ultimate deck export to pdf

tl;dr: link to the ultimate deck export to pdf

it started years ago. if i am not mistaken it was the end of 2023 and i had to move from sketch to figma. it was an emotional transition. all the shortcuts were wrong, all the modes were off, and nothing felt like home even though the tool did the same. do carpenters feel the same pain when changing to a new saw? nevertheless i moved to figma for commercial reasons. i still do personal projects in sketch where no product manager has to overlook my progress.

i was working on slide decks a lot and after they have been finished they have to be sent in a presentable form. since figma link is work always in progress – pdf’s are the best choice for work. here started my new problems. when you export pdf from figma it retains all the layers, styles etc., but i just want a nice pdf to send to people who need to see it. since i was an extreme newbie with figma i went to my old ways. i exported all the art boards as jpegs in a folder. then i fired up adobe illustrator, put all of these images into separate art boards. exported pdf. this took so much time, but the result was guaranteed.

so i did this workflow for years, but then things changed and i didn’t have to export the decks anymore. then came last week where i had to help with two decks because their file size was enormous. then i said to myself STOP! i had to evolve. i cannot do cheap tricks from uni times. i ventured into creating my own plugin for figma. claude might have helped me a little bit. now it’s live. everybody is happy and no longer do i have to export jpegs -> move them into illustrator -> export pdf. now it’s just select -> click. here’s the plugin url if you’re ever in a need.