Making uniform slices/artboards

[cpercoco]

I'm transitioning into using Designer to make sewing patterns for sale on Etsy as print-at-home downloads, and I've tried both the multiple artboard and slice methods. They seem equally good to me, but is there a way to generate artboards and slices or to copy from previously drawn ones? It's a bit annoying to have to carefully draw out 8.5x11 and 8.25x11.75 boxes (depending on the paper size I'm using), plus, if I'm doing a larger pattern I'm going to have to make quite a few.

(Related question - I've seen Publisher suggested as a way to split one large graphic into pages, but it's not at all clear to me how that works. I'm trying to figure out the most consistent way to make and cut up my patterns - since I want them to be in standard paper sizes, it seems like it could be the best solution?)

[Alfred]

29 minutes ago, cpercoco said:

It's a bit annoying to have to carefully draw out 8.5x11 and 8.25x11.75 boxes (depending on the paper size I'm using)

Since there are presets for US Letter (8.5″ × 11″) and A4 (210 mm × 297 mm, or 8.27″ × 11.69″ approx.) sizes, you don’t need to carefully draw out anything for those sizes. Create a new document as an artboard at the desired size and then duplicate the artboard as many times as required.

[cpercoco]

The trouble is, as I understand it, that I have to draw out the full pattern and then add artboxes in underneath it, because you can't draw over multiple artboards at once. But I supposed I could create an artbox in a new document, then paste it into the one where I've drawn the pattern?

[Alfred]

5 minutes ago, cpercoco said:

you can't draw over multiple artboards at once

I see what you mean! I didn’t quite understand what you’re trying to do, but you’re right: whatever you draw will only ‘belong’ to one artboard, and you can’t unclip it to make the overhanging parts remain visible. I think slices are the way to go, but I’ll defer to other users who have more experience in this area.

[thomaso]

Unfortunately, like Alfred I am not well experienced with Designer's Export Persona or slices – but I would expect there is a way to export slices with all visible layout content of all layers included in the specific area of each slice – quite as the export option "Selection Area" works to export all visible layers located in just 1 selected object's area.

Actually, instead of using artboards or manually drawing each single slice, it appears easy to create a grid of objetcs with power-duplicate (cmd-J) according to a desired output format, in the sample below as squares with dash strokes, –> then select all this layers + convert them to slices with the button "Create slices" –> export them all with 1 click …

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… but unfortunately I can't get them exported including all content – even though the visibilty option "Make item visible in export" is ticked. I wonder if I am misusing it or if it is simply impossible / not implemented, – or if it is an unintened issue/bug?

3 hours ago, cpercoco said:

I've seen Publisher suggested as a way to split one large graphic into pages,

There is no feature enabling such a set of pages in APub. The number of continuous pages in a spread is limited to two, and thus the must be either vertically or horizontally arranged, no way to mix. But there is a workaround which might help. It is the print option "tiled" & it's available in AD as well. Here shown in APub, I haven't calculated and ignored the different aspect ratios, that's why the 16 fields of the layout would create 20 pages and the dashed grid does not fit to the output at all – so it illustrates the principle only:

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