Drawing and text¶

Libraries cover most things, but sometimes you need to draw the thing yourself, or just write on the page.

Pencil and Marker¶

Pencil (P) draws a smoothed freehand line. Marker (M) lays down ink like an art marker: a little see-through, slightly uneven, darker at the edges and where the tip rests. Draw over the same spot twice and it deepens.

Each has a small chevron on its palette button. Click it for Line Weight — 1 to 100 points. Pencil defaults to 1, Marker to 10.

Marker also has a Tip:

The tip belongs to the stroke, so changing it only affects what you draw next.

Each stroke you draw becomes its own object. It isn't selected when you finish it, so you can keep drawing; switch to Select to move, resize or restyle it afterwards.

Pencil takes the stroke texture you've chosen. Marker doesn't, because ink has its own surface. If you want a broad textured line, select a finished marker stroke and give it a texture: the texture replaces the ink. Remove the texture and the ink comes back.

Three settings in Settings › Marker turn the grain, the darker edges and the pooling off, for every marker stroke on your Mac. They change how strokes are drawn, not your diagrams. If a diagram with lots of big marker scribbles feels slow, turn the grain off.

Polyshape¶

Polyshape (G) builds a shape point by point, which is how you get an outline that's exactly the outline you wanted.

• Click to drop a corner point.
• Alt-click to drop a curve point instead.
• Click near the first point (once you have three or more) to close the shape.
• Double-click, or press Enter, to finish an open path.
• Esc abandons it.

A closed polyshape can be added straight to a shape library — see Your own libraries.

Editing points¶

Anything made of points — polyshapes, pencil and marker strokes, converted SVGs — can be reshaped afterwards.

Select it and press Enter, or double-click it, or right-click and choose Edit Points.

Rectangles, ellipses and notes¶

Three shapes have keyboard shortcuts but no palette button:

• Rectangle — R
• Ellipse — O
• Note — N

Click to place one at a default size, or drag out the frame you want.

Notes come in two looks. Use Page ▸ Add Sticky Note or Page ▸ Add Index Card, or select a note and switch between them with the Annotation picker in the Shape Properties panel.

Text¶

Free-floating text¶

Press T and click for a text box at the default size, or drag to set its size. The editor opens immediately. To edit existing free-floating text, use Select and double-click it, or select it and press Enter.

Drag anywhere inside the text box to move it. While editing, dragging inside selects text; use the outer border to move the box. Use its usual handles to resize or rotate it, including while typing. There is no separate inner text area to enter or resize. Starting a move, resize or rotation finishes the current text edit; Undo reverses the transform first, then the text edit.

Labels on shapes¶

Double-click any shape to type a label on it. Double-click a connector to label the line. This is usually what you want — the text belongs to the shape and travels with it.

While you're editing a shape label, you can drag the border to move the text area, drag a corner to resize it, or use the round handle to rotate just the text.

Editing keys¶

Formatting text¶

The Format menu has the basics:

The Shape Properties panel (Cmd+Alt+4) has more, in its Text section:

• Font Family — the menu next to the Aa icon: System Font plus everything installed on your Mac
• Font Size — pick from the list or type a number; there are buttons to step it up and down
• Text colour (the A chip), and a Text Background colour with a Clear Text Background button
• Alignment and Bold / Italic / Underline buttons
• Text position, the last button in the section. For free-floating text, choose Top, Middle or Bottom to align the text within its own box. Shape labels also offer Above Shape and Below Shape. If your selection includes free-floating text, only the three inside positions appear, and your choice applies to all selected objects that contain text. The icon shows the current position; different positions show a dashed box until you choose one for them all.

That last one is more useful than it sounds. Putting a label below a symbol instead of across it is often the difference between a readable diagram and a mess.