Astropad Studio and Affinity Designer

Setting Up Affinity Designer with Astropad Studio

Affinity Designer is a powerful app that lets you create both vector and raster artwork in one place. Whether you're designing a poster or editing a photo, you can do it all without switching programs. This quick guide walks through how to set up an efficient workspace when using Affinity Designer with Astropad Studio.

Workspace and Panel Layout

By default, Affinity Designer places the tool panel on the left and other panels (like Color, Layers, and Brushes) on the right. These can be grouped, separated, or moved anywhere on the screen to fit your workflow.

You can choose to keep your tools on one side or spread them across the canvas.

For more flexibility, go to Window and enable Separated Mode. This lets you float every panel and toolbar independently, giving you more control over your canvas space and layout.

Astropad Studio works with any panel arrangement. You can position the Studio sidebar on the left or right, or hide it by tapping the red ring button on your iPad.

Customizing Shortcuts

Astropad Studio uses default shortcut settings, so you’ll want to customize them for Affinity Designer. To do this, open the Workspace sidebar, then tap Edit Shortcuts near the bottom. You can rename and adjust all shortcut buttons from there.

Note that Affinity Designer uses Personas (Draw Persona, Pixel Persona, Export Persona), and some shortcuts only work within the right Persona.

Recommended sidebar shortcuts:

• B – Brush Tool
• P – Pen Tool
• M – Ellipse Tool
• A – Node Tool
• V – Move Tool
• Option Command N – New Layer
• Command ] – Layer Up
• Command [ – Layer Down

Suggested Magic Gestures:

• Hover
• Eraser
• Shift
• Undo
• Redo

Touch Gestures for Panning and Zooming

Astropad supports two-finger gestures for panning and zooming in Affinity Designer. Pinch to zoom and swipe with two fingers to pan. This lets you keep your canvas clear by hiding scrollbars.

Enabling Pen Pressure

To turn on pressure sensitivity for Apple Pencil, open brush settings by tapping the More button next to Opacity. From there:

Enable the Pressure checkbox and adjust the size variance to control stroke width. Then, in the top menu, find Controller and set it to Pressure.

Using Astropad Standard

If you're using Astropad Standard, here are a few differences to note:

• Undo (Command Z) and Redo (Shift Command Z) will need to be customized in the Shortcuts sidebar.
• The Eraser shortcut (E) only works in Pixel Persona.