Desktop

On a computer you get the complete editor: every tool, keyboard shortcut, and panel, with nothing held back.

A computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux) with a mouse or trackpad and a keyboard gives you the complete livediagram experience. Everything in the help centre works here, so this is the best place to do detailed work.

Everything is available

All of the tools in the palette work on desktop, including the presenting tools that need room and a pointer: Spotlight, which dims the canvas and follows your cursor to highlight one thing at a time, and the Slide Deck. Neither appears on a phone-sized screen.

You also get the Map (once a tab has a few elements) and the other corner panels, which you can drag to any corner and collapse when you want more room (see Panel Layout), the editor mode switch beside the menu button, and UI Scale in Settings to make the panels and buttons bigger or smaller.

StartDone100%
On a computer the full editor is on screen at once: the menu button and palette strip, your canvas, the corner buttons with the zoom, and the tab bar along the bottom.

Mouse and keyboard

A mouse and keyboard unlock the fastest ways to work:

  • Keyboard shortcuts for picking tools and running common actions, like undo, copy, duplicate, and zoom. See Keyboard Shortcuts for the full list.
  • Hold Shift while resizing to keep an element's proportions, and Shift-click to add or remove elements from a selection.
  • Drag a box across empty canvas to select several elements at once.
  • Hold Space and drag, drag with the middle mouse button, or scroll (two fingers on a trackpad) to move around; hold Ctrl (or Cmd) and scroll, or pinch on a trackpad, to zoom.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS⌘ZUndo⌘CCopy⌘DDuplicateShiftResize lock
A keyboard gives you the quickest controls, with shortcuts for common actions and held keys for resizing and selecting.

Right-click and hover

Right-click any element, tab, or empty canvas to open its menu of formatting and actions (see Context Menus). In those menus, resting the pointer on a colour, border or preset previews it on the selection before you commit, which touch screens can't do. Rest the pointer on a button for half a second and a tooltip names it; some controls explain themselves at once with a hover card. Keyboard focus shows either straight away, and Escape hides it.

Working on something detailed or presenting to a room? A computer is the most comfortable place to do it, with the most screen space and the quickest controls.

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