Vellum Help
Using a Custom Background
You can add depth, mood, and texture to your print edition with a custom Heading Background or Page Background. With these features, you can add custom artwork that appears behind the text of the pages of your book:
Add a background behind the first page of a chapter — or behind every page — to make your special edition really stand out.
Backgrounds are only applied to your print edition
- Watch the Video
- Creating a Custom Background
- Heading Backgrounds vs Page Backgrounds
- Background Controls Overview
- Layout Controls
- Adding an Image
- Ideal Size
- Image Scale
- Low Resolution Images
- Creating an Image Template
- Appearance Controls
- Applying to Different Elements
Watch the Video
Want to see custom backgrounds in action? You can watch how they’re applied in this video:
Creating a Custom Background
To add a custom background, you’ll need to locate the Background and Border feature style:
- Go to the Styles pane
- Click on the Configure button of your selected Style
- Select Background and Border
Now, press the Create Custom button that appears below the style carousel.
You will be presented with a dialog that lets you choose what kind of background or border to create:
Once you’ve chosen the kind of background you wish to add, press Create.
Heading Backgrounds vs Page Backgrounds
Heading Backgrounds and Page Backgrounds are alike in that they both appear underneath the text on a page, and can be configured similarly. However, they differ in one crucial way:
|
Heading Background Appears only behind the first page (or spread) of a chapter |
|
Page Background Appears behind every page of a chapter |
Note: the Create Custom dialog allows you to create a Page Border as well. Page Borders differ enough from backgrounds that they have their own help page.
✨ This feature was added in Vellum 3.9. Make sure you are up-to-date.
Background Controls Overview
After you’ve created your custom background, you’ll see these controls, which allow you to add an image and configure how it appears.
Layout Controls
To change the layout of your background, use the Page Span and Image Extent controls.
Page Span specifies whether the image takes up a single page or spans an entire two-page spread.
Image Extent determines how much of the page is filled by the image:
When a background spans a spread, Full Bleed will automatically be selected.
Adding an Image
To add an image, click the
widget to choose one from your files,
or drag an image here from the Finder:
Ideal Size
As you adjust layout controls, Vellum will display the Ideal Size for your image. An image at this Ideal Size will match the layout you’ve configured and meet resolution requirements for printing.
If you are working with full bleed, the image you add should match these dimensions exactly.
Image Scale
When you add a full bleed image that doesn’t exactly match the Ideal Size, Vellum will display a control for Image Scale:
You can guide how Vellum should compensate by choosing from the two options in the menu:
|
Fit to Page Entire image fits into available space, with whitespace filling the remainder |
|
Fill Page Image fills all available space, with extra content cropped |
Vellum defaults to Fill Page for a new image.
For more precise control, you can use an image editing program to resize and crop your image exactly to the size recommended by Vellum.
✨ This feature was added in Vellum 3.8. Make sure you are up-to-date.
Low Resolution Images
After you add your image, Vellum will check that it meets guidelines for high resolution printing:
You’ll see a green check if your image meets these guidelines. Otherwise, you’ll see a warning like the following:
To handle this warning, replace the image with one that matches the provided Ideal Size.
Creating an Image Template
If you need help getting an image to the exact size recommended by Vellum,
click the
button to
create a template:
✨ This feature was added in Vellum 3.8.4. Make sure you are up-to-date.
You can use this template as a guide in image editing software, or send it to a designer. If you need a template before you begin formatting, you can also make use of pre-made Full Bleed Image Templates.
Appearance Controls
You can use the Image Presence and Text Color controls to adjust the appearance of your image and the text that’s positioned over it:
Image Presence adjusts how dark the image appears. Decreasing this value can improve the legibility of text that appears over the background.
If you have a dark background image, you can change the Text Color to White, which will change the color of text and ornaments that appear over the background.
Applying to Different Elements
The first Heading Background or Page Background you add will, by default, apply to All Chapters.
In some cases, you may want a background to apply to different group of elements. If your book contains Parts or Volumes, then you can choose to apply your background to all elements of that type.
A Page Background can also apply to your Entire Book. If you want your image to apply to each page in your manuscript, choose this option:
Individual Elements
If you want finer control over which elements display your backgrounds, select the Individual Elements item:
We also recommend entering a descriptive name in the Name field so that it will be easy to find in an element’s Heading Background or Page Background menu.
This menu appears in the gear menu to the right of an element’s title:
You’ll also find these menus in the main menu, under Chapter. You can use this version of the command to set the background for multiple elements at once, if necessary.
Using Multiple Backgrounds
In some cases, you may want to use unique backgrounds across multiple elements.
To add an another background, press the Add Background or Border button at the bottom of the pane:
