Placing content

Placing content allows you to add raster and vector images, as well as Affinity documents, Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand and PDF documents, to your document without the need to open each file in turn.

You can add as a new layer directly from cloud storage (iCloud, Dropbox, etc.), local storage (On My iPad), Apple's Photos app, or even from email messages.

About placing content

A file of a supported file format can be dragged and dropped onto the page to place it.

Alternatively, multiple items can be dragged and dropped onto the page to load them onto the Place panel. They can then be placed, one at a time, in their top-to-bottom order from the panel or in any order you choose.

Place panel
Place panel containing multiple images

The selected item on the panel can be placed at its native dimensions or arbitrary dimensions by tapping or dragging in the document view, respectively.

Tips for placing content

Once placed in your document, you have the option to replace the content, retaining its position, as well as edit placed content.

Supported file formats for placement

Many industry-standard file formats can be placed.

1 Multi-page Freehand files open with each page concatenated onto a single page. Add file extension .fh10 or .fh11 in Finder to import. Text import is not supported.

2 Raw images are processed automatically.

3 Supports transparency.

4 For iPhone images, the HEIC file may include an upsampled depth map, loaded as an editable second layer. For Canon EOS models (1 DX MkIII, R5 and R6), HIF files (HDR 10-bit PQ-encoded) are supported.

5 See Importing text for information about placing textual documents.

Tips for specific file formats and content

Content type Comments
Affinity Designer files with multiple artboards Once placed, you can choose which artboard to display by opening the placed document's details on the Resource Manager panel and setting Artboard.
Affinity documents, PDFs and PSD files The file will be listed in the Resource Manager panel as either an Embedded document or Linked document depending on the Image placement policy set during initial Document Setup.
PSD files A bitmap representation of the file will be displayed; the file content will not be interpreted. This will generally give better results on output and also negates the requirement to have correct fonts installed. You can still edit the layers of the placed PSD, although if edits are made the file will be interpreted again and its appearance may change (for example, if a font is missing).
PDFs, SVGs, PSD and EPS files If these are placed as embedded documents, you can edit them within Affinity. If edits are made, these files will be converted to Affinity documents and the original data will not be retained; you will not be able to write the embedded file out to its native file format and make it linked. Other features such as using PDF Passthrough will also then be lost. Please note that the Resource Manager will always display the original file's source filename and location should you need to refer back to it.
Affinity documents, PDFs, SVGs, PSD and EPS files If these are placed as linked documents, you will not be able to edit them directly within Affinity. However, any edits made to the files will be picked up by Affinity and will be reported as Modified on the Resource Manager panel. You can then tap the entry on the panel and select Update to match the external changes that were made.
Multi-page Affinity documents, InDesign (IDML) documents or PDFs After placing a multi-page document and with it selected, you can choose a different page/spread to display by opening its details on the Resource Manager panel and setting Artboard.
Placed PDFs These offer a PDF Passthrough option on the placed document's details on the Resource Manager panel, which defaults to Passthrough for exact reproduction within your own PDFs. If that's not possible, the Interpret option is selected. A bitmap preview of the PDF’s contents is displayed while editing your document in Affinity.
Password-protected PDFs Placing a password-protected PDF will prompt you to enter the file's password. The password is then requested whenever you open the parent document. When the parent document is exported, the resulting PDF does not have to be password-protected. If you wish to protect the exported PDF, ensure you set the required password(s) and restrictions on Affinity's Export dialog.
Placed PDF, DWG or DXF files containing layers These offer a Layers option on the placed document's details on the Resource Manager panel, from which you can choose which of the placed file's layers are visible or hidden in your Affinity document. For example, a layer of a DWG or DXF file might contain notes or more technical information, such as component labelling, that you want to omit for a less technical audience. For PDFs, changing layer visibility will automatically change from PDF Passthrough to Interpret.
Microsoft Excel Workbook spreadsheets (XLSX) These can be placed directly in Publisher as tables. When placing, tap on the page (instead of dragging) to preserve the original appearance of the file.
Designer Persona Document Menu To place content:
  1. From the Designer Persona, open the Document menu and tap Place.
  2. On the dialog that appears, do one of the following:
    • Tap Place from Files, navigate to and select the files you wish to place, then tap Open.
    • Tap Place from Photos, navigate to and tap the photos you wish to place, then tap Add.
  3. If you selected multiple files or photos, the Place panel will appear and display them. The topmost item on the panel is automatically selected to be placed next.
  4. (Optional) Select a different item.
  5. Do one of the following:
    • Tap in the document view to place the item at its native size.
    • Drag in the document view to set the size and position of the item.
    The item is removed from the panel.
  6. If additional items are awaiting placement, do one of the following:
    • repeat from step 3. The panel will close when it contains no more items.
    • on the context toolbar, tap Cancel to cancel further placement and close the panel.
To scale a placed image/document:
  1. Select the image or document.
  2. From the scale slider (shown next to the tool icons), either:
    • Drag the slider.
    • Tap just above the slider to reveal a numeric keypad on which to enter a percentage scale, relative to the placed item's current dimensions.
To return squashed content to its original aspect ratio:
Resource Manager panel To replace content:
  1. On the Resource Manager panel, long press the content's entry, then select Replace.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • Tap Place from Files, then select a replacement file from the file browser window.
    • Tap Place from Photos, then select a replacement image from your Photos library.

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