Import PDF, AI, PSD, SVG or JSON designs
Bring a design you made elsewhere into the Component Designer as new pages fitted to your component.
Last reviewed October 11, 2026
This article is for designers who already have card art in Illustrator, Photoshop, a PDF or an SVG and want to keep working on it in Boardssey. Import turns those files into editable pages.
What this page helps you do
- Import a PDF, Illustrator (.ai), Photoshop (.psd), SVG or Polotno JSON file.
- Understand what happens to the pages, the images and the fonts.
- Read the import messages and know what to check.
You'll start from the Import button in the top bar of a component (Prototypes > Components, then open a component).
Before you start
- Beta, rolling out to teams. If Prototypes is missing from your sidebar, your team is not in the rollout yet.
- Plan: Pathfinder plan and up. Adventurer teams see "Prototypes are a Pathfinder plan feature" with Upgrade to Pathfinder. Virtual Table AI is Oracle and LaunchBoom only, 50 builds per team per day.
- Roles: Collaborators cannot use the Component Designer or 3D Mockups.
Import a file
Click Import in the top bar, press Ctrl+Shift+, (comma), or drop the file onto the editor. The toast reads "Importing deck.pdf…" and then "12 pages added from deck.pdf".
Helpful details
- Key areas: The button's tooltip lists the formats: "Import a PDF, AI, PSD, SVG or Polotno JSON file as new pages".
- What you can do: Import a multi-page PDF of a whole deck. Every page becomes a new page fitted to the component's size, centred and scaled to fit.
- Good to know: The conversion runs in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere until the embedded images are uploaded to your component.
Know what happens to the file
An imported page is a real editable page: text stays text where the file allows it, shapes stay shapes, and fonts come along.
Helpful details
- Key areas: Images embedded in the file are uploaded to the component. If an upload fails, the message reads "2 images stay embedded in the design because their upload failed", and the design still works.
- What you can do: Place
{{fields}}on an imported page to make it a master, then generate cards from it like any other. - Good to know: A protected PDF asks for its password ("This PDF is protected"). Enter it and click Import.
Tell drop and Import apart for SVG and images
The two routes treat an SVG differently.
Helpful details
- Key areas: An SVG or image dropped onto the editor lands on the current page as a single element. An SVG picked with Import becomes an editable page of its own.
- What you can do: Drop an icon to use it as art. Import a full card drawn as SVG to edit its parts.
- Good to know: Any other file type shows "deck.indd is not a file the designer can import (PDF, AI, PSD, SVG, JSON or an image)."
Check the result
Not every effect converts one to one. When something could not be matched, the toast says "3 parts of the file could not be converted exactly. Check the result."
Helpful details
- Key areas: Look at gradients, effects and unusual fonts first; those are the usual suspects.
- What you can do: Fix a part by hand, or re-export the source as a flattened PDF and import again.
- Good to know: In the sell-sheet editor the same file types replace the whole design instead of adding pages. In the Component Designer they always add.
Tips & common questions
Will my fonts come through? Fonts referenced in the file come along. If a font is not available, the text keeps its words and falls back to another font; check the result.
Can I import a whole deck at once?
Yes. A PDF with one card per page becomes one page per card. Give each page {{fields}} only if you want it to drive cards from the table.
Where did my imported images go? Into the component's images, the same list that Component images shows in an image cell. They are kept with the component.
Does import replace what I already have? No. Pages are added after your existing ones. Delete the ones you do not need from their page controls.