How do I export a gradient from QGIS to Illustrator and/ or indesign?
I know I can export a gradient on a layout, but is there also a way to export the gradient in a file format that illustrator can read as native gradient swatch?
QGIS – Exporting Color Ramp as Gradient to Illustrator/Indesign
color rampexportillustratorqgis-3
Related Solutions
File>Export to ai. (Illustrator)
AI files are an excellent format for postprocessing in Adobe Illustrator as well as an interchange format for publishing. The ArcMap AI format preserves most layers from the ArcMap table of contents. However, the Adobe Illustrator file format that ArcMap writes does not support font embedding, so users that do not have the Esri fonts installed may not be able to view AI files with the proper symbology. AI exports from ArcMap can define colors in CMYK or RGB values.
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00sm00000004000000
Note this may need QGIS 2.14, recently released.
Turn your data into Line features with two points, in the order of origin, destination. Every feature must be a Line with two points only.
Open the attribute table, enable editing, and add a new attribute that is a Decimal Number with Length 8 and precision 2. Name it "angle".
Now we're going to set that attribute to the angle of the line. Using the expression bar at the top, set "angle" to this, and hit "Update All":
(180 * atan2(yat(1)-yat(0), xat(1)-xat(0)) / pi() ) + 90
The angle column should now update.
- Next step: buffering and shading. QGIS 2.14 can dynamically generate polygon buffers from lines. Here's a screenshot of the style dialog.
Ignore the first two layers (simple line and marker line) for now. Create a new layer of type "Geometry generator" and type "Polygon". Set the expression as a buffer on your geometry with a suitable width (here 0.03).
- Add a gradient fill to the generated geometry layer.
- Click the expression button next to the Angle setting. This opens the expression dialog. Choose "Edit", and put
"angle"(including double quote marks) in the expression field. OK that.
Once you've gone through all that, you should end up with lines shaded by direction. My test set looks like this:
and you can see how the lines shade from white to black with direction. The other layers in the style help me see if I've got it right - you'll notice the red arrows are pointing from white to black.
Issues: at first I tried to shade the buffers according to the angle worked out in the expression, but I think it applies it to the first two points of the buffer geometry, which could be at any angle depending on where the buffer starts. So I gave up and realised you had to put the angle in the attribute table.
The problem with this is that if you edit or add new lines, they won't have the angle set so you'll need to recompute. You could possibly set a Processing script to do this.
It might be possible to get to the geometry of the line from the buffer geometry, so it can be done automatically, but I've not worked this out yet.
Also you have to be careful about choosing the angle variable in the expression dialog. Don't use the "Attribute Field" section - it won't work. Again, possibly because the buffer geometry doesn't have the attribute. Always use the Edit section, and double-quote the field name.
Best Answer
I found a solution, I made a screenshot from the styles manager with the said colour ramp, then uploaded it to adobe's colouring website (https://color.adobe.com/nl/create/image-gradient) and manually made the gradient from the HEX colours, for some reason you cannot download the a custom gradient or use it from the creative cloud libraries.