Can I print an n8n workflow?

Not usefully from the browser. The n8n canvas renders on demand as you pan, so a print or print-to-PDF captures whatever was in the viewport — often a mostly empty page. Render the workflow to PDF from its exported JSON instead and you get one page sized to the whole flow.

Is the SVG export a real vector file?

It is a real SVG and it stays sharp at any zoom in a browser, but the canvas is carried inside a foreignObject element rather than converted to vector shapes. Browsers render it correctly; design tools that do not support foreignObject — including several Figma and Illustrator import paths — will open it blank. For those, export PNG at 4×.

What resolution should I use for print?

Export at 4×. A workflow occupying a 1200×800 canvas becomes 4800×3200, which is roughly 300 DPI at A3 — enough for a printed handover document or a wall poster.

Export an n8n workflow to PDF or SVG

Why Ctrl+P does not work

The n8n canvas is a virtualised pan-and-zoom surface: it draws the part of the workflow you are looking at and nothing else. A print job asks the page for its full layout, and the canvas has no full layout to give — so you get the viewport, scaled onto a sheet of A4, usually with most of the page blank.

Rendering from the workflow JSON avoids the question. The renderer knows every node's coordinates, so it can size the page to the workflow's bounding box before drawing anything.

Exporting to PDF

Drop the workflow onto pixtex.dev, style it, and pick pdf at the export step. You get a single page whose dimensions match the rendered image, so nothing is cropped and nothing is letterboxed.

shell

npx pixtex render workflow.json --format pdf --scale 4 -o workflow.pdf

# or over HTTP
curl -X POST https://api.pixtex.dev/v1/render \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PIXTEX_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"workflow": <workflow.json>, "options": {"format": "pdf", "scale": 4}}' \
  -o workflow.pdf

What you should know about it: the page embeds the rendered raster image at the scale you chose. It prints exactly as it looks and it is the right artefact for a signed-off deliverable, but you cannot select the node names as text or edit it in a PDF editor. For a client handover that is usually a feature — see documenting a workflow for a client.

Exporting to SVG

SVG is the right pick when the image will be displayed at a size you do not control — a docs site that renders full-width on a desktop and half-width on a phone, or a page a reader will zoom into.

Be precise about what you are getting. The export wraps the rendered canvas in an SVG foreignObject, which every browser draws correctly at any zoom. Tools that do not implement foreignObject — and that includes several Figma and Illustrator import paths — will open the file blank. If the destination is a design tool rather than a browser, export PNG at 4× instead.

Picking between them

Need	Use	Why
Client deliverable, printed or signed off	PDF at 4×	One page, sized to the flow, prints as it looks
Docs site or README at variable width	SVG (or PNG at 2×)	Stays sharp at any rendered size in a browser
Slide deck	PNG at 3–4×	Survives being scaled up on a projector; no import surprises
Poster or A3 print	PNG or PDF at 4×	Roughly 300 DPI at A3 for a 1200×800 canvas
Editing in Figma or Illustrator	PNG at 4×	The SVG uses foreignObject, which those importers may not render

Large workflows

Turn on auto-layout if the original positions sprawl. A tidy left-to-right layout fits a page far better than the organic arrangement a canvas accumulates.
Switch direction for tall paper. layoutDirection: "TB" suits a portrait page; LR suits landscape and slides.
Drop the node detail. minimal keeps a 60-node workflow legible on one sheet where detailed does not.
Split it. Past roughly 40 nodes, one page per branch reads better than one unreadable poster — highlight each path in turn and export the same layout repeatedly.

Format and scale apply to direct renders. Hosted images — the permanent URLs you embed in a README — are always PNG at 2×, because that is what every embed target can display.