New from Clipboard issue (AD)

[Paul Mc]

(This maybe related to the question posed in this post 

)

I have a Designer file with this setup

When I make the mask visible everything looks correct and the image is (visually) cropped as expected.

If I then select the group (or all) and choose New from Clipboard from the menu I get this as the result

I can see why there is all the space around the selected area but I could do with it not being there as the exported images also include it.

Tweaking the Document Setup (eventually) will let me export what I want, all the other options seem to rely on hand-eye coordination to get close which doesn't feel satisfactory.

Is there any way to have the New Document set to the size of the visible selection?

[Alfred]

I can’t see any way to achieve this without applying the ‘Expand Stroke’ command to the Curve layer and then intersecting the resultant Curves layer with the rectangle (which severely limits your subsequent editing options, of course).

[Move Along People]

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[Paul Mc]

I've since figured out that locking the group and then dragging an artboard from one corner of the mask to the other will allow me to export the rectangular masked shapes. Thankfully these are the majority. For the others I think I'm going to have to save a second uncropped version and just rasterise and crop whenever they are needed.

 

[Paul Mc]

Just now, haakoo said:

clip

That sounds like clip bait!  Please would you expand?

[Move Along People]

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[Alfred]

12 minutes ago, haakoo said:

clip

Why didn’t I think of that??

[Paul Mc]

@haakoo Clipping doesn't work in the same way as masking. I can't take a mask and turn it into a clipping rectangle and obtain the same results without a lot more work.

I should probably explain that this job involves extracting elements from several PDF files and saving them as vector and transparent PNGs for use on a website. The PDF import already sets up the groups and masks. The PDF obviously includes extra geometry that you wouldn't normally see when perusing the file in Reader but when importing and trying to export like this it shows up and causes this boundary problem.

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, Paul Mc said:

I can't take a mask and turn it into a clipping rectangle and obtain the same results without a lot more work.

What unwanted side effects do you have to fight against?

[Move Along People]

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[Paul Mc]

44 minutes ago, haakoo said:

Nice to have had this info upfront 😕
 

Sorry.

[Paul Mc]

52 minutes ago, Alfred said:

What unwanted side effects do you have to fight against?

If I start with this one (sorry, I deleted the previous one I used earlier - I can't show the real thing because of client confidentiality).

So I release the mask, move the elements that were inside the mask to now be inside the new object which acts as a clipping region, ensuring that they go in the correct order.

I end up with this:

I can see how in certain instances this might work but it is not a repeatable workflow for all the case I may come up against. In this case I then need to make the clipping object transparent and even then the extent of the new document includes clip area even though the visible content doesn't fill it.

This is all extra work - lots more steps which means more chance of mistakes being made. The artboard approach isn't ideal but it works repeatedly and as I've quite of few of these to do it makes the most sense at the moment.

Ideally there would be an option under New From Clipboard to size the document to the visible elements rather than the whole geometry - after all the bounding box of the selection can show it when you do the copy.  Even better, Document Setup could include a button to resize to visible elements - which could then be attached to a hotkey.