How do I "crop" the "canvass"?

[Paul Martin]

I'm used to old Serif ways of thinking, so can anybody straighten me out on this Affinity Designer problem? I imported a wide jpg as a tracing template. SUbsequently, I changed the layout to a rough square, but I'm stuck with the wider format. I want to trim this to fit the actual graphic which only takes up half the "canvass".

I can't for the life of me see how Designer allows you to do this, although it seems such a basic task. Help!

[firstdefence]

You could create an Artboard From Selection, so, select the image and...

[MEB]

Hi Paul Martin,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

Here's a few ways you can try:

- you can go to File ▸ Document Setup and adjust the document dimensions to the new size you want;

- select and copy all layers on your document (menu Edit ▸ Copy) then go to menu File ▸ New From Clipboard to create a new document with the same dimensions and the content copied to the clipboard;

- or select the Artboard Tool, click Insert Artboard in the context toolbar to convert the current canvas to an artboard then drag the artboard handles on canvas to adjust the size visually. You can also do it with the Move Tool- just make sure the Artboard layer is selected in the Layers panel and that Lock Children is ticked in the context toolbar.

[Paul Martin]

Thanks, MEB. This has reminded me that I don't entirely "get" the concept of artboards. Which is to say, I don't yet know for which problems the solution is artboard.

[MEB]

Hi Paul Martin,

You can use artboards to keep different elements of a project on a single file for example a company logo, letterhead, envelope and business card all in a single afdesgin file. Check this help topic - Artboards - Some uses for artboards section almost on the bottom for more examples.