Exporting a Tab

Export downloads the active tab in the format you need, whether that is an image for a doc, a PDF to print, or a file to move the tab into another document.

Opening Export

There are a few ways in, and they all open the same Export tab dialog:

• The tab's menu (the ⋯ button on the active tab, or right-click the tab): choose Export.
• Export… in the command palette (Cmd / Ctrl + K). This works on a view-only share link too, so viewers can download a copy.
• Export in the ⋯ menu at the top of the Explorer panel.

To export only part of a tab, select several elements and press the Export button on the toolbar that appears above the selection. The dialog is then headed Export selection and covers just those elements.

Export formats

The dialog shows a card per format:

• JSON: a portable .livediagram-tab.json snapshot that imports back with full fidelity. A tab with Plan boards or Plan cards carries their cards and any custom card types too, without votes or comments.
• Mermaid: the tab as Mermaid flowchart text (.mmd), which keeps every connection and its style (unlike Markdown); frames export as subgraph blocks.
• Markdown: the tab's elements and connections as a Markdown outline (.md), a readable summary rather than a full copy. Each Plan board lists its columns and every card in them.
• Excalidraw: a .excalidraw scene you can open at excalidraw.com. Boxes, text, arrows (with their connections), and drawings carry over; element kinds Excalidraw doesn't have (charts, tables, device frames and so on) simplify to labelled boxes. A Plan board comes across as its columns and card faces.
• PNG: a high-resolution image, good for slides, docs and chat.
• SVG: a crisp vector image that scales to any size and opens in design tools.
• PDF: a single-page PDF of the tab, ready to print or share.

The four text formats (JSON, Mermaid, Markdown, Excalidraw) each open an editor pre-filled with the tab in that format: tweak the text and press Copy, or download the file (Download .json, Download .mmd and so on). Your edits in that box never change the tab. The three image formats (PNG, SVG, PDF) open an options screen with a preview and a download button (see below). All formats at the top of either screen takes you back to the cards.

Files are named after the document and the tab, for example Roadmap - Overview.png.

Image options

The PNG, SVG, and PDF exports show the tab as it looks. After you pick one, the options screen offers:

• Isometric view (off by default) tilts the export into the isometric projection.
• Background pattern (on by default) paints the tab's grid, dots or texture behind the diagram. Switch it off for a plain background.
• Hidden layers appears only when the tab has layers hidden in the Layers panel, and chooses whether those layers are included. It is off by default, so what you hid stays out.

Set them and press the download button (Download PNG, Download SVG or Download PDF), and what you get matches what you see. The JSON, Mermaid, Markdown, and Excalidraw exports capture the underlying content rather than the picture.

Exporting Illustrate Pages

In Illustrate mode the dialog offers PDF, PNG, SVG and JSON, and the image formats export pages rather than the whole tab. Choose All pages or One page: a PDF of all pages has one PDF page each at its own size, and PNG or SVG of all pages comes as a .zip with one image per page. Each page comes out as exactly its sheet, background included. See Exporting and Presenting Pages.