Image template editor
The image editor designs the composed image that can go with each offer instead of the store's photo as it is: the product photo on a background of your own, with the price, the previous price and the discount written on top. You place each element on a canvas and see the result right away.
On this page
The essentials
- Switch on Generate image, at the top of the controls.
- With Canvas chosen in Elements, pick the Size, Horizontal or Square, and the Background.
- Place each element: drag it on the canvas, or type its position and size.
- Press Save.
Each channel has its own image template
The image template belongs to each channel: the editor works on the active channel, the one the side menu's selector shows. The background library, on the other hand, belongs to the organization: the backgrounds you upload work for all your channels. When you create a channel you can copy another one's template with Copy settings from.
The plan decides whether it reaches the channel
The free plan does not publish the composed image: you can design it and see it here like anybody else, but what reaches the channels is the product's original photo. When that is your case, a notice under the switch says so and links to Settings › Subscription. The preview in Create offer also shows the composed image, so do not rely on it to know what goes out: the plan decides.
The screen
- Preview: the canvas with the image as it will go out, and in its header preset templates, import and export. It stays in view while you scroll down the controls.
- Generate image: turns the composite image on or off.
- Elements: what the image carries; the eye shows or hides each one.
- The properties of whatever you have selected; here, the Canvas, with its size and its background.
- Discard and Save, switched off until you change something.
The first time you open the Image editor, a guided tour points out its parts. You can skip it, and start it again whenever you like from the button in the header, with Repeat the tour.
On a phone or in a narrow window
When the content gets narrow —on a phone, or in a small window with the menu open— the two columns stack: the controls first and the preview last, peeking out stuck to the bottom edge while you work. The arrow in its header (See the preview) takes you down to it and the arrow (Back to the settings) takes you back up.
If on opening the editor you see “We fixed your image template”
If a channel's saved template holds something that cannot be drawn —a colour spelled wrong, an element going outside the canvas or one that is missing—, opening the editor fixes only that —what goes outside is pulled inside; the rest is taken from Default— and saves it. The notice “We fixed your image template” appears at the top, with one line per change; the rest of your design stays as it was. Whatever is published before anybody opens the editor already goes out with that same fix.
Generate image
- Off (how every channel starts): each offer goes out with the product's original photo. The cards below dim and do not respond, but the buttons for preset templates, import and export keep working.
- On: each offer goes out with the composed image.
Changing the switch is one more change: you have to save it.
Preview
The canvas shows at all times the image that would be generated with a sample offer: a made-up product at 1200 with a list price of 2000, that is, a 40% discount. Prices are written with the currency and the separators of your organization's region.
- It updates on its own shortly after each change; while the new one is being generated, the previous one stays on screen.
- The canvas is scaled to the available width without cropping anything; underneath it says its real size.
- If you make many changes in a row, “Too many preview requests. Wait a few seconds and try again.” may appear: wait a moment and carry on.
The canvas
Canvas is the first row of the elements list. When you choose it —or when you press an empty spot on the canvas— the properties card shows what belongs to the whole image:
Size
| Option | Resolution | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Horizontal | 1000 × 565 px | Landscape. The usual choice for a channel. |
| Square | 800 × 800 px | Square. Gives the product more prominence. |
When you change the size the elements are not rescaled: they are cut to the new limits and pushed inside. If you go from horizontal to square, what was on the right piles up: place it again.
Background
Pressing the background selector opens the Available backgrounds gallery:
- Choose a background: press its card. It is selected right away, but not saved.
- No background: the image is composed on white.
- Upload background: an image from your device. It accepts PNG, JPEG, WebP and GIF up to 10 MB; a GIF loses its animation. The background you have just uploaded is selected, with the file's name.
- Delete background: asks for confirmation, because it removes it from the whole organization. If another channel's template uses it, it is not deleted: a notice says which channel to remove it from first or, if it is one you do not manage, that whoever administers the organization can remove it. If only this channel uses it, its template is left with no background at that moment.
The background is cropped to cover the whole canvas, centred, so a photo with a different proportion loses its edges.
What is done with the background you upload, and if it stops being readable
When you upload it, the image is saved compressed and shrunk to the size the published image needs, upright even if the photo was taken in portrait, and without the file's hidden data, such as the place where it was taken. There is no limit on saved backgrounds.
If a background's image can no longer be read, the preview says so instead of drawing itself: choose another or upload it again. With that background, every offer is published with the product's own photo.
The elements
The template always has four elements:
| Element | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Product image | The product photo, downloaded from the store when publishing. |
| Current price | The discounted price. |
| Original price (list price) | The previous price, struck through; the line is adjusted in its Strikethrough group. If the offer has no list price, it is not drawn. |
| Discount | The percentage saved, “-40%”, with no decimals. With no list price, or with no markdown, it is not drawn. |
There is no logo element or free-text element: if you want your channel's logo or a fixed text on every offer, put it in the image you upload as the background.
Press a row of Elements to select the element, or press the element itself on the canvas. The on each row hides it in the image without removing it from the template; hidden, you can still select and move it.
