Drawing in a Sketch
A Draw Sketch is a small whiteboard on your Canvas. You can draw in it right where it sits, or open it in the Right Panel when you need more tools and more room.
Draw on the Canvas
- Double-click the Sketch. (For a new, blank Sketch, choose Draw first.)
- Pick a tool from the toolbar above the Sketch and draw. Everything you draw stays inside the Sketch's box.
- Click anywhere outside the Sketch to finish.
The toolbar on the Canvas
| Button | Key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Select | V | Select, move and resize what you've drawn. |
| Shapes | Rectangle, Diamond, Ellipse, Arrow, Line. The button shows the last one you used; click again for the others. | |
| Draw | D | Freehand pen. |
| Text | T | Click to type. |
| Eraser | E | Erase what you click or drag over. |
| Right Panel | Opens this Sketch in the Right Panel. |
Change how something looks
Select one or more drawn elements and more controls appear on the toolbar — only the ones that make sense for what's selected:
- Stroke and Fill colour (Black, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow; Transparent and light versions for fill).
- Stroke width (Decrease stroke width / Increase stroke width), stroke style, and sloppiness (Architect, Artist, Cartoonist).
- Text: font (Hand-drawn, Normal, Code), size (Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large) and alignment.
- Arrow: Straight, Curved or Elbow, and the arrowheads at the Start and End.
Draw in the Right Panel
Open the Sketch in the Right Panel (the Right Panel button, or the panel button in the Sketch's header) for the full drawing toolset.
| Tool | Key |
|---|---|
| Select | 1 |
| Rectangle / Diamond / Ellipse | 2 / 3 / 4 |
| Arrow / Line | 5 / 6 |
| Draw | 7 |
| Text (or double-click) | 8 |
| Image — insert a picture | |
| Eraser | ⇧E |
| Frame tool | |
| Hand tool — pan | H |
With elements selected you also get:
- Layers: Send to back (
⌘⇧[), Send backward (⌘[), Bring forward (⌘]), Bring to front (⌘⇧]). - Duplicate (
⌘D), Delete, Add hyperlink (⌘K). - Opacity: decrease or increase by 10%.
- Align: left, center horizontally, right, top, center vertically, bottom.
The zoom bar at the bottom has Zoom in, Zoom out, the current zoom (click to reset to 100%) and a fit button — Fit to panel, or Scroll back to content when your drawing is out of view.
To start over, open More sketch actions → Reset Sketch. Lino asks "Clear this Sketch?" first.
Note: the shortcut keys differ between the two places. On the Canvas they are letters (V, D, T, E); in the Right Panel they are numbers (1–8) plus ⇧E and H.