What's new¶

The newest version comes first. Coming from version 3 or 4? Skip down to What's new in 5.0.

What's new in 5.3¶

5.3 is a free update for version 5 licence holders. Sharing diagrams with people on 5.2? Read Before you update first.

Templates¶

Start a diagram from one of 38 templates with File ▸ New from Template… (Cmd+Alt+N), in areas from Sales and IT to Science, and keep your own with File ▸ Save as Template….

BPMN files¶

Open a .bpmn file from a modeler as a new diagram, with its pools, lanes, colours and name positions, and export a page back to one with File ▸ Export as BPMN…. A summary tells you if anything didn't come across.

Labels at the ends of a connector¶

Put a label beside each end of a connector, for a UML multiplicity or a role name: right-click it and choose Add Start Label or Add End Label, or double-click near an end. Each one stays beside its end as things move.

Audiences, percentages and pies¶

Audience: a new complex shape for how a parliament, a board or an audience divides.
Percentages in rings and pies: give a ring's sections percentages for real proportions, and drag out the new Pie tile for a pie chart. See Rings, flows, pyramids, cycles and gauges.
Trophy: a new shape in Biz, for a winner, an award or a champion.

Smaller improvements¶

Connector Type: right-click a connector and choose Connector Type to change it to straight, curved, squiggly or right-angle. See Connectors.
Hops and rounded corners: two new settings for how lines are drawn.
JPEG export: choose JPEG Image in File ▸ Export… for the places that ask for one. See Exporting and printing.
Typed text regions: set a library shape's text region by typing its position and size.
Dotted containers: a container's outline can be solid, dashed or dotted, with the same control as other shapes.
Typing in a shape is always on white, so the words are easy to read on any fill, and they keep their colours and highlights as you type. See Formatting text.
The highlighter chip opens the same colour dialog as the text colour, with Opacity and No Highlight.
Rating: the Mac App Store version asks once, after your third export, whether you'd like to rate it, in macOS's own box. See Privacy, briefly.

Before you update to 5.3¶

Diagrams saved by 5.3 need 5.3 or later. That includes a diagram made in an earlier version once 5.3 saves it. Earlier versions can't open them, and shapes and connectors copied from 5.3 can't be pasted into them. Libraries are unchanged.

What's new in 5.2¶

5.2 is a free update for version 5 licence holders. Sharing diagrams with people on 5.1? Read Before you update first.

Rings, flows, pyramids, cycles and gauges¶

Five new shapes in Complex Shapes are built from parts: a Ring for donuts and pie charts, a Flow for the steps of a process, a Pyramid that can also be a funnel, a Cycle, and a Gauge with a needle. Click the settings button beside one to set how many parts it has and how it looks. Every part takes its own colour and its own label, apart from a gauge's needle; a gauge's band labels can turn to follow their bands. See Rings, flows, pyramids, cycles and gauges.

Database diagrams¶

A new Entity Table has a row for each field, with marks for primary and foreign keys and more, and two connection points on every field, one at each end, so relationships stay with their rows. The new Database section adds five crow's-foot relationships, and UML's Database Entity now places an entity table. See Database diagrams.

Notes and cards¶

A new Notes and Cards section in the Library panel has six notes to drag out: the familiar Sticky Note and Index Card, plus a Taped Note, a luggage Tag, a torn-out Notebook Page and a Pinned Note. This is where notes live now, so Page ▸ Add Sticky Note, Add Index Card and the Note tool (N) have gone. See Notes and cards.

Style the words you choose¶

Bold, italic, underline, font, size, colour and a new highlight now style just the words you select while you type, in any text. Copy Style and Paste Style work on words too. Text backgrounds are gone: use a highlight instead. See Formatting text.

Smaller improvements¶

Proportional containers spread their shapes out or close them in as you resize them, without stretching anything. See Layout.
Table shortcuts as in Numbers: Alt and an arrow inserts a row or column, and Delete Row and Delete Column have shortcuts. Move Row Up and Move Row Down work in every table. See Tables.
Settings buttons: an image's settings and a lifeline's Ends in Destroy Mark moved to a settings button beside the shape. Format › Shape Settings…, also in the right-click menu, opens them from the keyboard. See Shape Properties and the settings button.
Right-click menus no longer show shortcuts, and a table's leaves out commands that can't apply where you clicked.
In Dark Mode, a page with no background stays white paper, so black lines and words no longer vanish; a dark page is one you choose. The words you're typing stay easy to read on any colour. See Backgrounds.
SimpleDiagrams 4 labels keep each line you typed.
Typed words are safe. Saving, exporting or printing while you type keeps words the app can't take, and says why it waited.
Decimal commas work in Output Size and background placement.
Complex shapes from later versions show as a grey box that says so, in a diagram 5.2 can open, rather than keeping you out. Move, copy or delete it as you like; updating SimpleDiagrams lets you change it. A diagram in a later format still needs the later version. See Shapes from a newer version.

