Multiple Artboards with the same Margins and Guides

[Orchrist]

Is there any way of reproducing the layout of an artboard so that I can produce a 24 page document without having to set up the margins and guides on each artboard?

[MEB]

Hi Orchrist,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Create an artboard based document (checking Create artboard in the Document setup dialog) and add the guides as you want. Then go to menu File ▸ Document Setup... and add the margins.

Finally select the artboard layer in the Layers panel, press and hold ⌘ (cmd) and drag it on canvas to create the duplicates (with the same margins and guides).

[jaime750]

What happened to being able to check create artboard? I can't create an artboard.

[R C-R]

What happened to being able to check create artboard? I can't create an artboard.

Which version of which app are you using? You can only create artboards in Designer, not in Photo.

 

If you are using Designer, do you not see the Create artboard checkbox in the Document setup dialog?

[Mr. Doodlezz]

Hey guys, hey MEB!

Are there any news whether the option to copy the grid and margin when clicking on Insert Artboard will be available in the next version or not?
Or maybe an option to directly place multiple artboards when creating a new document, which will be sorted in a certain order with defined distances?
Because somehow it is quite tedious and not very practical, since apparently (or only for me?) the command to duplicate and align artboards (⌘ + J) does not work.

For example, I'm trying to create a font table with single artboards for a clean export, but that's quite difficult, because the guides and margins defined
at the beginning are not duplicated with them, so I have to redefine them over and over again - and as you may know fonts have quite a lot of glyphs!
(We're talking about several hundred artboards … )
No matter if I use ⌘ + drag or Insert Artboard.

Cheers
MrDoodlezz

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, MrDoodlezz said:

Are there any news whether the option to copy the grid and margin when clicking on Insert Artboard will be available in the next version or not?
Or maybe an option to directly place multiple artboards when creating a new document, which will be sorted in a certain order with defined distances?
Because somehow it is quite tedious and not very practical, since apparently (or only for me?) the command to duplicate and align artboards (⌘ + J) does not work.

For example, I'm trying to create a font table with single artboards for a clean export, but that's quite difficult, because the guides and margins defined
at the beginning are not duplicated with them, so I have to redefine them over and over again - and as you may know fonts have quite a lot of glyphs!
(We're talking about several hundred artboards … )

(1) You could setup a new document, with the margins you want, and have Designer create your first artboard. Then set the Guides you want. Then in the Symbols panel you can create a Symbol from that Artboard. Now you can drag that Symbol onto your document to create a new artboard identical to the first one.

Note that both will be named Artboard1, so you'll want to edit the name in the Layers panel. Also, with the new artboard selected in the Layers panel, you'll want to go back to the Symbols panel and click Detach so that changes you make to the new artboard don't affect all the others. (That renaming, and detaching, will be needed for each one.)

While that's still a a lot of work, it might be easier than setting each one up from scratch.

or

(2) For me (on Windows) Ctrl + J (Cmd + J for you) does duplicate the selected artboard. You can do that multiple times, then select all of them in the Layers panel. With all of them selected, click the Arrange icon on the Toolbar:

Then click on Space Horizontally:

Then click "Auto distribute" to untick the box, and specify "1in" or whatever horizontal spacing between the artboards you want, and click OK.

Note that, again, they'll all be Artboard1, so you'll probably want to rename them.

[Mr. Doodlezz]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

(1) You could setup a new document, with the margins you want, and have Designer create your first artboard. Then set the Guides you want. Then in the Symbols panel you can create a Symbol from that Artboard. Now you can drag that Symbol onto your document to create a new artboard identical to the first one.

Note that both will be named Artboard1, so you'll want to edit the name in the Layers panel. Also, with the new artboard selected in the Layers panel, you'll want to go back to the Symbols panel and click Detach so that changes you make to the new artboard don't affect all the others. (That renaming, and detaching, will be needed for each one.)

While that's still a a lot of work, it might be easier than setting each one up from scratch.

or

(2) For me (on Windows) Ctrl + J (Cmd + J for you) does duplicate the selected artboard. You can do that multiple times, then select all of them in the Layers panel. With all of them selected, click the Arrange icon on the Toolbar:

Then click on Space Horizontally:

Then click "Auto distribute" to untick the box, and specify "1in" or whatever horizontal spacing between the artboards you want, and click OK.

Note that, again, they'll all be Artboard1, so you'll probably want to rename them.

Hey Walt,

thanks, I hadn't thought about it that way! Or rather, I didn't think it could work that way.

Awesome, that's at least a workaround ... but as you already mentioned not as convenient as it could possibly be.
Let's hope for something more organized at some point.

Greetings
MrDoodlezz

[walt.farrell]

Here's another workaround for you, if you're willing and able to use the beta products.

Create your "artboads" as pages in Publisher, and then export as a PDF. Open the PDF with Designer beta, and each Publisher page will be a Designer artboard.

Sorry: that won't preserve the Guides, so doesn't work.

[firstdefence]

Would be nice to set a grid of Artboards and have guides and grid synced, a bit like having an artboard symbol.

[Mr. Doodlezz]

19 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Sorry: that won't preserve the Guides, so doesn't work.

Right, that's exactly what I was expecting.
But at least this way you could create a mass of Artboards in one step instead of duplicating and arranging them in Designer afterwards.

