mattjamessmith Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 I'm making a business card in Affinity Designer to be uploaded to and printed by Moo.com. They request designs with text be saved in the PDF/X-1a format (converting text to curves). However, whenever and however I export from Designer text gets rasterised and exhibits edge-pixelation. I've tried every combination of export settings I can come up with (two days I've been trying to do this) but everything gets rasterised on export whatever I do. Why can't the PDF's I export handle vectors? One side of my business card attached (in .afdesign format) LF-Business-Card-BACK.afdesign Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted February 16, 2016 Staff Share Posted February 16, 2016 Hi Lintelfilm, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) I've removed the extra (superfluous) layers and vector masks, and changed the two pixel layers (with a white background) blend mode from normal to darken. It now exports correctly as vectors except the pixel layers obviously (file attached). There's however a few issues i would like to check with the devs regarding the original structure you have created which should have worked correctly (still looking into this). LF-Business-Card-BACK (MED EDITED).afdesign mattjamessmith 1 Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peterkaosa Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 Well, one thing is for sure: the pixel layer cannot but be exported as pixels. The rest (i.e. text) should output just fine. Is this the case with your result? Then I suggest you re-draw the pixels parts of the bc and output then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattjamessmith Posted February 16, 2016 Author Share Posted February 16, 2016 Hi Lintelfilm, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) I've removed the extra (superfluous) layers and vector masks, and changed the two pixel layers (with a white background) blend mode from normal to darken. It now exports correctly as vectors except the pixel layers obviously (file attached). There's however a few issues i would like to check with the devs regarding the original structure you have created which should have worked correctly (still looking into this). Thanks MEB, that has certainly worked for the text for which I'm grateful. The images (pixel layers) in that file were originally vector graphics and I've now introduced them back into the file as vector layers. However I now have the same rastering problem with these layers - I cannot export them into PDF format as vectors. They always result in pixelated edges. I have attached the .afdesign files for both the back and front of my business card. The only pixel layer in each is the shadow layer at the bottom. The images however (the "LF" logo and "LINTELFILM" title at the top on the "back" card) are messy and I've had to crop them in Designer and/or add opacity to make them work. Forgive me, my brain is very photo-oriented so my understanding of vector graphics is very limited. If you can help me with exporting these graphic vector layers as vectors I would be hugely grateful ... LF-Business-Card-2016-Back.afdesign LF-Business-Card-2016-Front.afdesign Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattjamessmith Posted February 16, 2016 Author Share Posted February 16, 2016 Well, one thing is for sure: the pixel layer cannot but be exported as pixels. The rest (i.e. text) should output just fine. Is this the case with your result? Then I suggest you re-draw the pixels parts of the bc and output then. No the text wasn't exporting as vectors - it was being rasterized too. I gave up on the images, but I've reinserted them as vector graphics now (see new attachments above) and would like to figure out why they're getting rasterized on export. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattjamessmith Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 Anyone? I really need to get these cards printed ASAP ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimmyJack Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Well, I have no idea why the text was rasterizing but that seems to be fixed. The other stuff clearly has something to do with files being embedded. I double clicked on the embeds, copied the art and replaced the embeds with a paste. So now the actual vectors are in the file and not outside referenced objects. (Certainly embeds should work... This is just a workaround) At any rate... the export worked after that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattjamessmith Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 Well, I have no idea why the text was rasterizing but that seems to be fixed. The other stuff clearly has something to do with files being embedded. I double clicked on the embeds, copied the art and replaced the embeds with a paste. So now the actual vectors are in the file and not outside referenced objects. (Certainly embeds should work... This is just a workaround) At any rate... the export worked after that. Thanks Jimmy this sounds great but I can't open the embeded documents in new tab. When I double click the layer it just zooms in to the image on the canvas. So I can't do this. Getting very frustrated :( Scratch that, as I wrote it I realised I needed to double click the image on the canvas, not the layer. I'll try again ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Harris Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 (Certainly embeds should work... This is just a workaround) Unfortunately this is currently expected. We tried to get embedded documents to export as vector for 1.4, and it did appear in some betas, but there turned out to be problems with it so it got disabled for the final release. We've got it working now (I think), and it should be included in the 1.5 beta in a few weeks. Until then, embedded documents are best avoided if you need vector output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimmyJack Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Lintelfilm: Yeah, sorry, I should have been more "double click" specific. Glad you figured it out. Dave: Thanks for the clarity. But thanks even more for "1.5 beta in a few weeks"!! Woohoo!! Gotta love a whole number bump up :) . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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