Keyboard shortcuts

Tools

Each tool on the left-hand rail has a single-key shortcut, shown in its tooltip as "Ellipse (O)". Pressing the key for a tool that is already active moves to its variant where there is one.

• S: Select
• N: Edit nodes
• P: Pen
• H: Pan (grab to move)
• V: Orbit (drag to turn the scene). Only when Enable 3D (Experimental) is on in Preferences; otherwise the key does nothing.
• T: Text
• M: Marker (thick line)
• E: Eraser
• W: Stroke Profile (variable width)
• C: Round corners (round or chamfer; pick corners, drag to set the size)
• I: Eyedropper (copy fill & stroke)
• K: Knife (drag a line across paths to cut them into open pieces)
• F: Crop (marquee the area to keep, then press Enter)
• R: Rectangle. Press R again to switch to Square, and again to go back.
• O: Ellipse. Press O again to switch to Circle, and again to go back.
• L: Line
• G: Polygon
• X: Star
• B: Arrow
• A: Opens the Array panel for the selection. Does nothing with nothing selected, matching the disabled toolbar button.
• J: Opens the Join dialog. Always opens, even with nothing selected, and says what it needs.
• Enter: Brings back the tool you used before the current one. Shape tools return to Select as soon as they have drawn, so Enter is how you draw several rectangles in a row; pressing it again goes back to Select.
• Escape: Clears the selection (and any node selection).

File

• Cmd/Ctrl+O: Open… (a LineaForge project, SVG, DXF or image)
• Cmd/Ctrl+S: Save
• Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+S: Save As…
• Cmd/Ctrl+P: Opens the Print dialog. This is claimed from the browser engine on purpose: its own print dialog would print a blank page.

Edit

• Cmd/Ctrl+Z: Undo
• Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Z: Redo
• Cmd/Ctrl+Y: Redo (alternative)
• Cmd/Ctrl+C: Copy the selected objects to LineaForge's own clipboard
• Cmd/Ctrl+V: Paste. Each paste lands a little further down and to the right of the last, so repeated pastes do not stack invisibly.
• Cmd/Ctrl+A: Select all visible, unlocked objects. With the Edit nodes tool active and an object selected, selects every node of that object instead.
• Delete or Backspace, Delete the selected objects. In the Edit nodes tool, deletes the selected nodes; in the Stroke Profile tool, removes the selected width stop; while drawing with the Pen, removes the last point placed.

Selection and arrange

With the Select tool:

• Arrow keys: Nudge the selection by 1 mm, or 1/16 in when the document is in inches.
• Shift+Arrow keys: Nudge by the finer step: 0.1 mm, or 1/64 in.
• Shift+click an object, Add it to the selection, or remove it if it is already selected.
• Shift+drag an object, Lock the move to one axis, so it stays exactly level or plumb. Which axis locks is whichever the drag has travelled furthest along.
• Alt/Option (⌥)+drag an object, Drag a copy away and leave the original where it was. Can be combined with Shift to drop the copy straight down or straight across.
• Alt/Option (⌥)+click an object, Leave a copy exactly on top of the original.
• Drag on empty space: Marquee selection. Only objects completely inside the box are selected; the box is drawn solid.
• Shift while dragging a marquee, Touch mode: selects everything the box touches. The box is drawn dashed and names the mode above its corner. Can be pressed or released part-way through the drag.
• Alt/Option (⌥) while dragging a marquee, Add to the existing selection instead of replacing it. Both modifiers can be held together.
• Drag a corner handle: Resize keeping proportions (the top-right handle rotates instead; the three scaling corners are top-left, bottom-left and bottom-right).
• Ctrl+drag a corner handle: Resize freely and distort. Ctrl, on both platforms.
• Shift+drag a corner handle: Also keeps proportions, for anyone used to that convention.
• Drag an edge handle: Resize one axis freely, no modifier needed.
• Shift+drag the rotation handle: Rotate in 15-degree steps, the same stops as node editing.
• Double-click a text object, Open it for editing, from any tool.

In the Objects panel:

• Shift+click a row, Add that object to the selection, a row at a time. Shift-clicking a group takes all of its members.
• Double-click a name, Rename. Enter commits, Escape cancels.

