How can we resize the canvas in Affinity Designer for SVG export

[guy_b]

Hi,

 

Still very new to Affinity Designer for Windows

 

I think I have quite a lot of the basics figured out.. but I'm not sure I'm going about things in the best way.

 

I am coming from Inkscape, so quite possibly I'm just thinking about things in the old way (i.e.in the way I'm accustomed to doing things).

 

I have created a complex set of objects and layers, which I would now like to save (export as SVG), and then upload the file to a website.

 

It is a mixture of shapes (curves) and some clipped images.

 

In Inkscape, I could resize the document to the size of the layers boundary, but I am struggling to find how to do this in Affinity Designer.

 

What I've ended up doing, after a bit of experimentation, is to select all the objects and then group them.

 

Then I have resized the document (it could also be an Artboard), to fit the dimensions of the group, and then to center the group.

 

Next I remove this temporary group (since I only used it for alignment and to get the overall dimensions).

 

Then I export the layers as SVG.

 

I can do this with a variety of settings. 

 

What I want is the smallest file size but the highest possible quality for viewing on websites.

 

The multitude of layers are interactive, so obviously I don't want to choose flatten.

 

Since it is not for printing, I don't want the whole document (and this also makes the file size absolutely gigantic).

 

So I have chosen "selection without background".

 

This is only fractionally smaller than  "selection with background".

 

Am I approaching this correctly? Are there some specific tutorials on how to do this efficiently?

 

I appreciate that there are some videos, although couldn't really find the level of detail I was looking for there, and I prefer written documentation on the whole..

 

The help files seem a bit sparse on the details too.

 

Can anyone point me toward something a bit more detailed?

Maybe it's just a case of getting familiar with a different way of working, but right now am finding the process quite circuitous when compared to Inkscape (even though there are a lot of other things that Affinity does much better than Inkscape).

 

Or is this a feature request? The ability to automatically resize the document (or artboard), or "grid" to match the outer boundary of the layers (without needing to group them first).

[MEB]

Hi  guy_b,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

If you select all your objects and then go to File ▸ Export, SVG you should be able to export an SVG document with the same dimensions of the selected objects. There's no need to group them, change the dimensions of the document manually etc. Am i missing something here?

[guy_b]

Hi there,

 

Thanks for the reply. No, you aren't missing the main point, I think it's just me still getting used to how it works in Affinity after spending so many years working in Inkscape. Quite a big adjustment (and old habits can take a while to break)..  :D

 

I can see what you mean now. I think I must have selected the wrong setting when I was doing this last night, so I should also begin setting up my own export persona to avoid ticking boxes all the time.

 

The help files are a bit sparse on detail, and the video library doesn't cover everything, and the forum is difficult to search without trawling a bunch of unrelated content so it is a bit frustrating.

 

I guess I will just need to experiment and practice to get the level of understanding I want. I am interested in the book, but it's relatively expensive and the software is developing rapidly so not sure how current the book is (and is probably written specifically for Mac even though the Windows version is supposed to be the same..).

 

Other than that, I am really enjoying using the tool, it really is a delight to work with.. just a bit frustrated with the lack of written documentation.

 

Thanks

 

Guy