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Is there a method to make Artboards snap to the bounds of selected objects In Affinity Designer?


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The purpose is to have the vector cropped to exactly its bounds when converted to a pdf (in my case) with a transparent background.

This means that logos fit perfectly to the frame they are placed in with no accidental cropping or undersize due to ill fit.

Not just logos but also illustrations that I need to drop into a layout and know exactly its size or scale.

It is a matter of fast, efficient, and accurate work. 

I am forced to go back to use Adobe Illustrator CS6, where all you need to do is double click on a grouped object with the Artboard tool.

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Or:

  1. Select the objects.
  2. Switch to the Artboard Tool.
  3. Change Document to Selection in the Context Toolbar.
  4. Click Insert Artboard.
  5. Finally, if the objects were already in an Artboard at step 1, go to the Layers panel and drag the objects into the new Artboard layer you created.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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Thanks Walt. 😁

Took a bit of poking around to find where everything is and find out what I was doing wrong, but finally got it to work.

It is not accurate on objects with effects and it involves several steps where in Illustrator it is one quick action (double click on each object), but it works... some of the time.

Where there are a number of objects I need to add Artboards to, it will still be quicker to go back to Illustrator. Illustrator also lets me set up documents with a neat array of Artboards when I create documents. That is a huge time saver.

Something for the Affinity team to work on I guess.

Thanks again for the quick response.

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13 hours ago, PeterBreis said:

The purpose is to have the vector cropped to exactly its bounds when converted to a pdf (in my case) with a transparent background.

Maybe I have misunderstood what you want but won't it work if you just select the object(s) with the Move Tool & in the File > Export window change "Area" from "Whole Document" to "Selection with (or without) background"?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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R-C-R 

Yes I followed Walt's advice. It doesn't work all the time though. For example if you have an effect on your artwork that causes the bounds to be well outside the artwork.

Be nice if Affinity made this faster and easier to use. I do this a lot.

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3 hours ago, PeterBreis said:

For example if you have an effect on your artwork that causes the bounds to be well outside the artwork.

Then why use artboards at all?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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8 hours ago, R C-R said:

Then why use artboards at all?

It works in Illustrator.

Artboards are extremely useful for branding and exploring many variations on a design and dividing up sets into individual file exports.

You don't use them?

Despite Affinity Designer's relative clumsy application of Artboards I spent most of today creating several templates to recreate my basic work files from Adobe Illustrator and Pages.

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