Your documents are not locked inside livediagram. When you want a copy to drop into a slide deck, a doc, or a chat, you can export a tab as an image or a PDF, or as a file another tool can open. And when you want the document to stay live wherever you put it, you can embed it instead.
Exporting a tab
Export works on one tab at a time, so switch to the tab you want first. Then either:
- open the tab's ⋯ menu and choose Export; or
- open the Explorer panel's menu and choose Export, which exports the tab you are on.
To export only part of a tab, select two or more elements and choose Export on the toolbar that appears for a multi-selection (editors only; view-only readers export the whole tab).
Pick a format:
- PNG, SVG or PDF for a picture: PNG to paste into docs and chat, SVG to stay sharp at any size, PDF to print. An options screen with a live preview lets you leave out the canvas background pattern (it is on by default), tilt the picture into the isometric view, and include hidden layers when the tab has any, then download.
- JSON for a
.livediagram-tab.jsonfile that imports back into livediagram with everything intact. This is the one to keep as a backup. - Mermaid, Markdown or Excalidraw to carry the structure into another tool. Each opens the text first, so you can copy it or download it, and so does JSON.
A few things to know about image exports:
- Looping element animations freeze to a static frame, so a still image always looks clean. An animated background pattern has no still version, so the image shows the plain background colour.
- Frames are drawn behind their contents, just as they are on the canvas.
Exporting a Tab covers every format and option in detail, including how Illustrate pages export: every page in one PDF, one page (or a .zip of every page) as PNG or SVG, or an animated GIF of the pages.
An image is the right choice when you need a fixed snapshot: a diagram for a report, an attachment, or a printout.
Embedding a live view
When you want the document to keep updating wherever it lives, embed it instead. An embed is an iframe of a shared document that you can drop into Notion, a wiki, or any page that accepts an iframe.
An embed follows the role of the pass it was made from: a Viewer or Participant pass embeds a read-only canvas, an Editor pass an editable one. It hides the editor's controls, leaving the canvas with pan and zoom, and it stays live: as the document is edited, the embed updates in place rather than showing a stale snapshot.
To grab one, open the Share dialog, find the pass you want, open its Embed menu and choose Copy iframe for a ready-made snippet you can paste straight into your page, or Copy embed URL for the address alone. A Local only document has no passes, so sync it first.
Reach for an image when you need a fixed snapshot, and an embed when you want the document to keep updating in place wherever you have put it. For a picture that updates itself, see Live Image.
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