basis? Is Canva somehow cheating? I don't know, as I'm not a designer in any way.
  - GlacierFox 3y ago
    Yes.
    - chrisoconnell 3y ago
      Explain why it's cheating? I'm a designer. I have been for over a decade. I don't use Canva, but I use Sketch, Figma, etc., and create templates or utilize templates made by others as starting places. How is Canva any different than this? Part of design is being able to recognize what good design is, and utilizing the tools available to you. If Canva get the job done, and looks good, and has been sufficiently modified to meet the specified criteria supplied in the assignment or spec, how is it cheating? The only way I could see is if they didn't modify the slides and part of the assignment was to create a unique branded slide presentation and they just used an out of the box design. In which case, no design work was done. Someone shouldn't be penalized for the outcome based on the tools utilized unless the spec specifically excludes it. It's like telling a clothing e-commerce company that they shouldn't use Shopify. If the work is done, why waste your time building an e-commerce site from scratch if it meets the specified need? Canva is a great tool, and saves my clients thousands of dollars, while I get to avoid doing the completely mind numbing process of working in PowerPoint or designing social media posts. It's a win/win.
      - _xivi 3y ago
        > Explain why it's cheating? how would you feel about a student presenting stock images in a photography class? > I use Sketch, Figma, etc., and create templates or utilize templates made by others as starting places. Working professionaly has a different objective than school assignments. I think the distinction is very clear on many levels. Also, students using blatant off-the-shelf templates is very different professionals using templates "as starting place". > If Canva get the job done, and looks good, and has been sufficiently modified to meet the specified criteria supplied in the assignment or spec, how is it cheating? Well, that's not the case here. OP has explained that the design students in question aren't even using their low-effort canva templates right and exporting them as flattened pdf. It's very unlikely those who are this sloppy and careless have put any attention to the assignment or polishing other areas. The key point is you can't delegate the main task. To use your Shopify example, if you enrolled in a "Web development using nodejs" class, and presented a premade shopify website that you purchased in a couple of clicks, the instructor won't be impressed, less so when you tell them you did it in 5 minutes "why waste time". If that's the student goal, fine, but they are in the wrong classes.

hhh 3y ago

Why would you downgrade a student based on the tool they use to create their presentations instead of the content itself?

ttoinou 3y ago
Because they made a bad tool choice for their own convenience ? That leads here to big images and unselectable text, no accessibility.
- Daub 3y ago
  Exactly: large files, ugly slides (I teach design) and impossible to select text. The template driven nature on Canva also makes it really hard for them to learn multi page layouts and structured documentation. The one thing in its favour is that it supports collaboration.
- upsuper 3y ago
  In Canva we do care about accessibility. While I admit our editor may still have a long way to go on providing an accessible editing experience, unselectable text in export result is more likely an overlooked bug than anything intentional.
  - skeeter2020 3y ago
    And if you're coming from the Affinity side, don't worry your new corporate overlords DO care about people, and employees are their #1 priority </empty_talk>
    - compootr 3y ago
      > #1 priority sorry $MEGACORP, but the employees never actually mattered to you. it's all money. every company wants money.
Terretta 3y ago
Tapping into both my own uni graphics design and a past life as senior exec at a mega corp: because designers that use bad tools to make unusable presentations are failing "you had one job", to make something presentable across the variety of business modalities. Being able to email the presentation and copy text from it are generally more important to communications impact and utility in the workplace than how it looks. Being aware what your tool does to the presentation is part of the job you're learning in school.

skrebbel 3y ago

Wow sucks to be your student

goralph 3y ago

You don’t sound like a good educator. Perhaps withhold your personal and subjective gripes for the sake of your students

rjzzleep 3y ago
He does explain the rationale though. They’re both things I didn’t know about canva generated files. Makes sense for them to do that I guess, it means you won’t be able to reuse any of their stuff outside of their platform.
neurostimulant 3y ago
Telling their students to avoid locking down their works inside a subscription-based service is good imo.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bgirard 3y ago
  It's good advice sure. But downgrading their work, no. Unless you have explicit requirements that aren't met like your text being selectable, downgrading work because you have a prejudice against an authoring tool isn't cool. What if another educator has an issue with Power Point, and another with Sheets. Should students have to match their authoring tool with their educators for each lesson? Students are there to learn, no to cater to your preferences.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    School is about learning to give information in the format requested. When you reach the real world these lessons are the important ones.
    - user_7832 3y ago
      What you're saying makes sense... if the OP explicitly tells the students to make their work available in a shareable and copyable format. The vast majority of presentations in schools don't live beyond the moment the presentation is finished.

Marciplan 3y ago

you don’t sound like a good educator

madjam002 3y ago

I feel sorry for your students. PS Canva can export PDFs with vector graphics

cangeroo 3y ago

You're a great educator! I'm surprised that other people here cannot separate their subjective opinions, whether they agree with your judgment, from fact, whether you're a good educator. It would be more reasonable to say: A good educator would help students understand that PDF files should have a small file size, and if a student fails to notice that, you will have to downgrade them for lack of attention to important detail. And, of course the acquisition is bad news. Americans are the only people I've encountered that seem to celebrate the dystopian monopolized unfree market that we're headed towards. Although I wouldn't be surprised if Canva has people to distort social media to downvote anyone who disagrees with them, as other companies do.

blowski 3y ago
If the course makes it clear that grading is affected by accessibility and efficiency of file size, and then submitted work ignores those factors - regardless of Canva being used - then downgrading it is justified. Perhaps it’s obvious to designers that Canva has these problems, but to a non-designer like myself, the comment sounds like snobbery, with students’ grades affected by the capricious whims of their teacher. > I wouldn't be surprised if Canva has people to distort social media to downvote anyone who disagrees with them Snide remarks about astroturfing are also off topic here.
- huntedsnark 3y ago
  > Snide remarks about astroturfing are also off topic here. How is that off topic when there are literally people in this thread from Canva arguing the framing and not the main point he made? Everything you disagree with isn't off topic.

upsuper 3y ago

Hello, I'm an engineer in Canva's editing team, which is also responsible for rendering of designs. Text in our PDF export should generally be selectable and copyable. I just tested one presentation template I recently used, and it is indeed so. I know there were bugs forcing text to be rasterized in certain cases, mostly related to text effects. To my knowledge, they should have been worked around by adding a layer of transparent text on top. If you know any design that produces PDF file where text becomes not selectable, that might be a bug, and it would be appreciated if you can provide more details so that we can investigate and possibly fix.

nrml_amnt 3y ago
I love HN.
- graypegg 3y ago
  "I wish the Xs at Y would make Y do Z" > "Hi, I'm a X from Y. Y already does Z. I did that last Tuesday." Always my favourite genre of interactions on this site.
- layer8 3y ago
  There should be no need for HN to provide this kind of support channel. It exhibits how things don’t work.
  - thiht 3y ago
    It's not support at all in this case, don't mix everything. Someone says something wrong about a product you're literally working on, there's nothing wrong in responding.
  - dev_tty01 3y ago
    You are assuming the parent poster actually attempted to go through support and work through the issue. I don't see indication of that. If anything, this thread indicates to me that many people form an opinion of a product and never seek support or never seek to revisit the issue and see if it has been fixed.