The three General tools — identified by their gray icons in the tool shelf — cover canvas navigation and layer selection and transformation. These tools are not tied to any particular content type; they work the same whether your document contains vector shapes, raster images, or text layers.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/GraphiteEditor/Graphite/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Select Tool
Keyboard shortcut:V
The Select tool is the primary tool for picking and transforming layers in the viewport. Clicking a layer selects it and displays a transform cage — a bounding box with handles you can drag to resize or rotate the selection.
Selecting layers
- Click a layer to select it and deselect any previous selection.
- Shift+click additional layers to extend the selection.
- Click-drag on an empty area to draw a rectangular marquee selection. Dragging left-to-right selects only fully enclosed layers; dragging right-to-left selects any touched layers.
- Ctrl+drag switches the marquee to a lasso (free-form polygon) selection mode.
- Alt+drag subtracts from the current selection.
Selection mode
The control bar offers a Selection Mode dropdown that controls how layers inside groups are targeted when you click:- Shallow Select (default): clicks select the outermost group first. Double-clicking drills deeper into the folder hierarchy one level at a time.
- Deep Select: clicks go directly to the most-nested layer under the cursor, regardless of group nesting.
Transforming layers
Once a layer (or multiple layers) is selected, the transform cage appears around the combined bounding box:- Drag the interior of the bounding box to move the selection.
- Drag a corner handle to scale the selection. Hold Shift to preserve the aspect ratio.
- Drag just outside a corner (where the cursor changes to a rotation icon) to rotate the selection. Hold Shift to snap rotation to 15° increments.
- Drag a side handle while holding Ctrl (over the edge, where the cursor shows a skew icon) to skew the selection.
- Press G, R, or S to enter grab, rotate, or scale mode with keyboard-driven input.
- Use the arrow keys to nudge the selection by 1 unit; hold Shift to nudge by 10 units.
Duplicating layers
- Alt+drag a selected layer to move a duplicate while leaving the original in place.
- Ctrl+D duplicates the selected layers in-place.
Control bar options
The control bar for the Select tool includes the following sections when one or more layers are selected:| Control | Description |
|---|---|
| Fill / Stroke | Directly edit the fill and stroke color of the selected layer(s) |
| Selection Mode | Switch between Shallow Select and Deep Select behavior |
| Transform Pivot | Toggle the pivot gizmo and choose the reference point (top-left, center, bottom-right, etc.) for transformations |
| Align | Align selected layers to their left, horizontal center, right, top, vertical center, or bottom edges |
| Flip | Flip the selection horizontally or vertically |
| Boolean Operations | Combine selected vector layers using Union, Subtract Front, Subtract Back, Intersect, or Difference |
Navigate Tool
Keyboard shortcut:Z
The Navigate tool lets you change your view of the canvas without altering any content. All navigation actions are non-destructive and affect only the viewport’s position, zoom level, and tilt angle.
Panning
- Middle-mouse-button drag pans the canvas from any active tool — you do not need to switch to the Navigate tool to pan.
- Space+drag also pans from any tool.
Zooming
- Scroll wheel zooms in and out centered on the cursor position from any tool.
- Ctrl+scroll also zooms.
- With the Navigate tool active, left-click-drag zooms in or out continuously. Hold Shift to snap to whole-number percentage increments.
- Click (without dragging) zooms in one increment centered on the click point. Shift+click zooms out.
- The Zoom In (
+) and Zoom Out (-) buttons on the right side of the viewport control bar step through whole-number zoom increments. - The Reset Tilt and Zoom to 100% button (also on the right side of the viewport control bar) resets both tilt and zoom simultaneously.
Tilting
- With the Navigate tool active, Alt+drag tilts the canvas. Hold Shift while tilting to snap to 15° increments.
Artboard Tool
Keyboard shortcut: (none) The Artboard tool creates and manages artboards — named rectangular regions that define the boundaries of your exportable canvas. A document can have zero artboards (Infinite Canvas mode) or as many artboards as you need for a multi-page or multi-asset project.Creating artboards
- Click-drag on an empty area of the canvas to draw a new artboard. The artboard appears as a rectangle with a white background.
- Hold Shift while dragging to constrain the artboard to a square.
- Hold Alt while dragging to draw the artboard from its center outward.
- Layers that exist on the canvas before an artboard is added are automatically parented to the artboard if they fall within its bounds.
Selecting and repositioning artboards
- Click inside an existing artboard to select it and reveal its transform cage.
- Drag the selected artboard to reposition it. Hold Shift to constrain movement to horizontal or vertical.
- Use the arrow keys to nudge the artboard by 1 unit; hold Shift to nudge by 10 units.
- Hold Alt while pressing arrow keys to resize the artboard instead of moving it; hold Ctrl+Alt to resize from the opposite edge.
Resizing artboards
- With an artboard selected, drag any edge or corner handle on the transform cage to resize it.
- Hold Shift to preserve the aspect ratio while resizing.
- Hold Alt to resize from the center.
Deleting artboards
- Select an artboard and press Delete or Backspace to remove it.
When you export a document, each artboard is exported as a separate image with dimensions matching its bounds. If there are no artboards in the document, the export covers the full bounding box of all content. You can create artboards with the Artboard tool or switch to Infinite Canvas mode by removing all artboards.