Crop Canvas in Affinity Designer?

[JuanCa]

Crop canvas is basic, please just add it. Thanks.

[Riccardo B.]

+1

[loukash]

• If you're using artboards, then every artboard is your unique canvas, and every artboard crops. Select it in the Layers panel and "crop" (resize) it with the Move tool. Check "Lock Children" to keep the artboard content untouched.
  Move objects outside the Artboard layer in the Layers panel to make them unaffected by artboard cropping or moving. Or move them to another artboard that way.
• If you're using a single page based document, then the page bleed is your "crop canvas".

It's really that simple.™

To convert an artboard based document into a page based document, move all existing objects outside the Artboard layer(s) in the Layers panel and then delete the empty Artboard layer(s). You may want to resize the last artboard to the intended size of your page before deleting it.

[jAffinitySerif]

+1 for this feature request please.

I have a document from which I’d like to export multiple slight variations in content and size.

Multiple artboards is not a solution, because that requires duplicating the majority of objects across artboards, and then I would need to update each object on each artboard.

Selecting a frame or background object and then clicking Artboard Tool, Size Selection, Insert Artboard does not work. The resultant artboard is not sized to the selected object (I don’t know why).

My current solution is to note the position and dimensions of my frame or background object, click Document Setup, Dimensions, Anchor to Page, choose a bottom anchor, disable proportion lock, enter the desired height of current height minus top position, and then repeat that with a top anchor chosen and a desired height equal to the frame/background height.

This solution is time-consuming and prone to error. Please introduce a quicker, simpler, graphical user interface to crop the page (canvas) to an object or guides. Thank you. 

Edited September 19, 2021 by jofearth
Correct my math.

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, jofearth said:

Selecting a frame or background object and then clicking Artboard Tool, Size Selection, Insert Artboard does not work. The resultant artboard is not sized to the selected object (I don’t know why).

Welcome to the Serif Sffinity forums.

Creation of Artboards that way should work. I suggest you create your own topic here in the Questions, provide more information including screenshots and perhaps a sample .afdesign document and we'll help figure that out for you.

However, the best solution for your problem may come from using the Export Persona and Slices. You might look at the Tutorials and Help for those topics.

Also, by the way: This is the Questions forum, not the Feature Requests forum, so a +1 isn't useful here as this is not where the planners look for new Feature suggestions.

[jAffinitySerif]

> Creation of Artboards that way should work.

When my object is a stroked rectangle, the resultant artboard inexplicably is always a few pixels larger than expected. Even if it did create an artboard of the correct size, it then would still introduce the aforementioned complication of having artwork belonging only to one artboard at a time. And I forgot to mention, the export dialog gives no indication of which artboard is respected for export.

> However, the best solution for your problem may come from using the Export Persona and Slices. 

Thank you, I will look into that, though upon first glance it appears to be far more complicated of a workaround that needed.

> This is the Questions forum, not the Feature Requests forum, so a +1 isn't useful here as this is not where the planners look for new Feature suggestions.

Thanks for this suggestion. For anyone else looking, here is the link:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/52-feature-requests-suggestions/

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, jofearth said:

When my object is a stroked rectangle, the resultant artboard inexplicably is always a few pixels larger than expected.

One or two extra could be due to positioning (non-integer X/Y coordinates) or sizes (non-integer width/height). Again, if you want to pursue that I'd suggest a separate topic.

3 minutes ago, jofearth said:

Even if it did create an artboard of the correct size, it then would still introduce the aforementioned complication of having artwork belonging only to one artboard at a time.

True.

3 minutes ago, jofearth said:

And I forgot to mention, the export dialog gives no indication of which artboard is respected for export.

Sorry; I don't understand that. The dialog lets you supply the artboard name, and that's the one that is exported:

[Wosven]

A tool to crop directly the canvas like in AP would be very useful. Using the export persona is good, but it shouldn't be used as a trick to compensate when croping the canvas is not an easy task.

[jAffinitySerif]

> One or two extra could be due to positioning (non-integer X/Y coordinates) or sizes (non-integer width/height).

I am using integers. Not to detour this thread further, I’ve opened a new thread for this tangent here:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/149663-insert-artboard-from-selection-results-in-slightly-larger-than-expected-in-affinity-designer/

> The dialog lets you supply the artboard name, and that's the one that is exported:

I did not realize this, thank you.

For anyone else, I have now created a feature request here:

Thanks again.

Edited September 19, 2021 by jofearth

[PwrSrg]

I can't believe how ridiculously DIFFICULT it is to simply TRIM the canvas. 😖
I find it even harder to believe that Affinity still hasn't done ANYTHING about it YEARS LATER.

This is pathetic.  Is there like ONE developer over there?!?

Adobe Fireworks, which some used to make fun of, is STILL one of the GREATEST applications EVER BUILT.
Because it WORKS, and does it's one job WELL.  I REALLY wish I could say the same about Affinity. 😞

For the record, I STILL can't even figure out how to do it "correctly" without having to trim it through Fireworks afterwards. 😑

[sheriffderek]

I couldn't put the video here because it was over 2mb - so, I put it on this page: https://perpetual.education/resources/sizing-your-art-in-affinity-designer/

I was frustrated about changing the document size, but once I realized I could just use the artboards - that's all I use now. Sizing to the selection isn't always perfect - but here's a few examples in case it helps in the discussion.

[Gianni Becattini]

After two years using and sustaining Affinity, I see that improvements are really slow or absent.

[borntobe]

I thought I won the jackpot when switching from adobe family to your software, but I can see that this comes with the price of spending hours and hours trying to resolve simple tasks like this...

