Learn how to use shapes in draw.io
You can swap shapes on the drawing canvas in draw.io via the Arrange tab of the format panel, or by dropping a new shape from the shape libraries on top of an existing shape. You can also reverse the arrows on a connector easily via the Arrange tab.
The improved table shapes in draw.io are useful for many different types of diagrams. Now, using the grab handles on the sides of table rows in draw.io, you can select rows more easily, and move a row to a new position in a table, or move it to another table - even if that table is a different size.
As new features are added to draw.io and the menu is refined, new keyboard shortcuts are also built into the editor. Here are some of the new and useful shortcuts for diagramming in draw.io.
If you’ve worked on a project in a team, you’ve probably seen a Gantt chart. These diagrams are used in all industries to plan tasks, note dependencies and track progress. You can create Gantt charts easily in draw.io in a number of different ways.
Quick mockups of the user interfaces are invaluable for software developers and designers both for websites and software or mobile applications. Designers and software engineers can draw it together collaboratively with the mockups shape library in our draw.io apps or our online editor.
The list shape in draw.io functions just like a table shape - use keyboard shortcuts, or the table tools in the Arrange tab of the format panel on the right, or the table tool in the toolbar above the drawing canvas to quickly add and delete list entries.
With draw.io, tables aren’t limited to holding text data. Because you can drop shapes and images into container table cells and drag connectors between them, you can get creative with diagrams inside tables.
When you set a default style for shapes and connectors in draw.io, all subsequent shapes that you add from the shape library will use that default style. This includes shape outline or connector line colour, thickness and style, shape fill colour and effects, opacity and more.
The Azure shape library in draw.io has been updated. You can draw Azure architecture diagrams for your cloud infrastructure from scratch, or import .vsdx files or exported diagrams from automated infrastructure documentation apps like Cloudockit.
With draw.io, you aren’t just limited to flows, org charts, network or UML diagrams. You can use braces, brackets, connectors and partial rectangles to add neat labels to any type of diagram.
Emoji are being used in all communications at all levels of society - a single picture takes up less space and conveys more information than its matching text. You can use the Unicode emoji in shape and connector labels, and in tooltips in your diagrams.
When you slice a 3D shape up and layer it in a diagram, you clearly visualise that a concept or process is broken up into smaller parts. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial to create your own infographic using shapes from the basic draw.io shape libraries.
Bioicons is a collection of free custom shape libraries containing open source icons for life science applications. The website lets you select one or more shape libraries, and open them in the draw.io editor on the web.
The shape libraries in draw.io provide you with a wide variety of shapes and clipart to use in your diagrams. The Style tab lets you quickly style your shapes, but for finer control and complex shapes, you can modify the shape properties.
You can create network diagrams from scratch in draw.io using shapes that match the platform you are using - AWS, GCP, Veeam, Azure, Cisco, IBM and many more. Both the draw.io AWS19 and GCP Icon shape libraries for network and cloud architectures have been updated recently.
Timelines, roadmap and milestone diagrams feature in a range of documentation - project development documents, infographics and presentations being some of the most common. There are many shapes and templates in draw.io and our draw.io branded apps that you can use to quickly draw an attractive diagram that you can embed in your presentation or documentation.
Flowcharts are one of the most used types of diagrams in all teams. But some process flows are circular or cyclical rather than a series of steps with a start and end. You can create circular flowcharts in the draw.io editor in a number of ways.
You can now edit a shape’s connection points visually with the new connection point editor. Drag the connection points around the shape, add new connection points, and delete those you don’t need.
The shapes, connectors and text elements in your diagram are described in XML - their sizes, locations, groupings, shape styles, z-order on the drawing canvas, and how they are connected to each other. You can attach much more information than this to create richer diagrams and interactivity, including tags, tooltips, links, custom shape properties and more.
In addition to sending shapes to the back or bringing them to the front, you can now step shapes backwards and forwards when the overlap each other.
When you draw a freehand shape in draw.io, it is saved as an image with a transparent background on the drawing canvas by default. You can change the freehand-drawn shape’s style like you would many other shapes: line colour, fill colour, opacity and more. You can also resize, flip and rotate your freehand drawing.
Shapes are placed on the drawing canvas in draw.io using a default orientation. You can rotate shapes into another position as you need.
The automatic layout shapes in the Advanced shape library in draw.io organise your flow charts, tree diagrams, org charts, and mind maps for you as you add and connect more shapes. The automated layout ensures that all shapes in your diagram are spaced evenly, either in a horizontal or vertical format, and will automatically increase or decrease the container shape’s size to match the contents.
The double click behaviour in draw.io has been updated in version 13.4.2 to be more convenient. Now, when you double click on the blank drawing canvas, you can quickly add a shape or text from the selector to your diagram.
A more relaxed and informal style for shapes, fills and lines is often used in infographics, teaching materials, maps and reports so that the diagrams are little less sterile and boring. The rough style adds a hand drawn shading options, rough outlines and connectors, and handwritten text labels.
Tables have been overhauled in draw.io to be much more flexible and robust than the old HTML tables you previously used. With the new tables, you can choose from various layouts, drag to resize rows and columns, move rows by dragging them, and build cross-functional flowcharts within a table and its cells.
There are a large number of keyboard shortcuts that let you create diagrams faster and more easily with draw.io. One of the more common and time-consuming tasks when you create a diagram is styling shapes and connectors.
Each shape in a diagram can contain metadata or custom properties - extra information about those shapes.
Normally, when you resize a group of shapes, all of the shapes are resized proportionally, and maintain their positions in relation to each other.
Instead of dragging shapes from the shape library in to the drawing canvas, you can quickly add them by simply clicking on the shape. This makes it faster to add a lot of shapes to the canvas at once, and then place, style and connect them later.
You can quickly build flow charts, mind maps or tree diagrams using shortcut key combinations.
When you work with container shapes, dropping a shape over that container inserts that shape into that container. While this is useful for adding steps to a flow chart inside a flow lane (e.g. using the flow layout shape), you may not necessarily want to add the shape for the person responsible into the flow lane container, but instead overlay it.
If you want to delete a shape and all of the connections to and from that shape, you can do that with a keyboard + toolbar shortcut.