Darty Export Workflows

Darty-Ai enables template-file-based and variable-data-based exporting workflows.
Here are some common workflow patterns to use.

Data-Export Mode

This mode is indicated by the green Export button, it renders variable records in the specified template document.
To activate this export mode, make sure to have picked a data-source and set an Illustrator document as an export template using the controls provided within the Export Templates section.

Multiple Templates

A data export can be performed on one or more templates. Doing so will run the data records across each template.
This is useful for when multiple Illustrator files contain diverse artwork which is tagged or named in a standard or predictable manner.
For example if there are two stationery templates, one for the letterhead and the other for business cards, the same data could be applied to both files and yield unique outputs.

Template-Export Mode

The Template-Export mode is indicated by an orange Export Button and is activated by having at least one Illustrator file chosen inside the Export Templates section, and having NO data-source selected.

This mode is useful for creating configured exports of: a single file, a folder of files, and a mixture of files added from various folders.
Due to the absence of data-source for this mode, no variable-data processing happens during a template-mode export.

Configured Exports

Both Data and Template export-modes utilize the Darty Export screen for configuring the output.
This is the only utility for the Template-Export Mode.

The Darty Export configuration is a robust take on Illustrator's "Export for Screens" feature, and it can do much more. Primarily, it stores settings for multiple output formats that can be used to export files and can make Illustrator save them to different specified folders. However, Darty's export configuration also handles the host of Illustrator export-format settings as well as additional export properties specialized for both vector and bitmap files.

Whether using data or template export-modes, the Darty export configuration settings will be applied to the output file.

More Outputs from One Template

These are the export properties which leverage Illustrator features to get more kinds of outputs from one template, in some cases even for the Template-Export Mode:

• Artboard Range - if a template document has multiple artboards with unique content, setting the artboard export range and exporting the file (perhaps using a job for putting different artboards into different folders) will render out the unique result(s).
• Tag-Search Range - specifying this type of export range type will export those tagged art objects similar to the "export selection" command in Illustrator's regular user-interface.

Export Uses

The use-cases for Darty Export are numerous as they are diverse. Here is a sampling of some common Darty Export use-cases:

• Variable Data/Dynamic Art - create unique designs with precisely-controlled, yet highly manipulable functions.
• Multiple Formats - export the same file in multiple formats as needed.
• Different Settings - each format can have its own settings, and multiple sets of the same format with different settings can be exported by using jobs.
• Scaling & Resolution - export the file at different scales. Scaling can be a percentage, or maxed and proportional to a specified width or height.
• Document Subset - as described above in More Outputs from One Template, selecting a section of the template to export just that portion (artboard, tagged-items).
• Outline Texts - for those workflows where fonts must be outlined. Even without data, this can be used on a folder of files which need to have their texts outlined.

Running commonly-used sheets and record-ranges

Since the Darty features act on the spreadsheets as an alternative to Actions, it can be possible to have many 'routines' on-hand to perform a variable automation task on working files. Common-use sheets with only 1 or a few rows can be quickly accessed using the Recent Files list.

Additionally, record range selection in the Export-action zone allows for 'cherry-picking' a particular command record from the sheet out of many.
For example, on a task performed several times per day, an artist has to run the Darty record when working with files on that task. They can easily choose the one recent data source with the command inside to accomplish the work quickly. However, what if in some rare situations, they had to do almost the same process but also something different on those files. The worker could have a Darty sheet with two records and pick the range of #2 to run only the 2nd record on the special cases.

Other Supplemental Use-Cases

These are some non-obvious but valid uses of Darty:

• File renaming - if there was a need to copy and rename all the files of a folder. It is entirely possible to specify a data column only for file-renaming when in data-mode OR in template-mode to use RegEx Replace on an appropriate output-counter in prefix, suffix or filename to edit the name.
• Overset Text-Fitting - in the case where a folder has files with overset text which must be fixed, such as when there was a font-change or a systemic discrepancy in art files. When faced with such a challenge, running a template-mode export with Overset Text-Fitting ON may be the key.