You can always resize an image by dragging its handles. The Resize tool is for the other case: you want the image to fill the poster, and you want it to keep filling the poster when you change the paper size, the grid or the mode. The same three modes are offered for SVGs.
Imported media starts in Fit & Keep Ratio.
If an option is selected, the image will automatically resize when you adjust your layout. You may also use the drag resize handle on the canvas.
The three modes
Fit & Stretch
Stretches the image to the full canvas, both axes independently. Nothing is cropped and no space is left over, but the aspect ratio changes — a square image on a wide poster becomes a wide image.
Use it for backgrounds, textures and abstract art, where distortion does not read as wrong. Avoid it for faces, logos and anything with a circle in it.
Fit & Keep Ratio
Scales the image until it fits entirely inside the canvas, keeping its proportions. Nothing is cropped and nothing is distorted, but there will be empty space on two sides unless the image and the poster happen to share a ratio.
Use it when the whole image matters — a full photo, a diagram, a poster design that already has its own margins.
Cover
Scales the image until it covers the whole canvas, keeping its proportions. Nothing is distorted and no space is left, but the overflow on the long axis is cropped off.
Use it for photographic backgrounds where losing an edge is acceptable and blank paper is not. This is the mode most people want for a wall poster.
Which to choose
| You care most about | Use |
|---|---|
| Filling the sheet exactly | Fit & Stretch |
| Seeing all of the image | Fit & Keep Ratio |
| No distortion and no gaps | Cover |
It keeps applying
The point of choosing a mode rather than dragging handles is that it persists. Change the paper size from A4 to Letter, add a column in grid mode, or switch to size mode, and the image re-fits itself under the mode you chose.
Moving or resizing the media by hand turns the mode off for that piece of media. That is deliberate — once you have positioned something yourself, having the app move it again on the next layout change would undo your work. Pick the mode again if you want the automatic sizing back.