Before you update to 5.2¶

Diagrams saved by 5.2 need 5.2 or later. Earlier versions can't open them, and shapes copied from 5.2 can't be pasted into them. Libraries are unchanged.
Text backgrounds aren't shown. A label that had a background colour opens without it. Select the shape and choose a highlight to put a colour behind its words.

What's new in 5.1.1¶

5.1.1 is a free update for version 5 licence holders.

SimpleDiagrams speaks Japanese. On a Mac set to Japanese, the menus, panels, Settings, help tags and the built-in libraries' shapes all appear in Japanese. Search finds built-in shapes by their English or Japanese names, and your diagrams read the same on every Mac. See Language.
Presenting, printing and exporting a saved diagram use its name instead of "Untitled". A PDF, or a folder of several pages, is named after the diagram.
The Heptagon in the Basic library is now evenly shaped.
Some damaged or deliberately malformed files are handled safely: a misleading Visio, SimpleDiagrams 4 library or zipped diagram archive no longer makes SimpleDiagrams quit, and an SVG built to grow without limit while converting is refused.
An SVG whose fill crosses over itself thousands of times imports without that fill, keeping its lines, instead of slowing every repaint. The import sheet explains why.

What's new in 5.1¶

5.1 takes SimpleDiagrams beyond simple sketches and workflows, into more advanced technical diagrams and communication: processes with lanes, UML, BPMN, and that Visio file someone just emailed you. Sharing diagrams with people on 5.0? Read Before you update first.

Containers, swimlanes and tables¶

A new Complex Shapes section, just after Basic in the Library panel, has four shapes SimpleDiagrams draws at any size: a Container, Swimlanes, a Table and a Callout. Drop a shape wholly inside a container or a lane and it joins, then goes wherever the container goes. Edit lanes right on the page, and type straight into a table. Title in Corner Tag puts a container's title in a small tag in its corner. Drag a callout's tail onto any shape's connection point and it stays pointing at that shape as it moves. See Complex shapes.

UML, sequence diagrams included¶

The new UML library has the shapes people draw most, from Actor to Terminate, plus boxes such as Class and Database Entity that you type straight into, and ten ready-made relationships. For sequence diagrams, messages attach anywhere along a lifeline and snap level, Ends in Destroy Mark finishes a lifeline with an X, and frames and fragments go behind your messages. See UML and C4 diagrams.

BPMN¶

The new BPMN library has 89 shapes in a hand-drawn style for business processes, from events and gateways to tasks, data and messages. Each one carries its BPMN details as shape data, and a Pool gives you swimlanes ready for your roles. See BPMN diagrams.

Visio drawings and stencils¶

Open a Visio drawing (.vsdx, .vsdm, .vstx or .vstm) with File ▸ Open… and it becomes a new diagram you can edit. Shapes keep their look, text and shape data, and connectors stay attached. Your Visio file is never changed, and macros are never opened or run. Import a Visio stencil (.vssx or .vssm) and its shapes become a custom library. See Visio drawings and stencils.

Slugs and shape info¶

Every library shape now has a slug, a short, permanent name such as user-task that your diagram keeps even on a Mac without the library. The Shape Data panel names the library a shape came from, and Info in its header shows the slug and IDs, ready to copy. Shape Data exports gain library and shape_slug columns, so read CSV columns by their headings, not their position. See Shape data.

Locked looks locked¶

Select anything locked and it shows an orange dashed outline and no handles, even inside a locked group or container. When a lock stops a move, whatever is locking it is outlined in orange too. And you can now right-click a connector to lock or unlock it. See Lock and unlock.

Faster big diagrams¶

Zoomed in, SimpleDiagrams no longer draws what's off screen. A page of 5,000 labelled shapes now redraws in under a hundredth of a second, down from about a third. Starting a drag, opening the right-click menu and selecting are quicker on large diagrams too.

