If you import the dorico pages as an svg then you can readjust each element without outlining. (Although I suppose an svg is just a set of outlining instructions anyway… lol)
Which, as an aside, I’ve noticed that font weights are not respected when importing svgs. The font itself will remain, but only the default weight.
I just had the first occasion of importing a PDF into Affinity 1.9 and the passthrough feature seemed to work well. I’ve had to do major intervention to any pdf I’ve tried in the past (or more typically, revert to SVG as PDF failed miserably). Today’s PDF opened right up, completely correct in every respect. I was able to nudge a few things and add a few other elements and save, all as a PDF without any error. Hooray!
I’ll confirm yet again that I’ve been doing some worship aid design and including PDF’s that would ordinarily cause problems in the files and they are coming out perfectly. Word to the wise though: there is something odd, at least for me when I print directly from within AP: if I do things come out fuzzy as AP seems to transmit the image preview of the PDF to the printer rather than the actual vector information, but if I export the PDF and then print from acrobat it’s completely crisp. A bit annoying but I can live with it.
In the case of the attached worship aid for this week (11x17 trifold), all the square note notation is from a 3rd party CC-licensed PDF. The other engravings are mine. All the PDF’s placed within this file render and print perfectly.
6th Sunday in OT (B).pdf (639.4 KB)
This is a beautiful piece of work. I hope it is appreciated on Sunday.
Thank you so much. I try really hard to put beautiful worship aids in the hands of the parishioners. Sometimes I wonder if I put in too much effort… but at least I can be proud of my work.
No! Mark 14:3-6
Affinity publisher is great! They have a wonderful book, which fits all professional needs!!
Dan, my alternative may sound crazy 
but I only use Pages on my macOS.
I prefer Ecclesiastes 12:12.
“And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end.”