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Polyform is a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux. On a phone we can email you the link.

Pan and zoom

Checked in Polyform 0.9.0-beta.31 ·

On this page
  1. Move around
  2. Zoom
  3. The zoom menu
  4. See it all, or only the selection
  5. Close up
  6. Each page keeps its view

The canvas has no edges. Scroll or drag to move around it, zoom with Ctrl and the wheel or from the zoom menu, and jump to the whole page or to what you have selected.

Move around

Scroll the mouse wheel to move up and down, and hold Shift while you scroll to move sideways. On a trackpad, scroll with two fingers in any direction.

To drag the canvas instead:

  • hold Space and drag with the mouse;
  • drag with the middle mouse button (the wheel, pressed);
  • or press H for the Hand tool and drag. The Hand stays picked until you choose another tool, for example V for Move.

Zoom

Hold Ctrl and scroll to zoom in and out around the pointer. What is under the pointer stays where it is. The View menu has the same steps with keys: Zoom In (Ctrl++, the = key) and Zoom Out (Ctrl+-) zoom by a quarter around the middle of the window, and Zoom to 100% is Ctrl+0.

Polyform zooms from 2% to 6400%.

On a Mac, pinch on the trackpad, or hold ⌘ and scroll. The menu’s keys are ⌘+, ⌘- and ⌘0.

The zoom menu

The percentage at the right end of the bottom bar is the zoom menu. Click it, type a zoom such as 150 or 150%, and press Enter.

Below the field are Zoom in, Zoom out, Zoom to fit, Focus on selection, Zoom to 50%, Zoom to 100% and Zoom to 200%. The switches under them (the grid, rulers, layout guides and GPU rendering) change what the canvas shows, not the zoom.

The zoom menu open above the bottom bar's zoom readout: a field holding 110%, then Zoom in Ctrl++, Zoom out Ctrl+-, Zoom to fit Shift+1, Focus on selection Shift+2, Zoom to 50%, Zoom to 100% Ctrl+0, Zoom to 200%, and the switches Grid (off), then Snap to Pixel Grid, Rulers, Layout guides and GPU rendering (on). The Focus on selection button is beside the readout. Open the full-size picture

See it all, or only the selection

Press Shift+1 to fit everything on the page in the window. Press Shift+2 to fit what you have selected; with nothing selected, it fits the page too. The button beside the zoom menu does the same as Shift+2.

Fitting never zooms in past 400%, so a tiny shape doesn’t fill the window.

On a Mac, these are ⇧1 and ⇧2.

Close up

Past 800%, a grid of single pixels appears on the canvas. Shapes stay sharp however far you zoom: they are drawn from their outlines, not from a picture.

The canvas at 1633%, close on the edge of a coral circle, with a faint grid of single pixels over it; the rulers count single pixels, from 340 to 380. Open the full-size picture

View → Toggle Grid (Ctrl+') is a different grid: 8 px squares that shapes snap to. Grids and snapping has more.

Each page keeps its view

Each page remembers where you were looking. Switch to another page and back, and the view is as you left it; a page you open for the first time fits its contents in the window.

The view is saved with your work, so a project opens where you last looked. One catch: moving or zooming on its own isn’t a change to save. If you only pan or zoom after your last edit and then close the project, it opens where you were looking at that edit.