Affinity Designer: Easy way to crop the canvas?

[TheK]

Hi there,

I've got a rather simple question, I think, but I didn't find any answer to it in the manual, the forums or through Google. Is there any tool to crop or cut the canvas of a Designer document like with the Cut tool in Photo? I know I can change the canvas size numerically in the document settings but this is really a hassle. I always need to estimate the number of pixels to be cut away on each axis on the ruler and sometimes need to move my objects to a corner to cut just one side or even use the numeric resize function twice, if I don't want to crop the canvas symmetrically. Did I miss any easy option to cut the canvas to the desired crop area?

Thank you for any hints.

Ralph

[GarryP]

What do you want to do with the cropped result?
Also, do you want what’s cropped out to still exist or do you want a destructive crop?

[TheK]

Usually, I want to export the file to an image file with more or less border space. 

Frankly, I don't care if the cropped parts are deleted or not. 

[GarryP]

One of the easiest ways to export a rectangular area of your document in Designer is via a Slice in the Export Persona.
Have you tried that? If you have, and it doesn’t do what you want, what doesn’t it do that you want it to?

[TheK]

Hi Garry,

Thank you, indeed that does the trick. It's a bit more effort since the scaling needs to be done in a less comfortable fashion in the slice panel than with the export dialogue, but it's better than numerically resizing the canvas. However, a cut tool would be very handy. I've seen that it was already on the roadmap in April last year. It's a shame that it didn't make it in Rel. 1.8

Anyway, thank you very much again!

Ralph 

[GarryP]

You’re welcome.
As for the scaling, I don’t know what’s the best workflow for you but did you know that you can enter things like 100w (100 pixels width), or 2x (twice the size) into a text field within the Slices panel? See the attached image. You don’t have to just accept what’s in the drop down, you can type your own requirements into the field.
This way you can drag the slice over whatever you want to export and tell Designer to make the export for that slice 340 pixels in height (340h), for example. This can be very handy and you can have multiple exports per slice for different purposes, e.g. thumbnails, etc.

[TheK]

Hi Garry, 

Yes, I've figured that out on my own. That's what I meant. I think this isn't as comfortable as in the export dialogue, which I can access via shortcuts and use through keyboard entries only. To open up the slice and edit the fields below in the panel is by far less comfortable, but it works. Sometimes I create several images in one file and for multiple exports it's a question of what is less hassle - the uncomfortable numeric canvas cutting or the uncomfortable slice panel export.

Ralph

[Palatino]

Maybe like this?

[TheK]

Ah, genial, vielen Dank, das hat mich auf die richtige Spur gebracht. Noch besser für mich klappt tatsächlich das ArtBoard-Werkzeug (das zweite von oben). Ich dachte mir doch, dass ich eine sehr einfache Option übersehen haben muss. Top! Danke noch mal.