Position and size
The X, Y, Width and Height fields are pixels from the top left corner of the canvas. The same can be done by hand:
- Drag the element to move it.
- Pull the handles to change its size. It does not rotate.
- Keyboard arrows to move the selected one pixel by pixel (no shortcut for bigger jumps; they do not work with the Canvas selected or while you type in a field).
No element can leave the canvas: when dragging it stops at the edge, and a value typed by hand that would take it out is corrected on its own. There is no undo: the closest thing is Discard, which goes back to what is saved.
Product image carries no text, so it has no more properties: the photo is fitted whole inside its box, centred and uncropped, respecting its proportion. Before fitting the product photo, its white margins are trimmed, and a PNG with transparency keeps it over the background.
Limits and what the canvas does not do
- The minimum size of an element is 20 × 20 px.
- Elements can overlap.
- There are no guides, no multiple selection and no delete key.
Text
The three text elements also have:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Size | The size of the letters in pixels. If the text does not fit in the box, it shrinks on its own, down to a minimum of 10 px. |
| Alignment | Left, centre or right, with three icons. |
| Typeface | Sans, Serif or Mono. |
| Weight | Regular or Bold. |
| Colour | The colour of the text: press the swatch to open the picker, type the hexadecimal code, or use the eyedropper to take a colour from the screen. The eyedropper only appears in browsers that have it, which today are Chrome and Edge on a computer. |
| Label | A short text drawn above the value, for example “Now” or “Before”, at two thirds of the letter size. |
The element's box (Height included) is where the text is centred vertically; with a label, the label goes on top and the value below, both centred.
Text background: each text element can carry a coloured pill behind it, with rounded corners. The switch is in the group's title and below it you choose its colour. With the pill on, the text has less room, so you may need to widen the box.
Strikethrough: the Original price (list price) also has a group for the line that crosses it. The switch in the title removes or restores it. Below you choose its Thickness, from 1 to 20 px; its shape, straight through the middle of the price or angled, from the bottom-left corner to the top-right one; and its colour, which does not change when you change the text's. The line crosses only the price, never the label.
Fine print: the text
- With the pill on, the text loses 28 px of margin on each side.
- If an imported file does not carry an element's typography, it starts at 48 px, Sans, bold, left-aligned, in white and with no pill.
- If it does not carry the list price's strikethrough, it comes out as always: straight, 3 px and in the text's colour.
Save, discard and leave
- Save switches on as soon as you touch anything, even if you then leave it as it was.
- Discard asks first and returns the template to how it was saved.
- If you try to leave the screen with pending changes, you are asked: Leave without saving or Keep editing. If you close the tab or reload, the browser itself asks.
If somebody else or another tab saves at the same time
Anyone in the organization with access to the channel can edit and save its template, and can also upload and delete backgrounds in the library. If somebody — or another tab of yours — saves it after you opened the screen, or you switched channel in another tab, pressing Save, importing or deleting a background some template uses warns you and nothing is saved or deleted: reload to see what was saved and make your change again.
Preset templates
opens the Preset templates panel. There are two:
- Default: landscape, with the photo on the left and the prices on the right, the price on a green pill and the list price on a red one, with the labels “Now” and “Before”.
- Square: 800 × 800, with the photo centred and the prices below, with no pills.
A new channel starts with the design of the Default preset template and with no background.
Press Load and confirm. When you load one:
- the four elements and the canvas size are replaced,
- the background is removed (it becomes No background),
- Generate image is switched on,
- and the selection moves to Product image.
Loading is not saving
The preset template is applied on screen: look at it in the preview and, if you do not like it, press Discard to go back to yours. Only when you press Save is the previous one lost.
Export and import
- Export template downloads the saved template as
image_template.json: the four elements, the canvas size, the chosen background and the state of the switch. What you have unsaved is not in the file: save first. - Import template opens a window with the Template JSON box: paste the contents of an exported file there and press Import. Everything is replaced, switch included, and, unlike the rest of the screen, it is saved right away. If what you paste is not an image template, or has an error, the window says why above the box and nothing is imported.
It is useful for making backups and for carrying a design from one channel to another. To move it to another organization, remove the background (background_asset_id) from the file before importing it: backgrounds belong to each organization and one from another is rejected.
What reaches the channel
The image is composed at the moment of publishing, channel by channel and with each one's template; it works the same for Create offer, the queue and automatic publishing.
- On the free plan the composed image is not published: the original product photo reaches the channels.
- The product photo is needed: with no Image URL nothing is composed and the message goes out without a photo. The photo is downloaded from the store when publishing.
- If the image cannot be composed, the message goes out with the original photo, without warning. If the photo cannot be downloaded or weighs more than 8 MB, publishing in that channel fails with “The offer's image could not be downloaded.”.
- With an image, composed or original, the message text has Telegram's limit of 1024 characters instead of 4096, counted on the visible text, as Telegram does. The preview in Create offer counts them.
- Hiding Product image composes the image without the photo, but the offer still needs the Image URL for anything to be composed.
