A context menu is the menu you get by right-clicking, or by pressing and holding for half a second on touch. Each one is scoped to whatever you clicked, so it only ever offers what makes sense there. On a phone the menus open as a sheet from the bottom of the screen.
On an element
The element menu is where an element is styled and described. It is built from collapsible sections, and which ones appear depends on what you clicked. For a shape:
- Layer: Bring to Front, Send to Back, moving it to another layer, and its opacity.
- Size, Shape (change the kind of shape) and Rotation.
- Style: one-click presets, Colours (text and background, with Reset to Theme) and Border.
- Text: font, size, alignment and markers.
- Collaborate: Add Comment and Assign Action. Resources: a link and a note.
An arrow's menu has Line (straight, curved or angled, pattern and thickness) and Pointer (its arrowheads) instead of the shape sections, and images, tables, icons and data elements each add a section of their own.
The everyday verbs live elsewhere: Duplicate, layer order, Lock and Delete are on the selection toolbar, and cut, copy and paste are on the keyboard (see Copy and Paste). Right-click a multi-selection and you get the same kind of menu for the whole group.
On a desktop pointer, the style controls preview on hover: rest the pointer on a colour, border, preset, shape, rotation, marker, alignment, or size tile and the selection shows the change live; it only sticks when you click, and moving away reverts it. Comparing looks costs nothing.
On empty canvas
Right-click empty canvas and you get the tab menu (below) with Paste leading it, since a right-click on empty space is usually "paste what I copied". Pasted elements land just offset from where they were copied, selected and ready to drag into place.
On a tab
Right-click a tab in the tab bar, or use its ⋯ button, for the tab menu:
- A row of quick actions: Rename, Duplicate, Paste, Side by Side, Lock Tab (or Unlock Tab), and Delete, which asks you to confirm and is unavailable while the tab is locked.
- Then full-width rows, in groups split by a line: Add to Folder (a tab folder) and Add to Document (copy it into another document); Import, Export and Clear; and the modes, Diagram, Draw, Illustrate and Plan, the tab's editor mode, the same for everyone, with a dot on the current one. Choosing one switches the tab.
The layout tidiers, Auto Layout and Auto-align, are in the command palette rather than this menu. See Layout Cleanup.
A tab's theme and canvas background are not in this menu: they are behind the Theme & canvas paintbrush in the bottom-right corner. See Themes. Nor are the timer, vote and poll: they have their own buttons in the bottom bar. See Session Tools.
View-only visitors get no element or tab menu, since everything in them changes the document.
Context menus close as soon as you pick an action or click elsewhere, and Escape closes them too.
Was this article helpful?