Duplicating artboards with symbols

[ianrobertdouglas]

Not sure if this is a question or a feature request. It may already exist.

 

Sometimes when working with symbols I want to stop and start a new iteration. I'd love if I could duplicate an artboard and the symbols on the original were also duplicated and became independent. As it is, if I duplicate an artboard with symbols and work on the new duplicate, the symbols in the original also change.

 

In other words, symbols are document wide. Would be great if they were artboard wide only -- or at least to have the choice.

 

Is it possible already? Maybe I'm missing something.

[MEB]

Hi ianrobertdouglas,

After you create the second artboard (with all symbols on it), select all of the instances in the second artboard, go to the Symbols panel and click Detach. Then, with all still selected click Create in the Symbols panel. This will recreate all the symbols again but they will be all independent from the Symbols on the first artboard.

[ianrobertdouglas]

Thank you @MEB. Where you have one symbol duplicated, say four times in a circle, for example, do you select all the duplicates, even though it's one symbol?

[MEB]

No, there's no point in selecting more than one instance, otherwise you will end up with duplicated symbols in the Symbols panel as well.

[ianrobertdouglas]

I still can't get this to work.

 

So I have one symbol, duplicated four times. I manipulate that symbol, and all the other instances change. Great.

If I create a new artboard from that artboard (i.e., a duplicate), if I detach all symbols and press create, it creates four different symbols. If I detail all instances and press create with one curve highlighted it creates one symbol but the others remain independent and not synced.

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but it's not apparent to me how to create a new instance of symbols and work on the new artboard as an independent copy of the original.

[ianrobertdouglas]

I still find working with symbols non-intuitive, and also somewhat inconsistent. Today's problem:

 

I have a symbol. I duplicate it by Command-drag (so duplicate, plus distance). I do Command-J to duplicate again. Now I have three, and I want to group them, duplicate them, and reverse them. I group them and press Command-J. This duplicates the group, but within the symbols are gone. It's just grouped curves.

 

Why?

 

(This is AD 1.5.4)

[Aammppaa]

@ianrobertdouglas This looks like a bug to me. The symbols should obviously not vanish when the group is duplicated.

 

Interestingly, if you group the 3 symbols, and then make the group into a symbol, then duplicate, the symbols remain as symbols!

[rubs]

@Aammppaa: it looks that the same thing happens with artboards. When I duplicate an artboard with symbols inside, the symbols are lost. The workaround is the same: create a symbol from the artboard, then duplicate it.