Exporting and sharing tactical plans: PNG, SVG or PDF
SportStudioLab · Published
A well-drawn board loses half its value if it arrives pixelated on players' phones or prints illegibly. This guide covers which format and aspect ratio to choose depending on where the design will be seen, and how to keep a season's material organised without relying on a cloud account.
The three formats and what each is for
- PNG: a ready-to-send image. The choice for team chats, presentations and social media. Looks the same on any device.
- SVG: a vector format. It scales without losing sharpness and can be edited later in design software such as Inkscape, Illustrator or Figma. Useful for a club dossier or when you want to retouch colours and fonts.
- PDF: a printable document. The easiest option for your training folder, for handing a session to an assistant, or for archiving.
Choosing the aspect ratio
Besides the format, export lets you choose the image's aspect ratio. It isn't cosmetic: it decides whether the design shows in full where it will be viewed.
- Original: keeps the real shape of the field or court. Best for printing and projecting.
- Square 1:1: works well in social posts and chats, where very wide images get cropped in the preview.
- Portrait 4:5: uses more of a phone screen without going full story format.
- Story 9:16: made for stories and status updates. The field sits centred with padding above and below.
Which format for which situation
Animated boards: export step by step
When a board has several steps, export uses the active step. To hand over a full play on paper, select each step and export it separately; you can then put the images together on one page or in a document. In a team talk, playing the animation on screen is usually clearer.
Printing without losing legibility
- Use the Clean field style for black-and-white or low-ink printing.
- Pick a light team versus a dark team, not two colours of similar intensity.
- Increase the stroke width of key arrows: on paper, a thin line disappears.
- Avoid small text; if a label can't be read from a metre away, drop it or make it bigger.
Where your work is stored
SportStudioLab has no accounts and no design server: everything autosaves to the local storage of the browser you're using. That has two practical consequences. First, your designs never leave your device and there's nothing to sign up for. Second, if you clear your browser data or switch computers, your designs don't travel with you.
So it's worth exporting what matters. One folder per season, with subfolders per training block or opponent, and descriptive file names ("2026-10-high-press-vs-rival-fc.pdf") is enough to find any board months later.
Share with judgement
Before posting a match-plan board publicly, think about who else might see it. Many coaches share their training work and lineups openly but keep set plays and opponent-specific plans for the private team group.