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You are here: Home / Facebook Tips / Facebook Timeline Cover Photo: Size, FREE Template, Ideas

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo: Size, FREE Template, Ideas

March 6, 2014 by Louise Myers 44 Comments

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo: Size, Template, IdeasHow’s your Facebook Timeline Cover Photo?

Do you have a splashy branded image at the top of your Facebook Fan Page that really represents your business?

Below, find some ideas to get you started, and a FREE .jpg template!

Note: This post was originally published on March 3, 2012, and updated on March 11, 2014, with new info, new template, and links to posts with even more Cover Photo ideas. Enjoy!

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo: Size, FREE Template, & Ideas

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo: Size, Ideas, Template

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Size

The first thing you need to know is that the Facebook Timeline cover photo size is 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels deep.

It’s OK to upload a larger image – Facebook will allow you to move it around in the window to get the cropping you desire. But you don’t want to upload a smaller image, because it’ll get fuzzy and funky looking when Facebook enlarges it to fill the space.

Best of all is to design something to the exact dimensions. You can add type or superimpose smaller images. Keep it simple though – think of it like a billboard. Grab the viewer’s attention fast, and make them want to hang out on your page (and Like it!).

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo: Size, Ideas, Template

Before we go further, you should be aware of the Facebook cover photo rules. Here’s what’s current as of March 2014, but they do change from time to time, so check the source:

All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines. (source, see section III B)

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo: Size, Ideas, Template

Facebook Timeline FREE Cover Photo Template

I have a super simple .jpg Cover Photo template for you. It’ll remind you to set up your image size at 851px x 315px, and be aware of where the profile picture overlaps, so you don’t hide something of importance. If you’d like my .jpg template showing the Facebook Profile Picture positioning and ALL measurements, just click here to download.

For instructions on making your Cover Photo in Powerpoint, and a free template, click here. This will open in a new tab, so you can finish the rest of this article afterwards. I’ll wait for you here! 🙂

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo: Size, Ideas, Template

Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Ideas

I hope the Facebook Timeline Cover Photo samples I’ve created, and shown you here, give you some ideas. My recommendation is to keep it simple and splashy.

For more simple ideas, check out these 9 Easy Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Ideas for Small Business you can create in an hour or less. My readers made these!

Keep improving and testing your Fan Page Timeline Cover with yet more ideas: 13 New Facebook Fan Page Cover Photo Ideas.

Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on finding a great photo for $15, then creating your Cover Photo on pixlr.com.

When you’re ready to collect leads from Facebook, you’ll want to learn how to create a Cover Photo that gets leads. Eight more ideas there!

Show Off Your New Facebook Timeline Cover Photo!

Once you’ve made your new Cover Photo, return and give us a link to your Facebook Timeline Fan Page!

Marketing with Facebook Fan Page Cover Photos

Filed Under: Facebook Tips Tagged With: Facebook Business Pages, Facebook Fan Page Timeline, Facebook Timeline cover photo

About Louise Myers

Louise Myers is a graphic design expert whose designs have been featured by Disney, Macy's, WalMart and more. Her straightforward writing style empowers small business owners to make their own graphics for social media success!

Comments

  1. Romy Macias says

    March 3, 2012 at 8:27 PM

    Hi Louise,
    Could you make the images in this post clickable to see the pages live?
    I’ll be working on mine tomorrow. My FB page isn’t a TimeLine format yet, should I wait for FB to switch it, or can we change it ourselves?
    Thanks,
    -Romy

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 4, 2012 at 1:02 PM

      I’m on that right now!

      Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 4, 2012 at 1:42 PM

      I would recommend going to the link on my “Step 2” to preview your Page with your cover photo. Publish if you like it! I’m not sure, but I think you may get into the rotation of Pages that are linked on that web page.

      Reply
  2. Amanda says

    March 3, 2012 at 11:43 PM

    Thanks Louise, that’s a great deal! I love the look of your ideas 🙂

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 4, 2012 at 1:03 PM

      Thanks Amanda!

