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Exporting a Tab

Take a tab out of livedocuments: download its pages as a PDF, images or a GIF, or a JSON file you can import back.

Export downloads the active tab in the format you need, whether that is an image for a doc, a PDF to print, or a file to move the tab into another document.

Opening Export

There are a few ways in, and they all open the same Export Tab dialog:

  • The tab's menu (the ⋯ button on the active tab, or right-click the tab): choose Export.
  • Export… in the command palette (Cmd / Ctrl + K). This works on a view-only share link too, so viewers can download a copy.
  • Export in the ⋯ menu at the top of the Explorer panel.

To export only part of a tab, select several elements and press the Export button on the toolbar that appears above the selection. The dialog is then headed Export Selection and covers just those elements.

Export formats

The dialog shows a card per format. A tab exports as its pages:

  • PDF: every page in one PDF, or a single page, ready to print or share. Each page comes out at its own size and orientation.
  • PNG: a high-resolution image of a page, or a .zip with one image per page.
  • SVG: a crisp vector image of a page that scales to any size, or a .zip with one per page.
  • GIF: one animated image of the pages, moving as they move on the canvas.
  • JSON: a portable .livedocuments-tab.json snapshot that imports back with full fidelity.

For the image formats, choose All pages or One page. Each page comes out as exactly its sheet, background included. See Exporting and Presenting Pages for the details.

Files are named after the document and the tab, for example Roadmap - Overview.png.

The Export Tab dialog has a card for every format.

Exporting a selection

Export Selection offers JSON, Markdown, PNG, SVG and PDF:

  • Markdown: the selected elements with labels, and every connection between them, as a Markdown outline (.md), a readable summary rather than a full copy.
  • The text formats (JSON and Markdown) open an editor pre-filled with the selection in that format: tweak the text and press Copy, or download the file (Download .json or Download .md). Your edits in that box never change the tab.
  • The image formats (PNG, SVG, PDF) open an options screen with a preview and a download button:
    • Isometric view (off by default) tilts the export into the isometric projection.
    • Background pattern (on by default) paints the tab's grid, dots or texture behind the elements. Switch it off for a plain background.
    • Hidden layers appears only when the tab has layers hidden and the Layers panel is switched on in Settings, and chooses whether those layers are included. It is off by default, so what you hid stays out.

All formats at the top of any screen takes you back to the cards.

Reach for SVG when the image might be resized or printed large: it stays sharp at any scale, unlike a fixed-resolution PNG. For sharing a live, always-current view instead of a static file, see Sharing and Embeds.

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