Setting Up a New Drawing

Artboard offers you the flexibility to set your drawing canvas dimensions, drawing units, and more, including the ability to save settings as your personal default for new drawings.

Show Hide To Open the Drawing Setup Dialog:

Open the Drawing Setup window by choosing File > Drawing Size & Units… from the main menu.

Show Hide To Change Drawing Units:

Open the Drawing Setup dialog.
Choose your preferred drawing unit from the drop-down menu (millimeters, centimeters, inches, points).

Show Hide To Edit the Drawing Canvas Size:

Open the Drawing Setup dialog.
Enter the width (w) and height (h) of your desired canvas size in the current drawing units.

Show Hide To Subtract Printer Paper Margins:

When creating a drawing for the printed page, your drawing area may be slightly smaller than your paper size due to paper printer margins around the edges. Optionally, Artboard will subtract your printer page margins from the entered drawing canvas width and height. Paper margins are based on your printer settings.

Open the Drawing Setup dialog.
Check 'Subtract paper margins'.

Show Hide To Use Your Custom Drawing Settings as the Default:

Open the Drawing Setup dialog.
Customize the drawing settings.
Click the 'Set As Default' button (located to the right of the canvas size settings).

Show Hide To Access the System Page Setup Dialog:

For printed works, Artboard provides easy access to the Apple system Page Setup dialog. Use this menu to change printer paper size and orientation.

Open the Drawing Setup dialog.
Click the 'Page Setup…' button (located under the 'Set As Default' button).

Show Hide To Add (or Remove) a Color Background:

1. Click the 'Background:' drop-down list and do one of the following:

Click a preset background image fill.
Click 'Color' to open the Colors panel and choose a background color.
Click 'None' to remove a background color or image fill.

Show Hide Graph Paper Settings

Grid line spacing, colors, and rulers are customizable.

Do one of the following:

Choose File > Graph Paper Settings… to open the Graph Paper setup dialog.
Right-click the Graph Paper layer and choose Graph Paper Settings… from the contextual menu.

2. For grid line spacing, change the following settings:

Span - the distance between graph paper primary grid lines, displayed in current drawing units.
Divisions - minor subdivisions between grid spans.
Majors - major lines encompassing several spans.

3. For colors, do one of the following:

Click 'Theme based on:' color-well and choose a new color for your graph paper. Semi-transparent colors are recommended. Artboard automatically generates different shades to represent span, divisions, and majors based on your color choice.
Click 'Or' and click the color-wells to change the color independently for span, divisions, and majors. Semi-transparent colors are recommended.

4. For ruler labels, change the span line setting.

See Using the Graph Paper Layer for more information.