Exporting Timeline to PDF

Feature Requests
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#1

Please give us the option to export timeline to multiple pdf pages. Maybe page break by category such as Source, Organization, etc…
Right now, AEON export the entire timeline to one giant PDF page.

Thank you.

#2

For now, there is a simple workaround to split the PDF into printer-sized pages using the free LibreOffice package:

  1. Load it into LibreOffice Draw and convert it to the ODG graphics format.
  2. Open the LibreOffice Draw Print settings and select Distribute on multiple sheets of paper.
  3. Save it through a PDF printer (e.g. Microsoft Print to PDF).

But beware: The sample project Murder on the Orient Express is spread over 56 pages, and saving it takes me several minutes. And I don’t need to tell you that it’s better to set the light mode in Aeon beforehand.

In any case, it’s handy to get a vector graphics file that can be edited with LibreOffice Draw.

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#3

Thanks for this @Peter_T

Either your method which I will try or, export handful of events in iteration.

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#4

When you print a timeline via Aeon Timeline, it will print to multiple pages.

When you do this, instead of printing to a printer, you can print to PDF instead.

On Windows you can choose Microsoft Print to PDF as your printer, and in Mac you can choose to save as a PDF when printing.

#5

@jess I tried the print option. Unfortunatelly it cuts off the entire line of text into two halves across two pages.

Aeon Timeline Print
Aeon Timeline Print1860×1200 192 KB

EDIT: I played with scaling, page size, and orientation but I got the same results.

#6

I’m afraid you’ll experience this with any method that simply breaks the graphic into pieces. The real disadvantage, however, is that most pages can stand poorly on their own because both scale and context are lost. Such a collection of individual pages is actually only suitable to be printed out and glued together to form a “wallpaper”.

To divide a large timeline into separate parts, each containing the time scale, it may be better to create screenshots and assemble them into print pages using, for example, a DTP program like Scribus.

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#7

If your timeline is not too big, you can export it to one big PDF, open the pdf as a vector graphic PDF in Inkscape and split the Vector graphic in a more proper way.

Just be aware that the vector graphic in the PDF file is built up of hundreds and maybe thousands of small parts.

It might be that Scribus, as Peter mention also will open it properly as a vector-based image, I have not tried, but the principle is the same with both applications.

#8

Same applies to LibreOffice Draw. However, I find editing difficult, especially when you include the timescale.
I would have actually used Scribus to create a multi-page PDF from screenshots.

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