Fix Artboard Export Size Issues - Affinity Designer Tutorial

[Artistwright]

 

[pruus]

Great tutorial, simple and very useful.

[Maxdanger]

Great explanation of something that has driven me mad in the past.

The other way this issue can come about is where the dimensions of the artboard is not a whole pixel. I've had this when using non-pixel units - often I'll create a document with artboards to replicate pages so I'll have say 10 artboards in A4 size and their pixel dimensions will always be non-integer values. When you come to export in the usual way (file > export) Designer will handle them correctly when exporting to pdf, but when using the export persona it can't handle it properly for the reason you describe. Seems like the export persona can only export in integer pixels.

[Bound by Beans]

On 4/26/2025 at 12:45 PM, Maxdanger said:

Great explanation of something that has driven me mad in the past.

Seems like the export persona can only export in integer pixels.

Serif still owes a usability solution for this—one that spares customers like me from standing on the threshold of madness and having to wade through forums and tutorials.

Integer pixels? Pixels are indivisible units; screens only render whole pixels. In files, pixels are stored as discrete units—no partial pixels exist. The next thing that happens is Serif introducing decimal-binary concepts.

Serif should have known—with a bit of empathy and understanding—that their adventure with decimals and pixels would lead to endless frustration for users, and should have built solid usability solutions around it. Once again, a problem created at A with the cost landing on B.

But thanks to @Artistwright for highlighting the issue and offering a fix. Give him a discount on the next major update, Serif. And everyone else some relief through a usability solution.

[Artistwright]

Thank you @Bound by Beans

[cTHULHU]

If you set move by whole pixles and snap to pixels and it's not whole pixel aligned you can't correct it. Move by whole pixels is only safe to use if its already on a whole pixel boundary. This can catch you out.

The conceptual problem is the ability to use non pixel units for example MM or PTs for artboards. There shoud be a pixel only mode that basically prevents non integral pixel artboards (slices implement this mode). If working to export bitmaps you never need non pixel aligned artboards.

Another thing mentioned is that explicit & implicit slices do follow the whole pixel only model, it's why it always rounds up the slice in the example. But explicit slices sizing does not. Explicit slices don't round up, for a 45px slice if you type a  width of 45.9px or 45.1px, if you reselect it the width will be 45px.

Artboards are also even weirder with their coordinate origin, the most left artboard will always have x=0 and the most top will always have a y=0 and every other artboard will be relative in X & Y from the reference boards origin points in X or Y. Which depending on your layout may not be the same board.

[Alfred]

On 6/27/2025 at 3:05 PM, cTHULHU said:

If you set move by whole pixles and snap to pixels and it's not whole pixel aligned you can't correct it. Move by whole pixels is only safe to use if its already on a whole pixel boundary. This can catch you out.

If you want to maintain or force pixel alignment, don’t enable Move by Whole Pixels (MWP). Its purpose is to maintain any non-alignment, and in furtherance of that objective it overrides Force Pixel Alignment (FPA).