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This technique relies on the power of Symbols to produce a good result with less effort than many other techniques I’ve encountered. First, I need to establish some terminology. Patterns generally have decorative elements displayed against a background. Decorative elements are commonly called “Motifs”. I refer to the background as “Fill”, but that’s probably not the term that professional surface pattern designers use. A motif can be as simple as a single straight line, and a Fill can be as simple as a block of solid color. Patterns are first and foremost about geometry, but that will be a very small part of this article. To keep things simple, I am going to rely on a simple square in a Brick layout. This technique requires a high degree of precision, but there’s no need to calculate where to place any element in your pattern. You need two art boards: a “small” art board where you will do most of the work of assembling your pattern, and a “large” art board where you see your assembled tiled pattern. The large art board is where you extract the repeating tile which gets constructed indirectly. I customarily use art boards dimensioned 9,000px X 9,000px; you can use any units you’re comfortable with - at least until you get to the export persona which has some complications. I’m going to stick to pixels because that simplifies things a bit. Make a new document with two art boards, each 9,000px X 9,000px. Left art board is “Design”, right art board is “Tiled Pattern” On Design art board: We are going to construct a symbol for our motifs. Make a square 4,000px X 4,000px, 1pt stroke (black), no fill, name the layer “Motif”; for now, we want this layer visible. With Motif selected (in Layers), turn it into a symbol using the Symbols panel. For convenience, position your Motif symbol in the centre of the Design art board (use Transform for this). On Tiled Pattern art board: Add one instance of Motif symbol to Tiled Pattern, transform it so it’s top left corner is in the top left corner of the art board. At this stage it should still be 4,000px X 4,000px; change it to 3,000px X 3,000px using Transform, without changing it’s position on the art board. Duplicate Motif twice, arrange the 3 instances in a row so the motifs align corner to corner, giving you a row of 3 Motifs along the top edge of the art board. Duplicate that row twice, and arrange those copies below the first, edge to edge. You should now have 9 Motifs arranged in 3 rows, 3 columns. These two steps require high precision to ensure that each row is straight, each column is straight, and each Motif square meets its neighbours exactly at their corners. Any misalignment will plague you relentlessly. And we’re done with almost all the calculations. Back on Design art board, in the Layers panel, open your Motif symbol so you can see its two layers. ALL your design elements (motifs) must be placed between these two layers; they can (and should) project beyond the edges of the square as required to fulfill your artistic vision. Start by adding motifs one at a time (grab one from the Zoo), and watch your patten assemble itself on the other art board. Reposition elements as required, and watch the other art board update accordingly. To better understand the power of symbols used this way, you should add one motif (small square, circle or similar), and slowly move it into a corner of your Motif symbol, and you’ll see it appear on the opposing edges, all with no calculations to get it there. Any motif that projects beyond the square that is the foundation of the Motif symbol automatically projects into the neighbor/s exactly as required. If you have been doing this by manually creating and positioning the counterpart motif where it should project into the opposite side of the foundation square, this technique obviates the need to do so. Especially in the corners, where it can be very painful. If you place your motifs inside the foundation square, that square will truncate them, and you’ll be back to creating and positioning counterparts manually. But you should try it. When your pattern is complete, it’s time to make that repeating tile. We are going to extract it from the Tiled Pattern art board using the Export Persona. Tap the Tiled Pattern art board so it’s active, switch to the Export Persona, and use the Slice tool to create a slice that aligns exactly with the middle Motif symbol on that art board - same size (3,000px X 3,000px), centered at 4,500px and 4,500px. Give this slice an appropriate name, and export it - just remember to make the foundation square in Motif invisible - otherwise it is going to show up on your tile, and you probably don’t want that. Test your tile in a new document by use the gradient tool to make a fill with your tile as a bitmap image. You can edit your pattern iteratively by adding, repositioning and/or resizing motif elements as required, just be sure to re-export your tile after pattern changes. Make sure your Motif symbols do NOT MOVE, accidentally or on purpose. Some Notes The slice for the repeating tile will be too small if you have motifs that are much larger than the slice. Resize the slice by doubling its dimensions. The Design art board does not provide a background for your motifs. A simple way to create one is to add a square as the last layer on the Tiled Pattern art board, the same size as that art board, and add a fill to your taste. This fill is an integral part of your pattern, so choose appropriately. The attached file has a background as described. The Export Persona has a personality all it’s own, and it can be quite cranky. First of all, there’s no easy way to choose a unit of measure for your slice other than pixels. You can select a different unit when you enter a dimension, but Export converts it to pixels expertly in the blink of an eye. More about Symbols Different instances of same symbol can have their own sizes, orientations and positions, must contain same set of layers. Symbols do not have their own shape or size; they derive those properties as the sum of what they contain. Even though I based my symbols on a square, the symbol’s content can (and does) project beyond the borders of the square. And that’s exactly what you want because that’s what obviates all need to calculate positions for motifs that project beyond the nominal boundaries of the tile you are trying to create. For my sanity, I usually have a dummy layer that signals the bottom of the layer stack in the symbol. For patterns, using a shape like a square enables geometrically correct placement of the symbols on Tiled Pattern; you can make this shape visible or not as appropriate while you edit your pattern. Do not place your motifs inside the base shape of the symbol; if you do that, your motif will be truncated at the boundary, and you will have to add another copy of the motif and put it in the correct position, and you’ll have all your old alignment problems back. Repeating Patterns V2.afdesign

I am trying to create some lined paper where the lines are in landscape orientation. I have created a custom sized page and set up a grid and guidelines. I want to have two columns of lines with a deeper space at the top of the page for a heading and a white space in between these columns. I have read several tutorials on this topic where the suggestion is to create two lines of the proper length, at the proper distance apart, then to select them and hit Command J to repeat these lines across the page. When I do this, the lines seem to stack up on each other and not move. If I try to drag them across the page, they don't always move the proper distance even though I have created a grid and enabled the Snap tool. Since I'm creating narrow lines, it's very time consuming to create the lines and space them. The command for vertically spacing the lines an equal distance apart also seems not to be working. I've set this project up in Affinity Publisher (V2.2.1) so that I can have a master page and be able to create subsequent pages of the same type. It's clear I'm doing something wrong but I can't figure out what. I'd be grateful for some help on how to create the lines I need for my project. Thanks in advance.