Print Single or a range of pages in Affinity Designer V2

[Wilgartw]

I am looking to move from Adobe Illustrator CS6 to Affinity Designer,  and I have managed to find out a way doing almost everything I use in AI.  

but I am struggling with the printing.     I draw large stained glass windows to the make from glass and lead,  I print out the drawings and use them as templates.  I do this by sending the drawing to a printing house for them to print on their large format printers.   however I regularly need to reprint a small area, to recreate a template.

To do this I print to scale - 100% - >. print Tiles. ->  print page X. or pages X,Y,Z

I cannot see any way to do this in Affinity Designer.    just all pages or odd/even pages.

is this something it can do?

 

 

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

It would help to know whether you're on Mac or Windows, and to see the Print dialog that Designer gives you.

[Wilgartw]

apologies, I am using a Mac mini.

 

these are the screenshots of what I see.  

I would expect to be able to pick a single page, or multiple pages (comma delimited).

 

[walt.farrell]

What are your choices for Range (in your first screenshot)?

[Wilgartw]

entire Document

selection

art board

 

 

Selection doesn't work (for me) as I tend to lock the layers in place..  even if I unlock, the outlines may be from a larger layer, so they are not selected when I highlight the area.

for example the vertical and horizontal lines on this window run the full length of the dartboard,  so unless I select the whole artboard the vertical lines don't show on a selection.  even if I selective lines/layers individually, then the print sees 16 pages, most of which have a vertical or horizontal line, or they are blank. - and this still prints 16 pages.  not just the one I need.

 

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Wilgartw

[loukash]

4 hours ago, Wilgartw said:

To do this I print to scale - 100% - >. print Tiles. ->  print page X. or pages X,Y,Z

I cannot see any way to do this in Affinity Designer.    just all pages or odd/even pages.

Yep, an option to select a range of tile pages is obviously missing.

4 hours ago, Wilgartw said:

is this something it can do?

In the Print dialog, after you have set up the tiles:

1. PDF popup menu
2. Open in Preview
3. in Preview select/print the individual page you want to print

In fact, whatever I'm printing on Mac, I mostly go via PDF > Open in Preview first. Especially with Affinity apps which tend to crash with the Print dialog open. (Yep, Designer crashed while I was testing your scenario right now.) And for what it's worth, I also use laser printers – an old CMYK Oki in my studio and a small b/w HP at home – so this "intermediate print-to-PDF" is a workflow that usually works OK.

[loukash]

Alternative workflow/workaround:

1. create a blank A4 rectangle in your Designer document at the position you want to print
2. move it all the way to the bottom of the Layers panel
3. select all except the A4 rectangle
4. Layer > Arrange > Move Inside = all objects/layers are now clipped by the A4 rectangle
5. select the parent rectangle
6. Print > Range > Selection

This is in fact the most precise method.  

[loukash]

Another alternative method:

1. create a new temporary A4 document (just a page, no artboard necessary)
2. File > Place your original Designer document
3. position the part you want to print on the A4 canvas (you may want to disable "View > View Mode > Clip To Canvas" to see the whole placed image)
4. Print

[Wilgartw]

2 hours ago, loukash said:

Yep, an option to select a range of tile pages is obviously missing.

In the Print dialog, after you have set up the tiles:

1. PDF popup menu
2. Open in Preview
3. in Preview select/print the individual page you want to print

In fact, whatever I'm printing on Mac, I mostly go via PDF > Open in Preview first. Especially with Affinity apps which tend to crash with the Print dialog open. (Yep, Designer crashed while I was testing your scenario right now.) And for what it's worth, I also use laser printers – an old CMYK Oki in my studio and a small b/w HP at home – so this "intermediate print-to-PDF" is a workflow that usually works OK.

fantastic.  I like this, very simple to use, and does the job (almost).

I say almost as there is no option to adjust where the a4 is overlayed....  

 

2 hours ago, loukash said:

Alternative workflow/workaround:

1. create a blank A4 rectangle in your Designer document at the position you want to print
2. move it all the way to the bottom of the Layers panel
3. select all except the A4 rectangle
4. Layer > Arrange > Move Inside = all objects/layers are now clipped by the A4 rectangle
5. select the parent rectangle
6. Print > Range > Selection

This is in fact the most precise method.  

but this does, and is a much better solution

2 hours ago, loukash said:

Another alternative method:

1. create a new temporary A4 document (just a page, no artboard necessary)
2. File > Place your original Designer document
3. position the part you want to print on the A4 canvas (you may want to disable "View > View Mode > Clip To Canvas" to see the whole placed image)
4. Print

and this one works even better as,

1. it already has a4 sizing set up for me
2. is easier to understand what I am actually doing (still learning), it is more like artboard/canvas in illustrator which I am used to.
3. is less setps.

A big thank you to loukash.