Designer print grid

[Silver06]

Hi,

If I use a grid adjusted to my requirements in designer and place content in it, can I also print the grid lines in black.

Thanks

[thomaso]

If you create the grid with line or shape objects they will export and print in their color. – If they are guides created with the "Guides Manager..." or the "Grid and Axis Manager..." they won't print or export.

[Silver06]

Thanks,

I was using the Grid and Axis Manager, which means I would need to draw shapes and lines over the grid. It would be good to have an option to make them printable in the future.

Thanks again for the speedy reply.

 

[Dennis R]

Any progress on being able to print grids? I design needlepoint charts and this is really an essential feature. 

[wonderings]

I would suggest at the moment that you make your grid with lines, draw them, space them as needed and then lock them in the background. This would give you control over the colour and stroke weight of the grids as well. Unfortunately there is no step and repeat options yet so it could be tedious unless someone has a way of doing something similar to step and repeat with a different tool in the app. 

If you google needlepoint charts you will find a lot of ready made templates out there that you could use as well. Just place in Affinity, send to back, lock it, and start working. 

[Aammppaa]

25 minutes ago, wonderings said:

there is no step and repeat options yet

Look at Power Duplicate…

https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/ObjectControl/duplicate.html?title=Duplicating objects

https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/designer/desktop/video/301626751/

Drawing a grid only takes a few seconds.

 

[thomaso]

29 minutes ago, wonderings said:

there is no step and repeat options yet so it could be tedious

"Yes, we can": Just...

1. Select an object.
2. Move it in the wanted direction (and maybe distance)
3. Press Cmd-J
4. Repeat step 3.

Additionally/optionally you could...

... select 10 objects before using Cmd-J, which would result in 10 copies.
... use the Align feature to adjust the distances.

[Dennis R]

Tedious is an understatement, as the grids are typically 300+ x 300+ threads, much greater for larger pieces.   
 

i will try the “duplicate” suggestion though I’m not confident. 
another suggestion regarding placing a graph I find elsewhere as the lowest layer and locking it sounds a bit more promising.

 

i don’t want  to spend lots of time building the tools I need. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Dennis R
Adding more info

[thomaso]

24 minutes ago, Dennis R said:

Tedious is an understatement, as the grids are typically 300+ x 300+ threads, much greater for larger pieces.

But you would do it only once and use this as template, wouldn't you?

Another workaround could be a table object, which enables you to set the numbers and sizes numerical.
But it might not be faster and may demand waiting to get it rendered on screen. Make sure to have "Show Special Characters" deactivated.

[Dennis R]

Thomaso... You’re correct that if I can make it once, then I can reuse it.  I’ve tried to recreate your example On my iPad, but could not find “table object” and wonder if it exists in the iOS version that I am using?  If it’s there, I can’t find it.    I’m waiting for a new iPad Pro , which will be my device for design.

[thomaso]

> could not find “table object” 

Oh, you are correct, too. When mentioning the table I hadn't in mind that this topic asks for the Designer app. Tables are a tool in Publisher only. – Sorry!

[firstdefence]

@Silver06 Try this for grid creation: https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/ exports to PDF

Example export: plain-2.pdf

[Dennis R]

I don’t know much about this program yet, but I was able to  use your advice and the tools.  THANK YOU!

[Chris Jupp]

One thing I did today, in a pinch, is took a screen grab of the background with the grid (Print Screen on PC) after I hid the other layers, imported the screen grab and cropped it. I changed the opacity to 50% to line it up to the Affinity grid & saved it as a new layer. I originally created a custom grid to show scale and sizing, to realize at the end that I couldn’t print the grid. This was a quick fix without having to draw anything. In my case, a few pixels could’ve made a big difference so I didn’t want to risk it or waste the time drawing the grid. 

[p_mac]

Grid Scale = 1".zipI also needed a printable grid so I made one based on 

Here is the full file, hope that it uploads correctly.  It was made on Affinity Photo, last release, not the Beta.

Grid Scale = 1".zip

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by p_mac
try to upload file again

[p_mac]

I see that the file did not upload properly.  If anyone has an idea why please let me know.  

 

I think that it is working now.

Edited January 8, 2021 by p_mac

[Peter_]

Aye caramba!

I am trying to move from "Graphic" which has a lousy text implementation. BUT, in the print dialog that pops up, there is an option to print the grid! TOO easy. I'm going back to that to make it infinitely easier to print the grid. I need it most of the time for spacing objects.

PLEASE, Please, please add that function!

 

Graphic also allows the grid to start anywhere in the file, so one can have a grid 25 pixels from left, right, top and bottom. Perfect! No other app I've found does this! I wish they'd update it!

 

Another problem: I pasted a far too large image into a file. I then shift-dragged to get the size down to what I want, but you don'y support proportional dragging to size! Everyone else does that, why not Designer?

Edited May 12, 2021 by Peter_

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Peter_ said:

Another problem: I pasted a far too large image into a file. I then shift-dragged to get the size down to what I want, but you don'y support proportional dragging to size! Everyone else does that, why not Designer?

In Preferences > Tools you have a choice of how the Move tool aspect ratio constraint work. If you set it to do not constrain by default then shift-dragging will resize proportionally; if set to constrain by default there is no need to use shift to resize proportionally. The automatic setting constrains items considered to have a 'natural' aspect ratio (like pixel layers) but not those that are not, like vector shapes.

[Yogi9409]

Why, why, why have Affinity not included the facility to make a PRINTABLE GRID?  I have to go back to the old SerifDrawPlus to make it and them import it.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Yogi9409 said:

Why, why, why have Affinity not included the facility to make a PRINTABLE GRID?  I have to go back to the old SerifDrawPlus to make it and them import it.

You can make a printable grids using Pen Tool lines & power duplicate. Save them as Assets to reuse them in different projects.

[Gioia]

On 5/7/2020 at 12:34 PM, Dennis R said:

Tedious is an understatement, as the grids are typically 300+ x 300+ threads, much greater for larger pieces.   
 

i will try the “duplicate” suggestion though I’m not confident. 
another suggestion regarding placing a graph I find elsewhere as the lowest layer and locking it sounds a bit more promising.

 

i don’t want  to spend lots of time building the tools I need. 

Agreed. It feels especially tedious since the grid is already there from Grid & Axis Manager. And no, I don't believe it's good enough to add a grid as an image. You can't customize the grid for exact dimensions. Pen tool lines then Copy and paste are what I would expect from lesser programs and I am really liking my change from Adobe CS to Affinity.

Please, Affinity, add the ability to print with grid to this feature. Thank you!