Copy and paste between Vectornation and other apps

The clipboard is the fastest way to move artwork between programs, and it is easy to take for granted until something pastes wrongly. Vectornation by Zaweba puts care into both directions, so what you copy arrives in a useful form.

Images pasted from other apps keep their transparency. SVG copied from other apps pastes as vectors. And Edit > Copy puts PNG, EMF and PDF on the clipboard alongside the drawing, so other programs can choose the format that suits them.

Pasting pictures in

Copy a cut out product photo or a logo with a transparent background from another program and paste it in. The transparency comes with it, so the picture sits over your artwork rather than inside a white box. That saves the familiar routine of saving to a file and placing it again just to keep its edges clean.

Once pasted, a picture is like any other placed image. Crop it, trace it or use it as the source for a halftone.

Pasting SVG as vectors

Many tools, from icon libraries to web design apps and browsers' developer tools, let you copy SVG. Paste that into Vectornation and it arrives as real shapes, not as a picture of shapes. You can ungroup, recolour and edit points straight away.

This is handy for icons. Copy one from an icon set, paste it, and adjust its stroke and colour to match your design.

Copying out to other programs

When you copy in Vectornation, several formats go on the clipboard at once. The receiving program takes whichever it understands best.

Word processors, presentation programs and other Windows apps often prefer EMF, which keeps the artwork as vectors so it stays sharp when resized. Apps that work with pictures will take the PNG. Programs that handle PDF can use that for the best quality. You just paste, and the other program picks.

For a slide or a report, that means a diagram drawn in Vectornation can be pasted in and resized without going blurry. For an image editor, it means a transparent PNG with clean edges.

When to use a file instead

The clipboard is quick but not permanent, and it carries no settings. When the result needs exact pixel dimensions, a particular resolution, or must be sent to someone, export a file instead. Image export gives control over ppi and background, and the PDF and SVG options give full quality vector files.

For repeated work, such as icons that go into a website again and again, Asset export or Export for screens is less work over time than copying each one.

Small things that trip people up

If a paste looks like a picture when you expected vectors, the other program probably only put an image on the clipboard. Check whether it has a copy as SVG option.

Pasted artwork can arrive at an unexpected size, especially from programs that work in different units. Check its dimensions and scale it if needed.

And copying very large or complicated artwork can be slow, because several formats are made at once. For big drawings, export instead.