Placing content allows you to include images and Affinity (Designer, Photo, etc.), Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand or PDF documents into your current document without the need to open each file in turn.
Content placed in this way can be replaced using the options on the context toolbar.
Once you've added embedded documents onto your page, you can edit each document without leaving your current document.
About placing content
Once you've opened your document, you can place content.
Some useful tips when placing content include:
For images, the placed image is added as an image layer rather than a pixel layer. This allows the original image data (e.g., the native resolution, colour space and colour profile) to be kept. On export to PDF, this data is re-embedded into the PDF file.
For an Affinity Designer file which has multiple artboards, you'll be provided with an Artboard option on the document's context toolbar so you can choose which artboard is displayed.
For an Affinity document, PDF or PSD file, it will be listed in the Layers panel as an 'Embedded document'.
For a multi-page Affinity document or PDFs, you can choose which page or spread you want to display by using Spread on the context toolbar. For PDF, only one page can ever be displayed although you can simulate a spread by duplicating the placed object and choosing a different page to view.
Placed documents offer a Page Box option on the context toolbar to choose how the page displays (e.g., with/without bleed, objects only).
The added content can be rasterised at any time via the Layer menu (or via right-click).
The file's embedded colour profile will always be converted to the document's current working space.
For unprofiled placed images, the colour space is assumed to be RGB.
Some brush operations (e.g., cloning, dodging, etc.) will automatically rasterise image layers to the document resolution; inpainting or selection manipulation on an image layer will require manually rasterisation via right-click of the image layer in the Layers panel. You can control automatic rasterisation behaviour using the Assistant.
Once added to your page, you have the option to replace the content, retaining its position, as well as edit placed content.
To place content:
From the File menu, select Place.
In the pop-up dialog, navigate to and select a file, and click Open.
Do one of the following:
Click to place the file at its default, displayed size.
Drag on the page to set the size and position of the content.
Alternatively, you can drag and drop the file onto the page to place it as an embedded file.
To scale a placed image by DPI, percentage scale or to original size:
Select the image.
From the context toolbar, select the Image Info section and choose an Image DPI or Scale percentage value from the flyout. Alternatively, click Original Size to scale to 100% (native dimensions) and reset aspect ratio.
To return squashed content to its original aspect ratio:
With the content selected, double-click on one of its edge handles to reset its aspect ratio.
To place multiple files:
From the File menu, select Place.
In the pop-up dialog, -select the files you wish to place, and click Open.
The Place Images panel will appear, displaying the files you selected for placement. The files can be placed consecutively from here each time you click on the page or picture frames you would like to place them in until the panel no longer holds any files, starting with the topmost file in the panel. Alternatively, you can click on a file within the panel and then click on the page or picture frame to place that specific file.
To add an image to a layer (via Finder):
Drag an image from Finder to your page. The image will be added to the project as a new layer.
To add an image to a layer (via Explorer):
Drag an image from Explorer to your page. The image will be added to the project as a new layer.
To place content: