Hey there. This video is all about outboard mastery. If you've ever had loads of problems with outboard, just looking messy and hard to work with, imagine if there was a way to auto collapse them or be able to just see one at a time. Maybe this one or maybe that one. How to duplicate these logos across all in the exact same position. We'll also fix the auto nesting problems that you probably have run into.
So at the end of this video, you're cool, calm, collected, and you are master of the artboards. Let's jump in now and expand on all those tips. Okay. Trick number one is we need to create another outboard. Okay, we've done a square, we've got a leaderboard version, a skyscraper one. We want a rectangle version.
It's like the square, uh, but it's just a little bit wider, like a rectangle. Um, so what we first need to do is grab the art board tool, which is hiding under the move tool. To find it, click hold, hold, hold down the move tool and grab the art board tool. Click on the word square and a bunch of little pluses up here. What I'd like to do is I wanna duplicate it probably underneath, 'cause there's room. You could do it from either side.
Now if I just click on this, plus I get a a kind of a version of it. If I undo that, okay, but what I'd like to do, it's gonna use pretty much all the exact same graphics. I just need to kind of shuffle it around a bit for the different ratio. So what I'm gonna do is click on the name again and instead of just clicking plus you hold down the magic option key on a Mac or alt key on a PC and click it. Cool, huh? Just kind of like makes a version of it but brings in all the junk with it.
If you've ever tried to create a new one and then drag it all across and it ends up all over the place, you're very welcome. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna click the name of it, okay? Just align it down here for no reason. Okay? Just line it up. We're gonna name it.
You see over here it's called square copy. I'm gonna double click the word square. Copy. I'm gonna call it rectangle. Now I've kept my naming quite simple just for the tutorial. Often I'll call this one IHQ spring promotion 2019, 600 pixels by 500 pixels.
It'll have a really nerdy name along there, but I've kept it simple in this case just so that it's easier for us to work along together. Now that's one of the tips for creating one. Now I need to extend it out. Now if I have rectangle selected, I can go over here and say, actually I know it needs to be a width of 600. Okay? And that works.
The problem is, is that you can see my one, the design is right aligned for your design. That might work perfect. So I'm gonna undo, what I'd like to do is come out this way. You can do it by just using the outboard tool. Click hold and drag this fella out. Just drag it to the left, not holding anything down and I'm getting it to 600 pixels.
Where are you? I have to be exact in this case. 'cause the banner ad needs it to be, okay, here we go. Boom. If you're finding that exact drag pretty hard, you can zoom in. Okay?
Command plus on a Mac control plus on a pc and you just get a lot more control when you're this close in. It's not as hard to drag it out when you're finished. Okay? I am kind of there, right? Um, but I need to move this image across. That's all I'm gonna do.
So I'm gonna go back to my move tool and I click on this uh, Hawaii guy and just move him Across. And there you go. It's not particularly fancy, but that's the rectangle version. If you've ever done ads where there all these kind of multiple sizes that are just slightly, you might shuffle that across a little bit. But there can be like 10 pixels or two pixel difference between what one newspaper needs and another newspaper needs or what one website needs another one. So you end up with these versions that are just slightly different.
All right, so there's a couple of tricks. Another good trick is the layers panel here. Whoa, I've only got four of them here and it's still kind of messy. It's a little bit hard to work with. What I'm gonna do is there's not really a trick. I'm just gonna double click the word color just to close that down.
I'm gonna grab the bar in between here, okay? So that I can see a bit more of it and it's still not as helpful. You know, I need to see all of this. Okay, it's messy. How do I tidy it up? See these little arrows here?
You can collapse 'em individually, but cool little shortcut trick is on a Mac, hold down the command key on a pc. It's the control key and just so hold it down and give it a click. Ah, freedom. It's like vacuuming the house, everything's nice and just feels everything easier to work with. Maybe more like uh, wiping all the spit off my laptop screen. Anybody done that?
The dust. I'll call it the dust, but I'm sure half of it's spit anyway, tidying it up. Better workspace, better creativity. Next trick for mental wellbeing while using art boards, okay, is what if we could actually just see one of these at a time. The one we're working on, we're back to our lovely filtering that nobody uses. So under layers, go to kind, which were on by default.
Go down to this one that says art board and check out the magic. So I click on the word square. It only shows me the things on the square panel. Look how clean that layers is. They're not deleted or gone, just means whichever one we're working on by clicking the name over here. Ah, look at it.
It's just so nice. I've opened them all up just so we can, you know, 'cause they're tidy now they can be open. Another thing you can do is you can switch to your move tool and you don't have to like click on the art board name. You can click on stuff in that art board. So I'm gonna click on the word freedom and I'm in the leaderboard. But see the skyscraper one, when I click on freedom, I'm in the skyscraper.