 

16 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Would be nice to set a grid of Artboards and have guides and grid synced, a bit like having an artboard symbol.

If I understand correctly that's what Walt already mentioned above. You can create Symbols of Artboards.
It saves the grid and guides as well, every time you place everything is there.

Though there are other problems with this workaround:

1. The synchronization of the already placed Artboards must be deactivated so that the other Artboards do not have the same content.
2. However, if you want to make universal changes to the guides or the grid afterwards, this is not possible, since the Artboards are no longer linked to each other due to the previous deactivation of the synchronization.

 

 

 

Times artboards being mentioned in this post: 8

[firstdefence]

1 hour ago, MrDoodlezz said:

Right, that's exactly what I was expecting.
But at least this way you could create a mass of Artboards in one step instead of duplicating and arranging them in Designer afterwards.

 

If I understand correctly that's what Walt already mentioned above. You can create Symbols of Artboards.
It saves the grid and guides as well, every time you place everything is there.

Though there are other problems with this workaround:

1. The synchronization of the already placed Artboards must be deactivated so that the other Artboards do not have the same content.
2. However, if you want to make universal changes to the guides or the grid afterwards, this is not possible, since the Artboards are no longer linked to each other due to the previous deactivation of the synchronization.

 

 

 

Times artboards being mentioned in this post: 8

 I can do more 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, MrDoodlezz said:

Though there are other problems with this workaround:

1. The synchronization of the already placed Artboards must be deactivated so that the other Artboards do not have the same content.
2. However, if you want to make universal changes to the guides or the grid afterwards, this is not possible, since the Artboards are no longer linked to each other due to the previous deactivation of the synchronization.

You're correct about point #1. You either need to disable synchronization globally, or Detach each artboard from its parent symbol.

However, that doesn't explain #2. The explanation for #2 is simply that Designer doesn't treat the Guides as something that will propagate from one instance of a symbol to the other symbol instances. This seems to be true for both 1.6 and 1.7. Even with Synchronization enabled, moving a Guide on one of the artboards created from the symbol does not move it on the others.

I wonder if that should be considered a bug?

[Mr. Doodlezz]

19 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You're correct about point #1. You either need to disable synchronization globally, or Detach each artboard from its parent symbol.

However, that doesn't explain #2. The explanation for #2 is simply that Designer doesn't treat the Guides as something that will propagate from one instance of a symbol to the other symbol instances. This seems to be true for both 1.6 and 1.7. Even with Synchronization enabled, moving a Guide on one of the artboards created from the symbol does not move it on the others.

I wonder if that should be considered a bug?

Ah, sorry, I should have written in more detail: this time I was talking about the content, i.e. figures and elements within the Artboard-Symbol – the content (like you would expect from a Symbol) is mirrored for every Artboard-Symbol instance. But as you state that guides and grids aren't even though synchronization is active, I would definitely consider it a bug, but at least very, very inconsistent handling of Symbol-Children or what ever they're calling it.

[postmadesign]

I have been working with something similar, and instead of creating an artboard as a symbol, I created an asset out of it. I can just drag the artboard in, change the name and its ready to go. Is there any benefit to using symbols instead. As you said the guides are not treated as something that can be changed afterwards. If there is nothing that needs to change for everyone artboard, an asset seems simpler, no?

[jamesholden]

Is duplicating artboards with guides intact something that is pencilled to be done?

Somewhat daunting to have to copy artboards and redo all guides (

[jamesholden]

On 1/17/2017 at 4:13 PM, MEB said:

Hi Orchrist,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

Create an artboard based document (checking Create artboard in the Document setup dialog) and add the guides as you want. Then go to menu File ▸ Document Setup... and add the margins.

Finally select the artboard layer in the Layers panel, press and hold ⌘ (cmd) and drag it on canvas to create the duplicates (with the same margins and guides).

OK tried this several times, and CMD + drag doesn't create an new instance.

CTRL J does copy artboard but doesn't include the guides. Please can you give some guidance here. Thanks

[MEB]

Hi jamesholden,
Make sure you are dragging the artboards on canvas with the Move Tool selected while pressing and holding cmd. Pressing and holding alt will also duplicate them but will override the snapping.

[jamesholden]

1 hour ago, MEB said:

Hi jamesholden,
Make sure you are dragging the artboards on canvas with the Move Tool selected while pressing and holding cmd. Pressing and holding alt will also duplicate them but will override the snapping.

Hi MEB, thanks, but no it's still not working. My steps are

1. Click MOVE tool
2. Open LAYERS panel
3. Click CMD
4. Select ARTBOARD I wish to duplicate
5. Drag ARTBOARD to CANVAS

 

Result:

No instance created.

[MEB]

No, you have to drag an existing artboard itself on canvas while pressing and holding cmd to create a duplicate - not from the Layers panel. You don't need the Layers panel for this.

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, jamesholden said:

3. Click CMD

You must press & hold down the CMD key while dragging an artboard on the canvas. If you release the key before completing the drag & releasing the mouse button, you will just move the artboard around in the workspace.

13 minutes ago, jamesholden said:

5. Drag ARTBOARD to CANVAS

Are you trying to drag an artboard from the Layers panel to the workspace? That won't work. You must drag a selected artboard in the workspace using the Move Tool.

EDIT: MEB beat me to it. 

Edited July 10, 2019 by R C-R

[jamesholden]

Thank you both.