How to export SVG with specific artboard dimensions

[Stephen Ball]

Hi there.  I am new to Affinity Designer, and am reviewing it as a potential product we will use for our company.  So I am putting it through its paces.  So far so good!  I presently use Illustrator, so I apologize if I use the wrong terminology!

One thing I am stuck on is the following.  I often need to export some vector images with specific artboard dimensions.  For example, I have a graphic which is designed to fit on a 10.7"x 1.6" surface.  With illustrator, I would make the artboard size as just described, and then I would fit my graphics inside as needed.  Then I could export to various formats with the artboard size dimensions intact.

To test this out with Affinity, I created a document as descried above.  When I export as PDF, PNG, etc, the artboard size is as expected.  When I export to SVG, I get similar results EXCEPT when I try to open that SVG file in Illustrator.  If I re-open in Affinity designer, the artboard has the expected dimensions.  When I open in Illustrator, the artboard size defaults to 8.5"x11".  Perhaps this is an Illustrator import bug?  Is there something I can do to improve this?

One vendor that I deal with accepts SVG and AI files, but uses Illustrator to do the work.  So I want to make sure that they are opening the size artboard that I intended.

Thanks in advance for your help and advice!

[stokerg]

Hi @Stephen Ball and Welcome to the Forums,

On the Export window can you click on the More button and try unticking Set Viewbox, then export as normal and try opening that file in AI and see if its the correct size.

[Stephen Ball]

On 11/18/2020 at 5:30 AM, stokerg said:

Hi @Stephen Ball and Welcome to the Forums,

On the Export window can you click on the More button and try unticking Set Viewbox, then export as normal and try opening that file in AI and see if its the correct size.

Hi Stokerg

Thanks for the suggestion.  We're one step closer...  I was able to open in AI and the artboard was the correct dimension proportionally (the artboard size was about 4x larger).  This is something I could live with, except the line strokes are not proportionally scaled.  For example, a rectangle with "1 pt" stroke was still registering and a "1 pt" stroke, so the image lines were not in proportion.  This

I think what is happening is that the document is shifting resolutions.  My original document is set at 300 dpi (why??), and when exporting to SVG, it is being set to 72 dpi.  I tried setting the resolution to 300 dpi in the export window, but that didn't change anything.  This is all a bit nonsense really because the graphics are all vectors...

So, I converted my original document to 72 dpi, and then the export worked!

There may be some files that I need 300 dpi, so do you have any suggestions on how to export without swapping to 72 dpi?

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[stokerg]

2 hours ago, Stephen Ball said:

There may be some files that I need 300 dpi, so do you have any suggestions on how to export without swapping to 72 dpi?

 

I know when exporting SVG's for cutting machines using a DPI other than 72 will give mixed results when it comes to sizing of objects when taken into the cutting software, so it sounds like the same is happening here.  If you always create your document at 72DPI when starting out, i suspect you won't run into any issues.

[Stephen Ball]

1 minute ago, stokerg said:

I know when exporting SVG's for cutting machines using a DPI other than 72 will give mixed results when it comes to sizing of objects when taken into the cutting software, so it sounds like the same is happening here.  If you always create your document at 72DPI when starting out, i suspect you won't run into any issues.

Using 72 dpi will be no problem for most if not all of my work, so hopefully this can be put to bed.  Thanks for your help - it is much appreciated!