It's like a contextually sensitive layers panel. I love it. The only thing to do though is sometimes it can, you just gotta remember once you've got it on, you can turn it off by like this is like the global switch or you can just go back to kind and it just kind of disables it. I'm disabling it now 'cause I wanna show you some more upward tricks. The next one is to get around the problem of auto nesting. Auto nestings.
Handy and problematic at the same time. You might have done this like where you've got this graphic here and you're trying to like just move it up, just trying to move it up. I'm gonna exaggerate here. You're like, I'm just gonna move it up. And then it ends up like over here in this one you're like, well what happened to it? Like how did it get over there?
So it happened to anybody. Could just be me. Okay, so instead of this, it's called auto nesting where you kind of get close to it and it just jumps into the next one or ends up out in the art board and lost in the world. You know, undo him. So what you can do is I'm on my rectangle panel there he is there and this Hawaii guy I'd like with it selected. Click on the word Hawaii.
There's this option. Loads of good stuff in here in the layers panel. This fourth icon along prevent auto nesting. Just turn it on. Nothing really happens except the, it gets a little lock icon with a.in the middle. It's not actually locked.
Look, still move it around, but it won't auto nests. Look, if I drag it up here, it won't. It'll 'cause sometimes you just want the bottom of it, right? And you're like, I just want it there. I'm not sure why, but you know. But it ends up auto nesting to the closest one.
So that's just a really handy one. If you don't want any of them to auto nests, you can just grab the whole So rectangle, I'm gonna grab the whole load of these guys. Okay, just click the top one, hold shift, click the last one and then just say, I want you all auto nesting please. And just means another can move out. Alright, one last amazing trick for making our boards do what you want. I'm gonna click on the square guy here.
I'm gonna zoom in a little bit 'cause I'm gonna add a logo. So here logo, I'm gonna drag it out. I'm gonna resize it. Remember, don't hold shift habit it of a lifetime. I'm gonna get it down to about the size. Hit enter on my keyboard.
And the trouble is, is I want it in the same position on all art boards. I could try and copy and paste it and line it up on all of them. But there's a neat little trick you can do. You just do it over here in your layers panel. So right click where it says logo long. So anywhere in here.
Okay, right click it, say duplicate. The good thing about doing duplication, as you can say, I'd like it to go within the same document, but I'd like it to go to the do the leaderboard 'cause I can see 'em and click okay and it duplicates it. And the same kind of height and width from that top corner onto that one as well. I'm gonna zoom out a bit and I want it on all of them so it doesn't matter which one I right click. Okay, as long as the logo long duplicates and this guy's gonna go to the rectangle and then this guy is going to go to the skyscraper, look at them all. Same position on all of them.
Now we've done it with a logo. It could be just this image, you know how we dragged it in and then resized it. You could just duplicate it across all three of them. Now I said that was the last one. There's like a, an addendum to this. Uh, awesome shortcut for duplicating across them.
'cause right clicking duplicate, I don't know, I don't like going through the menu. I like shortcuts, loads of them. So I'm gonna undo, which you probably notice is a little different in this new version as well. Okay, so you just hit command Z and it just keeps going back instead of like that toggle function it used to have. Anyway, getting off track. What I wanna do is duplicate it across these but are with a super duper shortcut.
So instead of right clicking, what you can do is if people probably know if you grab this and drag it into this new page icon down the bottom here of your layers panel, it creates a duplicate, but just kinda randomly it's not what I want in this case. The exact same thing though. If I drag it onto that icon. But if I hold down that magic modifier key, the option key on a Mac or the alt key on a pc, it's the exact same thing. Drag it in, holding that key down. You get duplicate layer.
You are like that much of visual cut. It's tiny bit. It's a tiny bit better. I like it. So I'm gonna go rectangle. Okay, holding down the option key.
I'm gonna try and impress you with how quick I am. Ready? Go. Yeah, Better ish, right? If you remember which one you're doing. Skyscraper A yam fast.
Fast enough. All right, so those are all my tricks for using outboards and just kind of making sure that when you're working on a big document and there's lots of different artboards you can kind of work with a little bit of finesse, bit of clarity in your layers. My dad's wise words of you do your best work where you are the most comfortable. And I find with a messy layers panel, not comfortable, not my best work. So just to quickly recap, hold command key or control key down. Click on these little chevrons, tidy it all up, or jump to art boards and then just click on anyone you want and it will switch between them.
If you don't want things auto nesting, select it. Click on this little icon and it won't jump from one up board to the other. And if you need, say this logo on all of them in the exact same pace, you can use your spiffy new shortcut by holding down the option key on a Mac and the al key and drag it into the new layer icon and decide what upward they can go on. All right, that's US art board. Nerdiness over. Let's get into the next video.
Oh, before you do, I was kind of messing around there. I'm gonna go back to kind and just have no filtering selected and maybe just twirl these up for the next video so they're all doing the same thing. Alright, next video time.