Sizing scenarios
Many QlikView applications were designed for the screen resolutions common when the application was first built — often 1024 by 768 or 1280 by 1024 pixels. These layouts can appear small on modern high-resolution displays. Scaling the canvas up to fill a larger screen is one of the most common adjustments during conversion. However, scaling beyond the original dimensions can introduce scrollbars when the canvas exceeds the browser viewport. Canvas crop and maximum size constraints help control the final output by trimming or capping the canvas to a specific target resolution.
The following scenarios illustrate common sizing configurations for fixed canvas mode. Use Mockup Studio to preview and adjust these settings interactively before running the conversion.
Standardizing sheet dimensions across an app
A QlikView document often contains sheets of varying sizes. Some sheets are designed for wide monitors, while others are narrower to fit fewer objects. By default, fixed canvas mode calculates a uniform canvas size based on the largest sheet in the document. All sheets receive the same canvas dimensions. Smaller sheets display additional whitespace on the right or bottom edges, but every sheet matches in overall size.
Uniform sizing is useful for organizations that want a consistent layout across all sheets in the converted app. Common examples include apps displayed on wall-mounted monitors and environments where corporate standards require uniform sheet dimensions.
To allow each sheet to size independently based on the content of that sheet, enable --perSheetCanvasSize. Each sheet calculates canvas dimensions from its own objects and background image rather than inheriting the largest dimensions across all sheets. This option is useful when sheets vary significantly in size and the extra whitespace would be distracting. Per-sheet canvas size and canvas crop are mutually exclusive. Per-sheet canvas size requires --fixedSheetCanvas.
Expanding the background and scaling objects proportionally
When the QlikView background image appears too small in the Qlik Sense output, increase both the canvas scale and the object scale together. Canvas scale controls the physical size of the background image. Object scale controls the size and position of objects within the canvas.
Example: A QlikView sheet uses a 1024 by 768 pixel background image with charts positioned within labeled regions. With the default scale of 1.4, the canvas expands to 1434 by 1075 pixels and objects scale proportionally — maintaining alignment with the background. To expand the layout further for a high-resolution display, set both canvas scale and object scale to 1.75. The canvas becomes 1792 by 1344 pixels, and all objects remain correctly positioned relative to the background.
Adjusting the scale factor
The default scale of 1.4 works well for most applications. If the converted layout appears too small or too large for the target screen, increase or decrease both canvas scale and object scale together.
Always keep canvas scale and object scale at the same value. Mismatched scale factors cause objects to drift out of alignment with the background image.
Targeting a specific device or screen size
Canvas crop forces all sheets to exact pixel dimensions matching a target device. Crop is useful when the converted app will be viewed primarily on a specific display — wall-mounted dashboards, kiosk displays, conference-room TVs, or standardized corporate laptops.
Example: An organization uses 1920 by 1080 monitors for operations dashboards. Set crop width to 1920 and crop height to 1080. Every sheet is trimmed to exactly 1920 by 1080 pixels, anchored to the top-left corner. Objects outside the cropped area overflow the container and are not visible at the default scroll position.
In Mockup Studio, select a screen preset (such as Monitor 1080p) and click Fit device to populate the crop dimensions automatically.
Capping the canvas size without forcing exact dimensions
Maximum size constraints limit the canvas without forcing a specific size. Unlike crop, maximum constraints only apply when the natural canvas exceeds the limit. Sheets that are already smaller than the maximum are left unchanged.
Example: Set maximum width to 1920 and maximum height to 1080. A sheet whose natural canvas is 2400 by 1200 pixels shrinks to 1920 by 1080 pixels. A sheet whose natural canvas is 1400 by 800 pixels remains at 1400 by 800 pixels. This approach is useful when an app contains a mix of standard and oversized sheets and only the oversized sheets need to be constrained.
Removing empty space from the edges
QlikView sheets sometimes have large empty areas to the right or below the last object. This whitespace is common when the QlikView layout was designed for a monitor resolution that no longer matches the target environment. Layout shrink removes that whitespace by reducing the layout container width or height by a specified number of grid steps.
Example: A sheet has approximately 10 grid columns of empty space on the right edge where QlikView reserved room for a panel that was later removed. Set shrink X to 10 to reduce the layout container width, pulling objects closer to the right edge of the visible canvas. The grid dimensions remain the same, but the layout container occupies a smaller portion of the grid.
Combining settings for a target deployment
Multiple settings can be combined in a single conversion. The following example walks through converting a QlikView app with background images for deployment on 1080p monitors.
Do the following:
- Enable Fixed sheet canvas on the Advanced step of the wizard.
- Set Canvas scale to
1.5to enlarge the background images. - Set Object scale to
1.5to scale objects proportionally. - Set Crop width to
1920and Crop height to1080to trim each sheet to the target resolution. - Open Mockup Studio and select the Monitor 1080p screen preset to verify alignment.
- Navigate between sheets to confirm that objects and backgrounds align correctly.
- Click Apply to transfer the settings to the wizard, then run the conversion.
Another common combination: set a minimum width of 1920 and a maximum width of 2560 to allow sheets to size naturally within a range. Sheets narrower than 1920 pixels expand to the minimum, sheets wider than 2560 pixels shrink to the maximum, and sheets in between retain the natural dimensions.