Dragging a handle is the quick way to size an element, and for most work it is the only way you need. When you want two boxes to match exactly, or a frame to be a precise size, the Size category in the element menu lets you type the numbers instead.
Right-click any element (or use the ⋯ button on its selection toolbar) and open Size.
Typing a width and height
The two boxes hold the element's width and height in canvas pixels at 100% zoom. That is the only unit the canvas has: if you are drawing to a scale of your own, say ten pixels per centimetre, the numbers here are still pixels and the scale is yours to keep track of.
Two things behave the way you would want but are worth knowing:
- The box you type in commits when you leave it, on Enter or by clicking away, and Escape puts back what was there. It does not resize as you type, so typing
120does not briefly make the element 1px then 12px wide, and your undo history gets one step rather than three. - The top-left corner stays put. Typing a width grows or shrinks the element to the right, so whatever edge you had lined up stays lined up. Resizing is a layout act, and the alignment you already have is the thing worth preserving.
Values are kept between 8 and 20000 pixels. Below that is not really a shape, and a stray extra digit should not produce something you cannot pan back from.
The boxes always show the element's current size, so they update when you drag a handle, undo, or let the lock carry the other dimension.
Lock Aspect Ratio
With Lock Aspect Ratio on, changing one dimension carries the other, so the element keeps its proportions. This is the same lock that applies while you drag any resize handle, corner or edge, so it means one thing everywhere. Holding Shift while you drag gives the same result for one resize without turning the lock on.
Because the lock carries the other dimension every time, you cannot set the two boxes to an unrelated pair while it is on: typing the height after the width resizes the width again to keep the ratio. To set both freely, switch the lock off first, type both numbers, and switch it back on if you want to keep the new proportion.
The lock used to sit at the bottom of the Layer category, below the opacity slider. It is in Size now, with the other two controls that answer "how big is this".
Reset Aspect Ratio
Reset Aspect Ratio returns a shape that has been stretched to its natural proportion, keeping roughly the same area, so a squashed circle becomes a circle again without becoming a different size.
It holds the centre rather than the top-left, because changing a proportion is not a layout act: holding an edge would make the shape drift sideways as it un-warps.
The button appears only for shapes that have a natural proportion to return to, which is the same set the Shape category offers to morph between. With several shapes selected, the same button sits in the multi-selection menu's Shape category and resets each of them.
What has a size
Size applies to boxed elements: shapes, text, notes, images, frames, tables, and the rest of the things that occupy a rectangle. Arrows have no width and height to type, so they have no Size category. See Arrows for how those are shaped instead.
A few elements keep a fixed size and have no Size category either: the notes on an event storming board, Selection Mode buttons, session buttons and Done checks.
The Width and Height boxes are for one element at a time. With several elements selected, drag a corner of the selection to scale them together (hold Shift to keep the selection's proportions), or set Lock Aspect Ratio for all of them from the multi-selection menu's Layer category.
To make several elements match, size the first one exactly, then use the format painter to copy its size onto the others.
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