Selection & transform

Selecting#

Click a layer to select it. Clicking inside a group selects the whole group; double-click (or press ↩Enter) to go inside, and ