Importing artwork¶

Sometimes the shape you need is already a file. Here's how to get it in.

Import SVG¶

File ▸ Import SVG…, or drag an .svg file onto the canvas. Adding an SVG to one of your own libraries, or choosing one for Replace Artwork…, asks the same question.

The app asks how you want it handled:

Keep as SVG Artwork

: The best visual match. The artwork stays exactly as drawn, and you can move, resize, rotate, copy and connect it like any other object. Use this for logos, icons, and anything with gradients or fine detail.

Convert to Editable Shape

: Turns it into a native SimpleDiagrams shape using your current fill and stroke, with crisp outlines that don't thin out as you scale. Use this when you want the artwork to pick up your colours and textures and behave like a built-in shape.

Conversion rebuilds the drawing as SimpleDiagrams paths, so anything it can't rebuild — gradients, filters, text, embedded images — is left out rather than blocking the import. The Convert card tells you what went missing before you choose.

It also warns you when the artwork's outlines are filled shapes rather than real strokes, because then your colours have to be guessed rather than read, and textures in particular come out wrong. See Preparing SVGs for what that means and how to avoid it.

A drawing in a single colour, such as the one-colour icons you find on icon sites, becomes a shape that follows your fill colour. It starts out black, so the ordinary white fill can't hide it, unless you've picked a fill in the toolbar, which new shapes always use. In a library, black becomes the shape's Default Appearance fill. Change the fill to recolour it.

Very occasionally conversion isn't possible at all, and the Convert button is disabled with a note. Keep as SVG Artwork still works.

The imported artwork lands in the centre of your view, scaled down if it's enormous.

Import Image¶

File ▸ Import Image…, or drag an image onto the canvas, or just paste one.

PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, HEIC, WebP and BMP images work. What doesn't:

• other formats, such as PDF, Photoshop files and camera RAW — the app reads what a file actually contains, so renaming one to .png doesn't help. Export it as PNG or JPEG first
• animated or multi-frame images
• anything over 16 MB
• anything more than 16,384 pixels on a side, or over 40 megapixels

Image options¶

Select an imported image and the Shape Properties panel gives you:

• Image Layout — Fit, Fill or Stretch
• Background and Border toggles

Pasting¶

Cmd+V handles images from the clipboard as well as SimpleDiagrams content. Copy a screenshot, paste it straight onto the canvas.

Replacing artwork¶

If a shape is wrong — or a legacy import left a placeholder — select it and choose Edit ▸ Inspect Selected Artwork…, then Replace Artwork…. It accepts SVG, PNG, JPEG and native vectors.

Custom colour palettes¶

Not artwork exactly, but it belongs with the rest of the "bring your own" features.

In any colour popover, use the Palette picker and the Manage Palettes button to build a palette of your own. You can import and export as JSON, and legacy .sdcp palette files from version 4 import here too.

See Colour and style for the details.

Everything is embedded¶

Whatever you import — SVG, image, background, library shape — is stored inside the document. Send the file to someone and it arrives complete. Delete the original from your Mac and the diagram is fine.

The flip side is that a diagram full of large images is a large document. The limits are 16 MB per asset and 100 MB total, which is a lot of napkin sketch.