Node editing and pen modifiers

With the Edit nodes tool (N) and an object selected:

• Click a node, Select it. Shift+click adds it to or removes it from the node selection.
• Drag on empty space over the object, Marquee-select nodes; hold Shift to add to the node selection.
• Shift+drag a node, Hold the drag to 15-degree steps, so the segment to its neighbor runs level, plumb, or at 30, 45 or 60 degrees. A dashed construction line and the angle show which. The same hold works while dragging a handle.
• Alt/Option (⌥)+click a node, Toggle it between smooth and corner.
• Alt/Option (⌥)+drag a corner node, Pull a pair of mirrored handles out of it, turning the corner into a curve in one motion. On a node that already has handles, re-aims them.
• Alt/Option (⌥)+drag a handle, Move that handle on its own, without mirroring the opposite one.
• Double-click a segment, Insert a node there.
• C: Close or open the subpath the selected node belongs to.
• Arrow keys: Nudge the selected nodes (same steps as objects; with no node selected, the whole object moves).
• Delete or Backspace, Delete the selected nodes.
• Cmd/Ctrl+A: Select every node of the object.

With the Pen tool (P):

• Click: Place a corner point. Click and drag, Place a point and pull its handles out for a curve.
• Click the first point of the path, Close it and finish.
• Shift: Hold the rubber band and the next point to 15-degree steps out of the last point; while dragging a curve out, holds its handle to a step. Takes and releases as Shift goes down and up, even with the mouse still.
• Backspace or Delete, Remove the last point placed.
• Enter or Escape, Finish the path where it is, leaving it open.

Drawing and shape tool modifiers

• Shape tools (Rectangle, Square, Ellipse, Circle, Line, Polygon, Star): Alt/Option (⌥) at any point during the drag grows the shape out from the press point instead of away from it.
• Marker and Eraser: Shift while dragging draws a straight segment from the press point. - shrinks the brush diameter and = or + grows it, by 1 mm (0.05 in) per press.
• Knife (K): Shift while dragging holds the cutting line to a constrained angle.
• Crop (F): Shift while dragging keeps the box square. Enter applies the crop, Escape abandons it. Enter typed in the Crop panel's own fields commits that number instead.
• Round corners (C): click an object with corners; drag up or down anywhere to set the radius (or the chamfer distance, with Chamfer chosen in the floating panel); click a corner handle to treat only that one, Shift+click to add more; or type an exact size in the floating panel and press Enter.
• Stroke Profile (W): Delete or Backspace removes the selected width stop.
• Orbit (V, 3D only): Shift while dragging locks to turning or tilting, whichever the drag has committed to. Double-click returns the scene to straight-on.

View and zoom

• Mouse wheel or trackpad scroll, Zoom in and out around the pointer. No modifier is needed.
• Space+drag: Pan the canvas with any tool active. Not available while a dialog is open.
• Middle mouse button+drag: Pan.
• Right mouse button+drag with the Pen, Pan without leaving the Pen. A right-click that does not move still opens the menu.
• H, then drag, Pan with the Pan tool.
• Zoom in, Zoom out, View artboard and View selected are buttons in the Zoom fly-out on the tool rail; they have no keys.

Text editing

Double-click a text object with any tool to open the inline editor over it.

• Enter: New line. Text can be multi-line.
• Cmd/Ctrl+Enter: Finish editing and keep the text.
• Escape: Finish editing and keep the text. Escape never discards what you typed; use Undo for that.

Dialogs

• Escape: Closes the open dialog, the Color Chooser, the font picker, and any open toolbar or right-click menu. The Recover unsaved work? prompt at launch is the exception: it must be answered with Restore or Discard, because discarding destroys the only copy of that work.
• Enter in the Offset, Simplify nodes and Dash fields, Applies the value, the same as pressing the panel's button.
• Enter in a numeric field (Inspector, Crop panel, Round corners panel), Commits the number you typed.
• Canvas shortcuts such as Delete, the arrow keys and tool letters are ignored while a dialog is open, so a Delete aimed at a dialog's dropdown never erases the objects behind it.