Exporting diagrams with consistent proportions?

Hi there.

I'm currently playing with the free trial of neck diagrams.

I intend to use the software to create images that I can import into other documents. The problem I have found is that when I add fretboard diagrams I never 'draw' them with a consistent size or proportions.

Is there anyway to make sure that whenever I export an image the size/proportions are the same so that they look neat when displayed together in a document? In other words I want the width between the frets is the same in every image.

Hopefully that makes some sense! Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi Gizmatio,

There's a few ways you could do this..

1 - if you've got the first fretboard the 'right' size already then you can just copy/paste it - the new one will be the same size of course.

Note that you can also 'clone' via mouse which allows you to copy and see the position where the clones will go before you place them - just hold down the CTRL key (Windows) or ALT/option (Mac) and click/drag the source items to clone.

2 - if you already have a bunch of fretboards on the page then you can use the Match Size toolbar buttons - this'll let you set the width or height of a bunch of fretboards to match any given 'master' one. You can find more in the docs - in the application click the Help menu, select Help Contents and navigate to section Neck Diagrams > Reference > Align / Match Size / Distribute.

3 - if you click in the top or left rulers you'll find you can create guide lines (just drag them around to reposition, to delete select it and hit the delete key!) - these will allow you to create objects and easily align/size them to the guide lines

4 - the main menu has an option View > Grid which'll create a 'snap' grid on the page (you can control the grid size) - this might help you 'draw' fretboards the same size each time!

5 - the Inspector has fields to manually enter the position and size of objects (last tab when the Fretboard is selected) - however this sets the overall size so if the fretboards have different 'adornments' (e.g. one has a footer, another doesn't) then this won't work so well. I'm pretty sure we've got a dev ticket to allow entering the size of the actual fretboard area, mimicking the way the Match Size toolbar buttons do it!

6 - the Publisher version allows you to specify the size of a selected object when exporting to an image format - however iirc it maintains the aspect ratio so might not quite do what you're after. Maybe we could raise a dev ticket to have a toggle to switch off/on keeping the aspect ratio..


Hope that helps, with any luck I've not missed out any other possibilities!

Best regards,
Justin

This is great, thanks a lot for the comprehensive answer!