Operations on Shapes

ConceptDraw V offers a variety of ways of working with shapes. You can change shape properties, assign text and hyperlinks, rotate and resize shapes and many more.

Selecting
Copying and Pasting
Duplicating
Moving
Rotating and Flipping
Resizing
Reshaping
Changing the Front-to-Back Order
Distributing Shapes
Aligning Shapes
The Join, Combine and Separate Operations
Grouping and Ungrouping
Substituting a Shape with another Shape
Copying Shape's Visual Attributes
Deleting
Undo and Redo

 


Moving

You can use the keyboard or the mouse for moving shapes.

Moving Shapes with the Keyboard

Only selected shapes can be moved with the keyboard. (See Selecting for specifics).
Moving shapes by pixels helps you position the shapes more precisely. Press an Arrow key to move the selection by one screen pixel with each keystroke. Use a higher Zoom level for more precise positioning.

If you hold down Shift when moving the selection by Arrow keys, the shape(s) will be moved by bigger steps.

Note:  Make sure there are no handles selected on the shape before you start moving it with the keyboard, otherwise you'll move the handles instead of the shape itself.

Moving shapes with the Mouse

You can drag a shape with the mouse when the pointer turns into a black arrow over this shape.
To move several shapes at a time, select them (holding down the Shift key) and start dragging when the pointer turns into a black arrow over one of the selected shapes.

The ways of moving a shape may vary depending on the tool mode which is currently on.

1) When the Select , Rotate , Rectangle or Ellipse tool is active, you can move a shape by dragging either its body or the alignment box.

2) With such tools as Line , Sector , Arc , Spline or Connectors , you can move a shape by dragging its alignment box (so the shape(s) should be selected).

 

When moving a shape with the mouse, you only see its contour. In case you'd like to see the whole shape, stop the mouse and wait for a moment - it will appear in full detail.

To constrain the movement of a shape to strictly vertical or horizontal, hold down the Shift key while you drag the shape, or use the Shift + Arrow keys.

Note: You can protect a shape from being moved horizontally or vertically. In the Protection dialog check X Position to prohibit the horizontal movement, and Y Position for the vertical movement. By checking both of these options you lock the shape against repositioning.

The way shapes behave when moved is also determined by whether the Snap mode is on or off. If the Snapping is on, the shape you are moving jumps to the nearest snap locations (usually the grid nodes), instead of following the mouse directly. This functionality lets you easily align shapes by the grid lines and guides.

Sometimes you may need to position a shape right in the center of the page. To do this, select the shape and use the Center Page command from the Shape / Move To... menu. With the Center Vertically and Center Horizontally commands you can center the vertical or horizontal position of the shape(s) respectively.


Rotating and Flipping

Rotating Shapes
Flipping Shapes

 

Rotating Shapes

You can rotate a shape by dragging its rotation handles. These are the round handles (usually green or blue) in the corners of the shape's alignment box.

To switch to the Rotation mode, you can use the Rotate tool , or choose Rotate in the Tools menu.
When you select a shape in the Rotation mode, it shows the rotation handles, and you can drag them to rotate the shape.

When you drag a rotation handle, the shape turns around its rotation center. By dragging the handle farther out from the shape, you decrease the step of rotation from 30 degree to 0.1 degree, and thus increase the accuracy. The current angle (in degrees) is displayed in the Status bar.

         

The rotation center is also a handle, it looks like a plus sign in a green circle. You can reposition it by dragging it with the mouse.

If several shapes are selected, you may rotate each of them separately, by dragging a rotation handle of a shape.
If you start dragging with Ctrl (in Windows) or Cmd (in Mac OS) held down, all the selected shapes will rotate simultaneously around their common rotation center.

 

Note:  You can switch between the Select and Rotate modes by clicking on the alignment box of the shape.

You can also use the keyboard to rotate the selected shape(s):

 
Ctrl + Left Arrow Cmd + Left Arrow counterclockwise by 1 degree
Ctrl + Right Arrow Cmd + Right Arrow clockwise by 1 degree
Ctrl + Shift + Left Arrow Cmd + Shift + Left Arrow counterclockwise by 0.1 degree
Ctrl + Shift + Right Arrow Cmd + Shift + Right Arrow clockwise by 0.1 degree

To rotate the selected shapes by 90-degree increments, you can

a) use the Rotate Left (90) and Rotate Right (90) commands from the Shape / Rotate and Flip;
b) use the Rotate Left  or Rotate Right  tools on the Action toolbar;
c) use the keyboard:

 
Ctrl + L Cmd + L Rotate 90 degrees left
Ctrl + R Cmd + R Rotate 90 degrees right

Note:  You can protect a shape from rotating and its rotation center from repositioning. To do this, check the Rotate option in the Protection dialog. Locked shapes will display gray padlocks in place of rotation handles and the rotation center, indicating that you can't rotate them.

 

Flipping Shapes

Flipping changes the shape as if it were reflected in a mirror down or across its middle.
To flip the selected shapes, you can
a) use the Flip Vertical or Flip Horizontal commands from the Shape / Rotate and Flip menu,
b) use the keyboard:

 
Ctrl + J Cmd + J Flip Vertical
Ctrl + H Cmd + Opt + H Flip Horizontal

c) use the Flip Vertical or Flip Horizontal tools on the Action toolbar

These operations transpose the opposite sides of the  shape with respect to an imaginary horizontal or vertical line that goes through the rotation center of the shape.

  

If several shapes are selected, the imaginary line goes through their common rotation center.