Exporting Artboards

[AlanPickup]

Hi

Not used Designer much as my main interests are leaflets and booklets so Publisher is my main tool. I wanted to emulate a notice board 1120hx820w that could display 5 sheets of A3 in 3 x portrait with 2 x landscape underneath. I thought this would be a good use of Artboards. followed the tutorial and created the setup. I wanted to export all artboards together so it could be seen in full size to show what it would look like. If I went print I was offered document that gave me what I needed, but if I tried export I could not get the same result, with Whole document selected it just exported the first artboard. Tried selecting all artboards and using export selections, but again only one artboard. Any help appreciated. 

[GarryP]

I’m not sure why the software is doing what it is doing, it’s doing the same thing for me with a quick test document, but I’ve never tried to export multiple Artboards at the same time via the Export Dialog.

Have you tried to export the whole document via the Export Persona instead? The “background” layer should incorporate all of the Artboards.

[markw]

@AlanPickup, @GarryP, I’m struggling to reproduce this problem…
I may not have the setup correct for it to fail or it may be OS specific?
Do either of you have a test document that consistently fails for you that you can post for others to try?

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, markw said:

@AlanPickup, @GarryP, I’m struggling to reproduce this problem…
I may not have the setup correct for it to fail or it may be OS specific?

I cannot duplicate this either on my Mac so maybe it is a Windows-only problem?

[HCl]

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[GarryP]

I’ve attached an example document which exhibits the issue in Designer 2.6.3 on Windows.

When exporting to “PDF (digital – small size)” (haven’t done exhaustive testing) only one artboard is shown in the preview, which makes it look like you only get one Artboard exported, and each of the Artboards is exported as an individual page in the exported PDF.

However the OP wants, I think, to be able to export the whole document as a single page which includes all of the Artboards, as they can see them on-screen, which can be done via the Export Persona instead (as mentioned above).

I don’t know if the current situation is the expected behaviour but it’s maybe not what everyone might expect depending on how they interpret “whole document”.

Similar things to this have been asked about and reported before but I don’t know if they are the exact same issue.

export-whole-document-with-artboards.afdesign

[HCl]

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[GarryP]

As I said above, some people might interpret “whole document” in different ways.

Some people might think that they should get one Artboard to a page, while others might think that they they should get what they can see on the screen.

Since there are a number of ways to get what the OP wants it’s probably not something that needs to be discussed at length.

[markw]

@GarryP Thanks for the sample 🙂
Seeing how you have constructed your document I think the results you saw might be by design. Each Artboard becoming one page of a multi page PDF when export ‘Whole Document’ is used via the File menu.
In my earlier testing I created the first Artboard at the overall desired poster size and then nested all the subsequent smaller Artboards within it. Choosing 'Whole Document' then dose work as expected producing a one page PDF of all the Artboards.

[GarryP]

6 minutes ago, markw said:

I created the first Artboard at the overall desired poster size and then nested all the subsequent smaller Artboards within it.

I think that’s similar to the suggestion of grouping the Artboards as mentioned above.

So there are at least four ways to do it:

• group the Artboards and export the Group;
• put the Artboards in a larger Artboard and export that;
• export the Export Persona “background” layer;
• add a manual Slice in the Export Persona and export that.

There might be more ways but until the OP gets back to us we can’t know if any of what’s been suggested is right for their needs.

[HCl]

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[AlanPickup]

thanks everyone, was done on windows PC, the main thing that threw me was if I went to print and selected range Document it printed all artboards on one sheet, but could not get that to replicate in export. Just transferred everything in to Publisher on a document that was the size of the notice board.