How to export a diagram and architecture documents
Get the architecture out of the tool in the format the audience needs.
When this is useful
- A design has to go into a document, a board pack or a supplier brief.
- You need a vector image that survives being resized in someone else's slide.
- You are moving an architecture to another tool and want an open format rather than a picture.
Before you start
- The diagram in the state you want captured. Exports reflect the page as it stands.
Step 1: Choose the format
PDF for a document, PNG for something that will be pasted into a chat or a deck, SVG when it needs to stay sharp at any size.
Diagram ▸ PDFDiagram ▸ PNG ImageDiagram ▸ SVG Vector
Step 2: Or assemble a document set
The Export Center is for the case where one image is not the deliverable — an architecture document rather than a diagram.
Diagram ▸ Export Center
Step 3: Export the model itself, if that is what you need
Archify JSON export writes the architecture as an open interchange format, so the model can leave and come back. Where a page has nothing that format can express, the export says so rather than writing a hollow file.
Diagram ▸ Export CenterDiagram ▸ Archify (.json)
What happens next
An exported file is a snapshot. If the diagram is going to change, link people to the shared diagram instead so they read the current one.
Example
A supplier RFP that needed the target architecture as a PDF appendix and the same design as SVG for the presentation, produced from one page in two minutes.
Tips
- Prefer SVG over PNG whenever the recipient might resize it. Architecture diagrams are mostly small text, and small text is what PNG loses first.
- Export at the point the design is agreed, and record which version it was — a snapshot with no version is hard to reconcile later.
Limitations
- An export is a point-in-time copy with no link back. It will not update when the diagram does.
- The Export Center and format exports are separately enabled.