[MiloW]

Designer needs the same way canvas / artboard is trimmed in Photo.

I just did what I needed to do in Photo after sitting for an hour in Designer.

Just add the freaking crop to the artboard in Designer - but show the handles initially, don't make me draw a generic rectangle without any snapping!

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

49 minutes ago, MiloW said:

Designer needs the same way canvas / artboard is trimmed in Photo.

I just did what I needed to do in Photo after sitting for an hour in Designer.

Just add the freaking crop to the artboard in Designer - but show the handles initially, don't make me draw a generic rectangle without any snapping!

Can’t you just resize you artboard in the Transform Studio (to exact size)??

[MiloW]

On 4/3/2023 at 2:44 PM, AffinityMakesMeSmile said:

Can’t you just resize you artboard in the Transform Studio (to exact size)??

What, why, where????

[Lutz Pietschker]

I would also greatly appreciate a function like "crop document to selection" or even better "Save selection as …" (i.e. as a Designer document). Everything else seem like an unnecessary workaround.

In my current project I use Designer to create vector graphics that I want to use later in Publisher as linked graphics. I want to start out with rough approximations but later refine them and, because they are linked, automatically update them in the Publisher document – just as I would do it with linked photos or raster graphics. The easiest way to do this would currently be to create the objects I need in designer and export them to, say, SVG, repeating the process with every update/refinement of the graphics. What is difficult is to directly save the objects as a Designer document in the required size.

But in v2 there seems a curious workaround: I can create a document that is larger than the symbol I need. Then I create the artboard that fits the object I need. Then I move the object to outside of the artboard (using the layers panel) and delete the artboard. Voila - the document immediately resizes to the object size. Funny.

[Cee Playa]

I'm a web developer, so I don't do any advanced graphic design, but I have to work with images all the time.   I'm given a mockup and I have to copy/paste images into a program (for years I used Fireworks), and often all I'm doing from there is exporting the image in the right format (jpg, png, svg, etc.).  In Fireworks, if I have an image in my clipboard, when I choose File->New, I get a canvas that is the same size as the image in my clipboard.  So all I do is paste the image, which lands perfectly into that canvas, and I'm ready to export immediately.

When I do some of the basic graphic design I'm sometimes asked to do, like create a banner with an image and some text, it's wonderful to be able to "Trim Canvas" and have the canvas size downward to whatever I've built, or "Fit Canvas" where the canvas will grow so that anything larger I've pasted into it will be contained in the canvas.  I would love to see these features in AD.

That said, the procedure to follow in AD to get your artboard tight around your image or design so that you can export it is:
1. Delete all artboards, keeping all objects
2. Ctrl+A (select all)
3. Click the Artboard Tool button in the left column.
4. In the "Artboard" option row that appears above the design, choose "Selection" from the "Size" dropdown menu (Once you've done this once, it defaults to it next time)
5. Click "Insert Artboard" which is right next to that.

Now your canvas (artboard) will be perfectly fit to your image or design and you are ready to export.

I know from reading this thread that I'm not the only one who would like this functionality.   Since it does involve an exact set of steps that already exist in AD, and these exact same steps are repeated each time, it seems like there could be a button, or a hot-key combination, built without too much trouble.  I would add a lower-right tiny triangle to the Artboard Tool button and call the option "Trimmed Artboard Tool".  

[Guest]

Hi Guys,

I kinda find a solution. Because my workflow based on my customers needs and asking. It's means always need to export a part from an existing design because its new printing, promotion, or route go down the company etc ... or just changed the requirements on the fly:D

So my simple solution is that:
1. Copy one or more object that you nedd on new canvas
2. File menu > New from Clipboard 

And voila perfectly sized document without artboards. A simple correct sized document without any extra.

If you need a bigger canvas then the actual objects size, just drew a rectangle around / behind the object and copy all of that. After you can just delete the rectange.

Not ideal, but not too ridicuolus workaround.

Sometimes artboard make confusions and import / export problems when working together others. 

I hope, I'm not beating a dead horse here

[plow0455]

On 9/4/2024 at 3:07 AM, Andras M. said:

So my simple solution is that:
1. Copy one or more object that you nedd on new canvas
2. File menu > New from Clipboard 

Not working for me. I selected what I wanted to keep and tried a new file from the clipboard.

[Guest]

I neve had issue like this. Wich platform do you use? Looks like you not copied anything usable for the Designer to the clipboard.

 

I simply ctl+c and create from clipboard. Works every time.

[walt.farrell]

15 hours ago, plow0455 said:

Not working for me. I selected what I wanted to keep and tried a new file from the clipboard.

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

What application and OS are you using, and what did you copy? (And what application did you copy from?)

[plow0455]

47 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

What application and OS are you using, and what did you copy? (And what application did you copy from?)

I am using Affinity Designer, MacOS (most recent), i copied the selection that i wanted to use and crop out the remainder of the canvas, as suggested by the user whom i quoted (and i copied from Affinity Designer).

[walt.farrell]

35 minutes ago, plow0455 said:

I am using Affinity Designer, MacOS (most recent), i copied the selection that i wanted to use and crop out the remainder of the canvas, as suggested by the user whom i quoted (and i copied from Affinity Designer).

Thanks. I think we would need a screenshot, showing the complete application window and especially the Layers panel so we can see what you started with.

Note that the user you quoted said "copy objects", and you've said "copy selection". The word "selection" is somewhat ambiguous, as it could mean a selection of objects or a pixel selection. And if it's a pixel selection it would work differently depending on the kind of object layer that was active when you did the Copy operation.

[plow0455]

That is a lot of words for affinity needs to fix crop. There should not have to be all of these work arounds for a simple function.