Last updated on March 10th, 2023 at 12:59 pm
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Calling all iPad users! Affinity Designer iPad is a great app for sewing with a projector! This versatile program will let you calibrate your zoom, project patterns, and perform pattern alterations all in one!
Download Affinity Designer iPad
Affinity Designer iPad offers a free 30-day trial, no credit card required. I suggest downloading the free trial and giving it a go!
You can download it directly from the app store. Make sure to choose Affinity Designer and NOT Affinity Photo or Publisher!
Affinity Designer desktop versions can also be downloaded on Windows and Mac.
Sorry Android users, this is program is only available on iPad and not other tablets. Chromebook and Fire tablets do not run this program.
Setup Your iPad
While using Affinity Designer iPad for sewing, you don’t want your tablet to keep going to sleep while working. Changing the sleep timer/auto lock will help you enjoy the experience of projecting from an iPad better.
On the iPad go to Settings>Display and Brightness>Auto-lock
You can change this setting to 15 minutes or “never”. This will help the iPad not turn off while you are projecting a pattern.
Cloud Storage
I store all of my pattern files in Google Drive. To be able to access your patterns, you will need to have them accessible on your iPad. Make sure to download the Google Drive app or Dropbox. If you store patterns in iCloud, you do not need to download another app. You can access iCloud documents directly from Affinity Designer.
Affinity Designer iPad Settings for Sewing
When you first open Affinity Designer iPad, you will want to change some preferences. The preferences is a gear at the bottom of the home screen. Click on it. Under the general settings turn “Present on External Displays” OFF. (A little counter-intuitive, right?)
This will help the projector to mirror in real-time what is happening on your screen.
Tour the Home Screen
The home screen is the main screen that will open every time you start Affinity Designer iPad. The “Live Docs” are the documents that you currently have open. You can think of these as “Tabs”.
Come to the home screen at any time to switch between documents.
New
The New button with create a new file. For sewing, you can use this to open a blank document.
Open
The open button has three choices: open document, import document, and import from Photos. If you are working on making changes to a pattern, you can “open the document” to keep working. Importing a document from cloud storage will not make changes to the original file. It will import a copy into Affinity Designer. Import from Photos will not really be used for sewing.
Templates
You can open saved templates here. This will probably not be used much by the beginner, but might come in handy for those creating or editing patterns frequently.
Samples
The Samples are provided as learning tools in Affinity Designer. Feel free to open them and take a look at trying out the different tools.
Help
This is a section you should take note of! It walks you through using all the tools, toolbars, and panels. When you are just starting out, this is a great reference!
Account
Your account page is where you can see how many days you have left in your free trial. You can also log in to see all the purchases you have made.
Preference
The preference page is just that, a place to change your preferences. If you are left-handed, you can change it to be optimized for left-hand. We already changed the most important setting for projector sewing which is the “Present on External Displays”.
Gestures Affinity Designer iPad
Open a pattern or one of the sample documents in Affinity Designer to practice a few gestures on the iPad.
Use two fingers to move the image on the screen. Just tap with two fingers and move it around. Give it a try now!
Just using one finger will engage whatever tool is currently selected.
Notice that two fingers will also zoom the image in and out. So, one you are calibrated I don’t recommend using fingers to move the pattern around! I’ll show you another way to better navigate pattern pieces!
Three Fingers swiped down will bring up a menu to duplicate, cut, copy, paste, delete, group, and many more. This will sometimes have different options based on the tool you have selected.
The toggle command controller is a very helpful tool, especially when you don’t have a keyboard, or just don’t want to use one!
However, the toggle command controller is not needed when calibrating. You can turn it off by selecting the three lines at the top of the screen. Next, click on “Toggle Command Controller”. This turns it on and off.
Layers Panel
The layers panel is one of the most used panels for sewing. You will find it on the right-hand studio and it looks like a stack of papers. Select it and all the layers and elements of a design will show up.
You can “lock” a layer so that it doesn’t get changed. Select the layer by clicking on it. Then, press the three dots on the upper right of the panel. Press the “lock” button to lock and unlock the layer. No changes can be made to a locked layer.
When you are finished with the layers panel, just click the layer icon again and it will disappear.
Navigation Panel
Next, let’s jump down to the navigation panel. This is where you will navigate the pattern and type in zoom!
The top box has a picture of the document and a gray rectangle. Click and drag the gray box another the pictured document. This will change the on-screen view.
For calibration, center the box in the middle of the calibration tool.
Next, you will see a round circle with “Zoom” written under it. Click on it and this is where you can type in zoom!
Try it out!
Once you have typed in the zoom, let’s go to full screen!
Full-Screen Mode
Toggling between full-screen and work modes in Affinity Designer is easy! On the top right-hand corner there is a box with arrows in it.
Tap in to go full screen. Tap again to bring the toolbars back!
*See the video linked above for a full walk through of these features!
Calibrate/Scale Your Pattern in Affinity Designer for Sewing
Now that you know some of the basics, you are ready to calibrate your projector using Affinity Designer iPad. For a full detailed tutorial on calibrating or scaling your patterns in Affinity Designer, make sure to check out this tutorial: How to Calibrate Using Affinity Designer.
If this is your first time tilting and leveling your projector to your cutting surface, be patient with yourself and take one step at a time! Those who have already physically tilted and leveled the projector will only need to zoom in and out on Affinity Designer until the scale is correct. Zooms in different programs and on different devices are typically not the same! So, make sure to find the zoom percent in Affinity Designer iPad if that is what you are going to use to project patterns!
Now You Are Set to Start Working in Affinity Designer iPad
Of course, there is still a lot to learn in Affinity Designer iPad for sewing. But, with this information you can get started calibrating your projector and cutting patterns using Affinity Designer iPad.
Make sure to check out all of the Affinity Designer Tutorials on the tutorials page!
Leave a comment below with any questions and keep an eye out for more tutorials coming soon!
Hello. I’m trying to use my iPad with affinity design 2 to project patterns, but the files I’m trying to open keep saying Please enter a document open password. It will also say there is an encryption error. These are with multiple companies files like Ellie and Mac. Pleeeeease help. I just bought an iPad for this purpose.
Lots of patterns are “locked” for editing. Newer projector files typically have this removed. You will need to unlock these patterns by running through PDF Stitcher on a computer or use Sedja.com or Xodo.com to open and save the pattern to your iPad again. You should then be able to open and make changes.
Thank you sooo much for that! I think I can make this happen finally! You are so awesome for helping and so quick to reply!!!! Your website has taught me so much!
Thank you so much for this, I have struggled with using my projector for two years and just kept giving up and trying again months later then giving up again etc. till I found you in someone’s comments on #projectors for patterns fb. Now I can use mine and it’s wonderful. And all because i was able to understand you with your great description and pictures on how to use a projector using a iPhone. I come back to this page often. I haven’t got the affinity thingy yet. I’m not sure I understand what it does yet. Thanks kindly
Georgie watts. 🤗🌈🤗
Thank you so much for your comment! I appreciate it! Please spread the word!