Affinity Designer: Order of PDF export?

[seltzdesign]

I am using Affinity Designer 2 and created 8 artboards. When I go to export the whole document as a PDF, the pages are in seemingly random order. In the layers panel I have given the artboards a certain order and it is reflected in the document dropdown of the export dialog, but the actual PDF then has a totally different order.

Is there way to order the PDF? What order is it taking?

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, seltzdesign said:

Is there way to order the PDF? What order is it taking?

The first page on the PDF will be the Artboard at the bottom of the Layers stack and the last page will be the one at the top of the Layers stack. There's no option in settings or export panel to change that order.

[seltzdesign]

4 minutes ago, bbrother said:

The first page on the PDF will be the Artboard at the bottom of the Layers stack and the last page will be the one at the top of the Layers stack and you can't change that it is sticky internal setting.

Oh right, I didn't pick up on the fact it was in reverse order! Bit strange to do it that way, but okay. Now I know. Thanks!

[walt.farrell]

12 hours ago, seltzdesign said:

Bit strange to do it that way, but okay. Now I know

If you create 3 Artboards (for example), the first one is at the bottom of the Layer stack, the next is one up from that, and the 3rd is at the top. That's how almost everything in the Affinity applications work. By default, things that were created earlier are lower in the stack.

Think of it like painting on a canvas. Your first brush stroke is next to (physically on) the canvas. if you paint a stroke on top of that first one, it is above the first stroke physically, and another stroke that crosses both of them is physically above both of them where they cross, giving you three layers where they cross with the earliest layers on the bottom. The Layer stack in the Layers panel is organized just like that.

[seltzdesign]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Think of it like painting on a canvas

Thanks for the analogy, that makes sense.

I like that you can change the order in the settings in Figma if that feels more natural. It makes sense for layers and the objects inside layers, but somehow if you think of artboards as pages, it would be nice to be able to reverse the order just for the artboards.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.