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Exporting board as vector (SVG)

  • 11 December 2020
  • 10 replies
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Userlevel 1

Miro has been valuable to get some ideas down, but I’m starting to come up to some limitations that cannot be easily overcome or worked around; especially when working with outside organizations that are locked into their own stack, such as o365.

In particular, I need to be able to export my board in a more vendor-neutral/open-standard format, such as an SVG, so that I can pull in it to other stacks, such as OneNote. (CSV is kinda useless)

How can I achieve this? (simple C&P doesn’t work)

I’ve tried exporting as a PDF and printing from the browser, but all I get is a embedded bitmap/raster.

Does the export at HQ PDF export it as vector?

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Best answer by Robert Johnson 12 December 2020, 18:33

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10 replies

Userlevel 1

I’m not familiar with SVG. What does that buy? Would that allow me to treat objects individually?  Currently, I can export as PDF and import to powerpoint which allows me to resize with good resolution.  I have also never printed from the browser so not sure what you expect that to do.

Great topic.

Userlevel 7
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@makerjakes - All paid (and Education) plans can export to high quality vector as PDF. You can read more about this in the Board Export Help Center article.

To demonstrate this from my Consultant Plan team, I

  1. Created a new board from this Miroverse template 
  2. Put a frame around the whole template (at least one frame is required in order to export the board as PDF)
  3. form the export this board menu, I chose Save as PDF → Best quality
  4. saved the PDF to my desktop
  5. uploaded the PDF to the board, so you can download it and see the final output.

Just load this board, select the PDF, and use the download button.

https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lbBO8Wo=/

 

Userlevel 1

Thanks for the feedback, @Stephen Chew , @Robert Johnson .

Unfortunately that doesn’t quite address the problem: I’ve created some quite sophisticated nested models that I need to export and edit with tools of my choice.

To clarify/context:

  • Bitmap images (aka. “raster” or "scalar") are a 2-dimensional array or grid of pixels with a RGB value. Literally a “map of bits”.
    Think of Minecraft: if you are faaaar out, you can see a pretty picture, but if you fall in & look very close, it distorts into blocky bits. 
    This is why you cannot just any old picture, scale it up & “enhance” (despite that bad cop shows would have you believe.
    Common file formats include: PNG, BMP, JPG, GIF
  • Vector images, or the other hand, are essentially images expressed as a mathematical formula, i.e. draw a line from [X1,Y1] to [X2,Y2] with a particular properties like a curve of a particular angle or delta.
    This allows you to zoom in infinitely & scale the image infinitely without any distortion, and to pull certain elements apart, manipulate them without much trouble.
    Common file formats include: SVG, AI, DWG, PDF, EPS

Miro (& other similar tools) has to be vector-based - with the ability to drop in bitmap blobs, of course - else it would be impossible to scale infinitely, or drop in shapes, tweak their basic properties, group them or work with them in the manner it does.

Exporting to PDF is not a good indicator of whether an document is vector or a bitmap.
I can easily take a screenshot of my board & “print” that as a PDF from my desktop, but the resulting file will just have a bitmap (blob) embedded in the file (with some metadata)

If the “Best Quality” PDF option is capable of exporting my board or parts of it as vectors in the PDF file, then I can use something like Adobe Illustrator to retrieve my work-product to be used in any other format or platform that is suitable to my needs.
​​​

TL;DR: does the “Save as PDF → Best quality” option export as a vector, or just a higher DPI bitmap?

Userlevel 7
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@makerjakes -

TL;DR: does the “Save as PDF → Best quality” option export as a vector, or just a higher DPI bitmap?

 

Go to my board and download the embedded PDF, which is one that I used “Save as PDF → Best quality” to generate.

Userlevel 1

Not perfect, but still pretty close.

Thanks for the info, @Robert Johnson 

Userlevel 4
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@makerjakes -

TL;DR: does the “Save as PDF → Best quality” option export as a vector, or just a higher DPI bitmap?

 

Go to my board and download the embedded PDF, which is one that I used “Save as PDF → Best quality” to generate.

@Robert Johnson Is this the best way to get images from Miro if I need to use examples in a website?

Userlevel 7
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@jtk - If you only need images, then I would suggest either putting your examples in frames and exporting as an image or using the board export → image and selecting areas as required.

Frame export → image

Here’s the result as a Medium size:

 

Board export → Image

 

The export in Medium size:

 

Userlevel 4
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@Robert Johnson Nice! Thanks again!

Userlevel 4
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It would be awesome if it exported where the background could be transparent, but I do love the hi-res options. 

Userlevel 4
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Another observation: If you save as a PDF, it should be a vector, which should be scalable without degradation. This is not so when I opened it in Affinity Pro. Not sure where my thinking is off.