Script to crop artwork to artboard

[Jase_MK]

I have some SVG graphics where the features/polygons 'hang out' over the edge of my artboard by a tiny amount. Is there a way (via script) of cropping all my shapes such that nothing hangs out over the edge of the artboard?

I have some script that creates a rectangle which is the exact size of my artboard. Using the menus (not script) I can then use that rectangle as a clipping mask over everything else which makes everything appear to be cropped, although what I'd actually like to do is properly, permanently modify all my polygons, rather than just having a visible clipping mask (and I need to do it all in script too). I'm then exporting the SVG files (hundreds of them) to DXF and what I don't want is coordinates of polygons that fall outside of the defined artboard boundary.

These are tesselating map tiles that are eventually making their way to GIS software to form a much larger map, so I don't want these little slivers of overhanging features as they end up overlapping each other at teh tile boundaries in teh final map.

Thanks!

[Jase_MK]

It appears I can do what I want using the 'crop' option of Pathfinder, using the GUI. I guess the question is whether it's possible to use this option via my script?

[Silly-V]

If Crop really solves your problem, then yes it's totally possible!

#target illustrator
function ArtboardCrop(){
    app.coordinateSystem = CoordinateSystem.ARTBOARDCOORDINATESYSTEM;
    if(app.documents.length  > 0){
        var doc = app.activeDocument;
        var activeArtboardIndex = doc.artboards.getActiveArtboardIndex();
        var rc =  doc.artboards[activeArtboardIndex].artboardRect;
        var newRect = doc.pathItems.rectangle(rc[1],rc[0],rc[2],-rc[3]);
        newRect.filled = false;
        newRect.stroked = false;
        var newGroup = doc.groupItems.add();
        var thisItem;
        for(var i = doc.layers[0].pageItems.length - 1; i > -1;  i--){
            thisItem = doc.layers[0].pageItems;
            if(thisItem != newGroup){
                thisItem.move(newGroup, ElementPlacement.PLACEATBEGINNING);
            }
        };
        app.executeMenuCommand("selectall");
        app.executeMenuCommand("Live Pathfinder Crop");
        app.executeMenuCommand("expandStyle");
    }
}
ArtboardCrop();

As for me, I don't know about all this, since this effect seems to destroy strokes.

[Disposition_Dev]

Is it possible to simply 'use artboards' when saving/exporting? this will leave the actual artwork alone, but the exported file will be cropped to the artboard.

[W_J_T]

@ Silly-V, Nice one, albeit CS6+ , since its going to .DXF a simple basic stroke could be reapplied via script after the fact, perhaps. I would like to know further the requirements.

@ william, using '.artBoardClipping' works well for image formats (gif,jpeg,png) sadly for the various vector formats things get more tricky when cleaning/removing unneeded items.

[Jase_MK]

Thanks all. In the end I recorded an action for pathfinder crop, created an appropriately sized rectangle and used script to call the action - which did exactly what I needed. Much like Silly-V's solution, although mine was a little more messy with the having to record an action. I may change it slightly to use app.executeMenuCommand("Live Pathfinder Crop"); as Silly V suggests as it's a little neater.

William, exporting just the artboard would be great but sadly I couldn't find this as an option in the JS API docs under the various AutoCAD exporting options.

Thanks again!