Drawing a diagram

The toolbar sits along one edge of the board. Every tool has a single-key shortcut, and those are worth learning - drawing with one hand on the keyboard is much faster than returning to the toolbar between shapes.

The tools#

Tool	Key
Select	V
Pan	H	Holding Space and dragging pans from any tool.
Rectangle	R
Diamond	D
Ellipse	O
Arrow	A	Connects two shapes and stays attached when you move them.
Line	L
Draw	P	Freehand.
Text	T
Image		Pasted or dropped images are embedded in the board.
Eraser	E

Three tools that are not for drawing#

Grouped behind one button, because they are occasional rather than everyday:

• Frame (F) - marks a region of the board. Useful for deciding what an export covers.
• Laser pointer (K) - a trail that fades. It draws nothing and saves nothing; it is for pointing at things while somebody is watching your screen.
• Web embed - drops a live web page onto the board.

Styling what you selected#

Selecting anything opens the properties panel: stroke and fill, stroke width and style, edges, opacity, layer order, and font and alignment for text.

Two shortcuts that save real time:

• Copy style - ⌥ ⌘ C (Alt Ctrl C on Windows and Linux)
• Paste style - ⌥ ⌘ V (Alt Ctrl V)

Layer order#

Send backward	⌘ [
Bring forward	⌘ ]
Send to back	⌥ ⌘ [
Bring to front	⌥ ⌘ ]

On Windows and Linux the first two are Ctrl [ and Ctrl ], and the last two are Shift Ctrl [ and Shift Ctrl ].

Editing#

Undo	⌘ Z
Redo	⇧ ⌘ Z
Duplicate	⌘ D
Select all	⌘ A
Delete	Delete

Undo covers everything, including flow settings - changing an animation is not a side channel you cannot take back.

Moving around#

Zoom in / out	⌘ + / ⌘ −
Reset zoom	⌘ 0
Zoom to fit	⇧ 1
Show grid	⌘ '
Snap to objects	⌥ S
Find on canvas	⌘ F

Find on canvas searches the text on the board and jumps to it, which is the fastest way around a diagram that has outgrown one screen.

The shape library#

The library button in the top corner opens a sidebar of reusable shapes. Anything you build can be saved into it and dropped onto a later board, and published libraries can be loaded in.

The button hides itself while the sidebar is open - the sidebar has its own close control, and a floating toggle sitting on top of the thing it opened would be two controls for one job.

The board's ground#

The Details tab offers a surface texture - plain, paper or grain - and the grid is a separate toggle.

Related#