Smaller improvements¶

Ten new Basic shapes, including Pill, Parallelogram, Hexagon and two stars.
Shape groups sort BPMN and UML under small headings. You can turn them off in Settings.
Default labels in a custom library give each copy of a shape its label as you place it, and a default text position starts that label where it belongs, such as above the shape.
Shape names can be dragged anywhere around their shape, as long as they touch it, and clicking one selects the shape.
Connectors between shapes you move together come along, bends and all.
The Transform panel shows a group's position, size and angle, ready to type over.
Scroll to pan can now be turned off, under Canvas in Settings, for a twitchy Magic Mouse.
Buttons on the diagram are solid in your accent colour, so they stand out.
Shapes from downloaded libraries open in place when a diagram names them, or show as boxes with a question mark until you install the library.

Before you update¶

Diagrams saved by 5.1 need 5.1 or later. SimpleDiagrams 5.0 can't open them. Diagrams from earlier versions open as before.
So do libraries that 5.1 saves or exports, because they record each shape's slug.
Share diagrams? Ask the people you share with to update too. From 5.1 on, a diagram from a newer version asks you to update, rather than just failing. See Troubleshooting.

What's new in 5.0¶

Version 5 is a complete rewrite. Version 4 was built on Adobe AIR, which Apple and the rest of the world have moved on from. Version 5 is a native Mac app written in Swift.

That's not a marketing line. It's why nearly everything below is possible.

The big change¶

SimpleDiagrams is now a proper Mac app. That means:

It launches fast and stays responsive with big diagrams.
Autosave and Versions work, so Cmd+S is mostly a formality and Revert To ▸ Browse All Versions… can rescue you.
It runs natively on Apple silicon and on Intel.
It's sandboxed with no network access at all — the capability isn't in the build. No account, no telemetry, nothing phoning home.
Standard Mac behaviour throughout: the Font panel, the colour panel, Full Screen, Open Recent, the print system. All of it just works.

New in version 5¶

Guides. Drag them out of the rulers, move them, delete them. Objects snap to them. Version 4's rulers couldn't do this and it bothered me for years.

Quick Styles that live in the document. Save a fill-and-stroke combination and apply it with one click. Up to 32, and they travel with the file rather than living in a dialog you forgot about.

Per-page output size. Each page can be A4, US Letter, or any custom size in millimetres, inches, points or pixels, with its own DPI and margins — or left on Automatic to size itself to the artwork.

SVG import with a choice. Keep it as artwork for the best visual match, or convert it to an editable native shape that takes your colours and textures.

Connection point editing. When you build your own library, you decide where connectors attach — including Add Center Point and a reset to the standard ring.

A proper library editor. Names, keywords, default fill and stroke, textures, text regions and connection points, all in one sheet.

Contact sheets. Right-click a library heading to get a printable overview of everything in it.

Multi-segment connectors that behave. Hold Alt to keep adding anchors, double-click to finish. Ten arrowhead styles at each end, independently.

An Overview navigator and Fit Selection (Cmd+2), so you can find your way around a large diagram.

Metadata stripping on import. Drop in a photo or a screenshot and its EXIF and GPS data are removed automatically.

One Library panel instead of four. Shapes, backgrounds, favourites and search were separate panels in version 4; now there's one panel with search built in, plus Alt+Space from anywhere.

Things that changed¶

Presentation is now read-only. Clean, full screen, arrow keys to move. The version 4 drawing pointer and fading pencil aren't here. The upside is you can't nudge a shape while you're mid-sentence.

Online Libraries are gone. The subscription shape-browsing service isn't part of version 5. You have the six built-in libraries and any libraries you make or import. To look for more, choose Search Online Libraries ↗ from the books menu in the Library panel; it opens simplediagrams.com in your web browser.

Linked templates are gone. Duplicate a page (Cmd+Shift+D) instead — it's simpler and it does what most people used templates for.

The canvas is infinite. There's no page rectangle to draw inside. Decide the output size when you export or print.

Your old work¶

.sdxml diagrams from versions 3 and 4 open, and .sdlp shape libraries and .sdcp palettes still import. Your original files are never modified.

Read Opening older diagrams before you convert anything important.

What's still on the list¶

Being honest about it:

An in-app updater. The direct build has Check for Updates…, which opens the download page. Actual background updating is on the list.
Smart guides between objects. You get the grid and manual guides; automatic alignment hints aren't in yet.
An eraser. Still no eraser. Yes, I know.

If something you relied on is missing, tell me: support@simplediagrams.com.

Your input is invaluable. It helps me make SimpleD so much better. Your honest feedback, to me, is like the software equivalent of doing inverted ab crunches while drinking a broccoli smoothie. TOTAL IMPROVEMENT.