      Reply
  3. Emily says

    March 5, 2012 at 9:25 AM

    Hi Louise, Thanks for the great article! Helped me perfect my cover photo. 🙂 Question: Do you happen to know why the images I’m uploading into various albums on my timeline look blurry? They were fine in the old Facebook format, but it’s like the timeline is stretching them out somehow. Have you had this problem? Any ideas? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 5, 2012 at 2:33 PM

      Hi Emily, I’m glad to hear this was helpful! I did notice when I uploaded a cover photo to my personal profile that wasn’t exactly the right size, it did get weirdly stretched to fit. It’s strange that it would do that to your albums, but I had a ridiculous time trying to upload a cover photo on Saturday, so maybe some bugs are still being worked out! If I find out anything I’ll post here.

      Reply
  4. rebecca says

    March 8, 2012 at 5:50 AM

    This is totally on my to do list. Thought i could avoid it but NO!

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 8, 2012 at 8:10 AM

      Facebook doesn’t give many options, does it? Cover photo or no, the new Timeline layout is coming to pages!

      Reply
  5. lisa erickson says

    March 8, 2012 at 11:44 AM

    Thank you for this article. It was especially helpful to know that contact info is not allowed on the new cover photo. Saved some egg from getting on my face so thanks again. My page is https://www.facebook.com/lisaericksondesign if you want to check it out. I will continue to read your articles as they are very helpful and fun to read. Now to change my ‘hobby’ page.

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 8, 2012 at 1:54 PM

      Looks great Lisa! Keep up the good work 🙂

      Reply
  6. Pamela says

    March 9, 2012 at 4:15 PM

    Thank you so much for this advice. I will most definitely have to take advantage of this new format!

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 9, 2012 at 7:03 PM

      Best of luck with your Facebook Fan Page!

      Reply
  7. Humaira says

    March 14, 2012 at 10:47 AM

    It was very important to know the current fan page size. Now got it. Thanks for sharing such a post.

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 14, 2012 at 1:38 PM

      You’re welcome! Glad you found the post on Facebook Timeline cover photo size helpful!

      Reply
  8. Kris says

    April 10, 2012 at 5:54 AM

    I find it very annoying that Facebook scrolls up the page a little (the height of the blue bar on top), which cuts off a part of the cover photo.
    Most cover photos now look stupid because you don’t see the entire photo.

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      April 10, 2012 at 5:25 PM

      One other person told me this happened, then couldn’t be replicated. I’ve never seen this myself. Perhaps a browser issue, or just one of MANY glitches Facebook has had in the past 6 weeks.

      Reply
      • Kris says

        April 14, 2012 at 10:11 AM

        I’ve never seen otherwise, always seen that the page would scroll up a little.
        But it makes sense if this does not happen for everyone. I was wondering why no-one seemed to care about that and was putting up covers that were cut off. I designed mine specific to avoid this issue (just added some extra space at the top).

        Not sure how to track this one down, I have this issue on all browsers I’m trying, also tried on different computers 🙁

        Reply
        • Louise Myers says

          April 14, 2012 at 10:26 AM

          Really weird. I did try to Google this issue when it was first brought up and couldn’t find anything about it. Then the person who brought it up said it didn’t happen again. Quite strange.

          Reply
          • Kris says

            April 16, 2012 at 12:16 PM

            I can send you screenshots or other info if you like. I’m using IE9 and FF11 on Windows 7 Ultimate (Dutch version) with SP1. I see it on both normal user profiles and fan pages.

            If you google on “facebook timeline cover image cuts off” you’ll find other blogs where users are mentioning this in the replies, but without any solution or reason why this is happening.

          • Louise Myers says

            April 16, 2012 at 2:20 PM

            Yes, I did see a couple mentions when I used “cuts off” instead of however I worded it the first time. Why not report it to Facebook? Here’s the Timeline Issues page: https://www.facebook.com/help/issues/timeline There’s a link at the bottom to report anything not listed as a “known issue.”

