Framing the picture — the frame, the thumbnail, and zoom

Amazon's modules are all different shapes, and almost none of them are the shape of a book cover. So every module has a frame: the rectangle of your picture that becomes that module's image.

The thumbnail is the frame

Under each preview is a small picture of your whole cover with a bright rectangle drawn on it. That rectangle is exactly what the module exports — nothing is cropped again afterwards. Everything outside it is dimmed.

You can move it three ways, whichever suits you:

• Drag the picture itself. The preview moves under the frame.
• Drag the rectangle on the thumbnail. Pressing anywhere else on the thumbnail jumps the frame there, which is quick on a tall cover.
• Nudge it with the four arrow buttons, or the arrow keys once you have clicked the thumbnail. Hold Shift for bigger steps.

Zoom tightens the frame for a closer detail. At the lowest setting the frame is as large as it can be.

The buttons

• Whole cover shows all of it, on your brand color, nothing cut off. This is the default for the main image in most modules, because it can never go wrong.
• Top, Middle and Bottom fill the frame edge to edge from that part of the cover.
• Auto and Title appear when we can see where your title is — see Auto and Title framing.

Under the buttons, a line tells you what you are actually looking at: "Fills the frame — 100% across and 32% down of your cover", and whether the frame is clear of your title or cutting through it.

Every picture has its own frame

Modules with more than one image give each slot its own frame, so the narrow sidebar strip is not stuck with whatever suited the big picture beside it.

See also: Choosing the picture for each module