Placing content

About placing content

Once you've planned out your publication and added text to text frames, you can place additional 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, color space and color 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 either an 'Embedded document' or 'Linked document' depending on the Image Placement Policy set at the time of placement.
For a multi-page Affinity document, InDesign (IDML) 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).
Microsoft Excel Workbook spreadsheets (XLSX) can be placed directly in Publisher as tables. When placing, click on the page (instead of dragging) to preserve the original appearance of the file.
For unprofiled placed images, the color space is assumed to be RGB.
The added content can be rasterized at any time via the Layer menu (or via right-click).

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:

Do one of the following:
- Select the Place Image Tool.
- 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. The current image placement policy (embedded or linked) will be honored.

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:

Do one of the following:
- Select the Place Image Tool.
- 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 convert placed content into a picture frame:

Right-click on the content and select Convert to Picture Frame.
Alternatively, with the content selected, go to the Layer menu and select Convert to Picture Frame.

To edit an embedded document:

Do one of the following:
- Double-click the placed document.
- From the context toolbar, select Edit Document.

To replace content:

Select placed content.
From the context toolbar, select Replace image or Replace Document depending on what you've placed.

Supported file formats for placement

Documents
- Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher
- Adobe Illustrator (AI)
- Adobe Freehand (10 and MX)¹
- Adobe Photoshop (PSD)
- Adobe InDesign (IDML)
- Microsoft Excel (XLSX)
- PDF
Images
- BMP
- EPS
- GIF
- JPEG
- J2K,JP2
- JPEG-XR/JXR (WDP/HDP)
- PNG
- RAW²
- SVG
- TGA³
- TIFF
- WEBP
- OpenEXR
- Radiance HDR

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

² Raw images are processed automatically.

³ Supports transparency.

About placing content

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