Export NOT pixel accurate on artboards!

[Barrowman]

When exporting art-boards the sizes are often 1px too large, but then even if you "fix" it in the transform box, the export is still not pixel accurate, which makes the app entirely unusable for banner ads which require a 1px border.

The 1px border should be apparent around the complete banner, its lighter down the side and not existent on the bottom :-(

Various attempts to mitigate this so as not to have to use Illustrator/Photoshop have proven fruitless.

Very frustrating when accuracy can't be trusted.

 

[norbinw]

I've been having the same issue w Designer for some time, and while not fully understanding it yet, why, most of the time, if not all the time, it helps to look at the coordinates to have X and Y a full number, NO DECIMALS.  Even tho I have force pixel alignment ON, and sometimes move whole pixel ON too, It still snaps to 0.5 somehow.

The issues were in "mm" units in my case, as a set number of mm did not give full pixel values at a given DPI, so i had to switch to pixel units, correct the coordinates, then back to mm and work on from there.

[walt.farrell]

23 hours ago, Barrowman said:

When exporting art-boards the sizes are often 1px too large, but then even if you "fix" it in the transform box, the export is still not pixel accurate, which makes the app entirely unusable for banner ads which require a 1px border.

Can you provide a sample .afdesign document that has this problem? That would help us understand the problem, and perhaps suggest a solution.

[MEB]

Hi @Barrowman,
Please make sure you set your document units to pixels temporarily to check artboard's alignment. As @norbinw mentioned above other units may not translate to full pixels units and thus the artboard may still have fractional with/height or X,Y coordinates. Also ensure you have set the application to display more than 1 fractional value for pixels in the Transform panel and elsewhere going to Affinity Preferences, User Interface, Decimal Places for Units Types section, set Pixels to 2 or ideally 3 (so you can catch values like 3,007 px for example). Are you exporting the file using the File > Export command or the Export Persona? In any case if you ensure the artboard dimensions and X,Y coordinates are integer pixel values it should export with the correct dimensions.

If you still have issues please attach the file as walt suggested. Thanks.

[Barrowman]

Hi @MEB - thanks, I think the issue was that the artboard wasn't positioned exactly on a pixel, despite snap being switched on to pixel alignment and "move by whole pixels" also being switched on. I'm exporting artboards with the Export persona.

 

Kind regards

 

 

[MEB]

Thanks for the additional info. Turn off Move by whole pixels. It does what it says on the tin: for objects which have integer values there's no issues since if you move/adjust them on canvas they will be kept as integer values because the movement is limited to whole pixels. However for objects/artboards with fractional values these fractional values will be kept as well for the same reason - movements are limited to whole pixel values. If you turn Move by whole pixels off you let the program snap to the closest integer when you move/adjust these objects on canvas thus fixing these alignment problems.

[Old Bruce]

7 hours ago, norbinw said:

Even tho I have force pixel alignment ON, and sometimes move whole pixel ON too, It still snaps to 0.5 somehow.

This can be caused by having Snap to Mid points turned on. If a snapping candidate is 9 pixels wide the mid point will be at 4.5 pixels. If you want pixel perfect never turn on Move by Whole Pixels and have midpoints turned off. Oh, and probably turn off snap to margins as well.

[Barrowman]

Or just make artboards independent canvasses in space, so that when you export them, you don't have to worry about checking all that?

[MEB]

But then you can't manipulate them as objects for example to convert a rectangle to an artboard and vice-versa, or create a grid of artboards using Power Duplicate as a base for a set of icons etc...