Export a canvas to PDF

A canvas can be exported as a PDF report: A4 pages, portrait, with the canvas's title and workspace at the head of each page, the context it was filtered to, and page numbers at the foot. You can export one yourself, or have an agent or a workflow produce it, for example to send a monthly pack.

Export a canvas yourself

1. Open the canvas in view mode, with the context values you want the report to show.
2. Open the canvas's ⋯ in the app header and choose Export PDF (marked Beta).
3. In the Export PDF dialog, set:
   • File name: leave it empty to name the file after the workspace, the canvas, its filters and the time. The field shows that name until you type one.
   • Rows per table: Widget default prints as many rows as each list's card shows on the canvas; Up to prints up to the number you type, from 1 to 100, whatever the card's height.
   • Save to Files: also save the PDF to Files, with the Labels you pick. They start as Exported and Canvas.
4. Click Export. The PDF downloads.

The dialog remembers your choices for next time, in this browser, except the file name. Export PDF is not offered in edit mode: save your changes first, since the PDF prints the saved canvas.

While it works, SPARK shows Exporting PDF.

What the PDF looks like

• Each page is A4 portrait. Its header names the canvas, in bold, and the workspace. When the canvas has context variables, a line under the header names their values, for example Fund includes Kestrel Euro Bond · Share class: All, a variable left unset reading All.
• The widgets are laid out at the Document width, whatever width the canvas is saved or viewed at, with the canvas's own Keep proportions.
• A table's columns that run past its card are left out, since paper can't scroll sideways.
• The footer reads Exported on with the date, and Page n of total, beside the Next Gate Tech mark.

If something goes wrong

• Some widgets didn't load: the PDF still downloads, showing those widgets as they were.
• Couldn't export PDF: the message offers Print instead, which opens the browser's print dialog for the same pages. Choose Save as PDF there.
• When your environment has no PDF service set up, Export PDF opens the browser's print dialog directly. A PDF printed this way can't be saved to Files, and SPARK says Not saved to Files.

A person can export up to 10 PDFs a minute. Agents and workflows are not held to that.

Have an agent produce it

An agent with the canvas PDF tool (Spark Export Canvas Pdf) can export a canvas in a thread: ask it for the PDF of a canvas, or to build a canvas and send its PDF. The agent saves the PDF to Files, labelled Exported and Canvas, and links it to the thread, so it opens beside the conversation; it tells you if any widget didn't load. See Tools.

Produce it from a workflow

The Canvas to PDF workflow step exports a canvas on a schedule or a trigger, and saves it to Files. It takes the canvas and the context values to print it with, a file name, the time zone its dates are written in, how many rows each list prints, the Labels to save it with (Exported and Canvas unless you pick others), and Only save a complete PDF, on by default, which fails the step rather than save a PDF with a widget that couldn't load its data. The next steps read the saved PDF as they read any loaded file. See Build a workflow.

Limits

A PDF is at most 200 pages. Each list prints at most 100 rows.

Where to go next

• Focus the canvas before exporting: Context variables
• Find the saved file: Organize files
• Automate it: Build a workflow