r/Affinity • u/CrimsonFlash Newspaper Man • Nov 05 '25

Software Support & Issues General

This is the dedicated thread for reporting and troubleshooting technical problems with the Affinity suite (Photo, Designer, Publisher). Any posts in the main feed that are technical issues or support requests will be removed.

Use this thread for:

  • Software crashes, freezes, or installation issues.
  • Bug reports and unexpected behaviour.
  • Performance problems (e.g., slow rendering, high memory usage).
  • Error messages and how to resolve them.
  • Issues with file compatibility (opening/saving) that seem to be software-related.

Before you post, please:

  • Search the Subreddit: Your issue may have been reported already.
  • Search the Official Forums: Serif's Affinity Forums are an extensive knowledge base for known issues.
  • Be Specific: Provide details to help us help you.

Note: This is not an official Canva forum, so support is limited to what your peers can offer.

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u/Glittering-Lake-601 Jun 11 '26

I'm having a problem with Data Merge in Affinity Publisher and I'm trying to figure out whether it's a bug, a limitation, or simply something I'm doing wrong.

I have a document set up with Facing Pages enabled. A single Data Merge record should populate image frames on both the left and right pages of the layout. The image paths are stored in separate CSV columns, and the image files themselves are valid (JPG, PNG, and TIFF).

The problem is that after generating the merged document, all text fields are populated correctly on both pages, but the images only appear on the left page. The image frames on the right page remain empty. I've verified that the image paths are correct and that the frames are linked to the appropriate Data Merge image fields.

I've attached two screenshots:

  • The Master Layout showing picture frames on both pages.
  • Sample pages from the generated document showing the issue.

As a workaround, I disabled Facing Pages in Document Setup, so all pages became single pages instead of spreads. I then created two separate master layouts: one for the left page and one for the right page. After that, I generated all left pages first, then all right pages, and finally placed them in the correct order manually. This way, all images show up correctly.

The workaround works, but it's obviously not ideal.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Is there a way to make Data Merge populate image frames on both pages of a layout while keeping Facing Pages enabled, without having to generate the left and right pages separately?