Cropping vector designs (repeat pattern tiles)

[Annabella_K]

I started to design repeat patterns. To use them as vector pattern tiles (and sell them on microstock sites), apparently, it isn't enough to add a clipping mask to clip the design to the artboard, but you need to actually trim it. I saw Illustrator videos explaining why. Basically, when you define the pattern tile there, the extending elements, despite being clipped with a mask, are added to the tile size. But since there are no visible elements there, a huge gap will appear in the pattern. Interestingly, Inkscape doesn't have this problem, but since Illustrator is the industry standard... 😒

I browsed the forum and it seems that there is no built-in way to do the trimming in Affinity Designer, not even a knife tool. Does anyone have a workaround? I was experimenting with the boolean tools but since these are complex designs and not just one shape, they don't give the expected result. Of course I could do a Substract one by one on every shape, but that is a lot. I'm hoping there is a more efficient way to do this. I have all three Affinity programs, in case it can be done in another one.

Thanks in advance.

[NotMyFault]

Hi Annabelle,

 

If you use the search function you could find multiple threads covering this topic.

This time, there is no shortcut to the method you described (boolean geometry).

The divide function or intersect function are probably the most valuable ones for this task.

You could apply them to multiple objects, this might minimize the process steps.

[Annabella_K]

Thanks, I was using the search, but I've only found older threads. I was hoping maybe something has improved since then. 😞