    • Rod says

      December 16, 2012 at 9:28 AM

      @Kris This is a real issue and still has not been fixed after all these months. I’m guessing by now that it intentional, but I can’t imagine a really good reason. My experimentation in IE, Safari, Firefox and Chrome shows that this happens on every facebook page I viewed on 3 different Windows 7 PCs. On my MacBook Air and Pro, this happens on all personal pages other than my own, but not all on fan pages. Very annoying!
      http://rodmusic.com/fb

      Reply
      • Louise Myers says

        December 16, 2012 at 2:27 PM

        When I updated my OS & browser, I had this occur too. I did ask about it on Mari Smith’s months ago and was told it’s the default. Maybe because new visitors will see more of your Timeline? But it seems pretty dumb, since the reason for the cover photo is to show off your branding!

        Reply
  9. Robinson says

    April 15, 2012 at 9:10 PM

    Hi.. I’m Robin
    This page so… cool…
    Add my page
    Thank you

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      April 15, 2012 at 9:32 PM

      Hi Robin! Did you mean to leave a link to your FB page? Maybe I’m just confused 😉

      Reply
  10. brettlewis says

    September 25, 2012 at 11:02 PM

    Great articles. Really loving your attention to detail, updated information, and clear and simple instructions. Thanks for making this accessible, and even fun and easy!

    We are getting ready for this year’s fundraiser and your instructions have helped a lot!
    http://www.facebook.com/HauntedTrails

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      September 26, 2012 at 1:58 PM

      Great, best of luck with that Brett!

      Reply
  11. Beverly says

    October 7, 2012 at 4:13 AM

    HI!–I’m trying to upload a new pic to my cover–FB won’t give me the option–it just looks like it is still searching—I’ve been able to change it twice–with the drop down menu under change cover–but it seems very sporatic that you can change it—Is this still a glitch with FB???

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      October 7, 2012 at 8:16 PM

      Hi Beverly!
      Try uploading it to your photos first and then “Change Cover… Choose from Photos…”
      I had to do that for a while, tho mine has worked fine the last couple times.
      Good luck!

      Reply
  12. rose says

    December 9, 2012 at 3:33 AM

    hi there

    I am wondering why my picture keeps stretching if I am using a high res picture but making sure to use 851 x 315pixels.. I have used a few diff programs and they all get stretched

    what am I doing wrong?
    thx
    Rose

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      December 9, 2012 at 12:50 PM

      Hi Rose,
      Sounds like you’re sizing the picture without constraining the proportions. So the height is getting reduced more than the width.

      Check out these instructions – in essence, you size the width and then CROP the height: http://bit.ly/FB-cover-photo

      Good luck!
      Louise

      Reply
  13. Razibul Hasan says

    October 29, 2013 at 11:06 PM

    This page is very help for new facebook designer. They learn huge information about this information. Thank for help.

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      November 2, 2013 at 3:24 PM

      I’m glad you found it helpful, Razibul!

      Reply
  14. Kimberly Bower says

    May 11, 2014 at 1:03 PM

    Here’s my first attempt with your template. What do you think?

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      May 14, 2014 at 2:39 PM

      Beautiful, Kimberly!

      Reply
  15. Ergin says

    June 14, 2014 at 4:42 AM

    Thanks for a really creative facebook cover

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      June 17, 2014 at 10:10 AM

      Glad you enjoyed it!

      Reply
  16. Michael says

    July 22, 2014 at 1:30 PM

    It is observed that more than 95% of Facebook Pages cover photos are made only for desktops. Very few Pages take into account how it will look in mobiles.

    Click here to see size and dimensions for Facebook page cover photo for both desktop and mobile view

    http://dmzilla.com/2014/06/06/facebook-page-cover-photo-size-and-dimensions-for-desktop-and-mobile-view/

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      July 23, 2014 at 10:12 AM

      Thanks Michael, I will add that info to my template.

      Reply
  17. Logan Niles says

    February 27, 2015 at 11:56 PM

    Thank you so much! I’ve been meaning to do this for the longest time..I think it worked out well…

    https://www.facebook.com/MindOverManna

    I love your blog btw..so, so helpful! 🙂

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      March 2, 2015 at 10:25 AM

      Great job Logan!

      Reply
  18. cryoffalcon says

    December 5, 2015 at 5:44 AM

    Well I think this cover deserves to be in your list: https://www.facebook.com/bloghuts

    Reply
    • Louise Myers says

      December 5, 2015 at 6:55 PM

      Nice looking!

      Reply

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