There is no way of making an image fill the page when you compile to PDF.
A 500x740 image will fill the screen on a kindle device very nicely when you output to .mobi.
But the same image only fills the left hand corner when you compile to PDF.
I have experimented with resizing the image, but at about 540 width it goes onto the next page (despite not nearly covering the width of the page). And similartly with the length.
When you compile the image to PDF the cover image looks odd. Like you haven’t bothered to centre it. It looks sloppy.
How about another option in the
Edit > Insert Image from File
area.
Also have:
Edit > Insert Image from File and Fill Screen
So that if you want to fill that particular screen (in whatever way you wanted to compile it) on that page, then you can let the program know as you insert it.
That would work great for cover images, and would also allow more flexibility for internal images, because you could forget about having to change it based on the format you are compiling to.
I’m guessing this is not a high priority item as no-one has responded to this post! I was very surprised that the option of adding a cover image is not available when compiling to PDF. Most book PDFs I have seen have a proper, full-size cover image as the first page. It’s there for other eBook formats which threw me the first time I switched compiling format from ePUB to PDF.
You can have an image as a cover in a PDF by adding it to a “cover” page, but you cannot get rid of the margins and getting the right size is a little hit and miss. And you have to remember turning the cover page on or off depending on which platform you are compiling to.
It would be interesting to hear why this is not available as the functionality is already programmed in… Yes I can add a cover image in a PDF editor but that is an unnecessary extra step. I have not done so yet, as I think this would also mess up the TOC links. Anyone able to confirm or deny?
Apart from that missing feature, very happy with my purchase.
I would like to be able tell the compiler what picture to use as the front page artwork for my book as well.
As currently when you export the book the front page image only covers the middle of the screen leaving large white boarders all around it; Which doesn’t look great and you would be able to just export to PDF without going through another program to resize the image first.
Scrivener is not able to put anything outside the margins of the page. You need software that can make a “full bleed” cover page, which probably means either an image editor or a page layout program.