Pictures may be inserted into the background of a map view as image adornments. This is done in one of two ways:
- Copy and paste from a bitmap editor (including Preview). Open the image in the editor. Select the whole image and copy. Switch focus to a document tab using view and paste to the view pane.
- Drag-and-drop from Finder. If dragging from the Desktop, ensure the image is selected before starting the drag otherwise the image may not be imported. Drag and drop onto the map view. (Note: a previous requirement to Cmd+drag is no longer necessary.)
Like other adornments, image adornments do not show up in any other views, and do not affect the hierarchy or the links of any notes. Locked picture adornments are ignored from drag-selections of notes.
The image format must be a bitmap image (PNG/JPG/JPEG/GIF/BMP) and not vector-based (i.e. not CAD, AI or EPS). Regardless of source format, image adornments store image data as JPEGs, in Base 64 form.
Just as normal adornments are not exported in HTML Export, neither are picture adornments.
Picture adornments respect $Opacity and may have non rectangular shapes, just like normal adornments.
Image size. Images are inserted and displayed at 'actual size' (i.e. for current desktop resolution). Resizing the picture's 'frame' vertically will scale the image. However, dragging the frame horizontally has no effect. But, if the frame dragged narrower (horizontally) than the image it will visibly crop it, working in from the right margin (I.e. the left side is always retained. The picture adornment does scale if the whole map is zoomed in or out.
Resizing picture adornment in aspect ratio. There is no mechanism for this, but if making regular use of picture adornments, stamps can help along with a couple of user attributes. This workaround works on storing the original pixel width and height in Number type attributes. Suggested names are $ImgWidth and $ImgHeight.The original pixel count can be obtained by opening the image in Preview and using the Inspector window to check width and height. Add 3 stamps:
Name: "Resize by Width". Code:$Height = $Width*($ImgHeight/$ImgWidth);
Name: "Resize by Height". Code:$Width = $Height*($ImgWidth/$ImgHeight);
Name: "Resize as original". Code:$Width=$ImgWidth/35.3;$Height= $ImgHeight/35.3;
The first two stamps work off the ratio of the original pixel height width. The first stamp keeps current $Width an adjusts $Height accordingly. The second stamp does the reverse, maintaining $Height and adjusting $Width.
The third stamp is an approximation as Tinderbox's mapping of pixels to map units varies slightly in scale. Ostensibly 32 pixels per unit, at normal map zoom scale a factor of 35.3 seems to work best; note that this may not work as well at different zoom scales, so change to normal zoom to use this stamp.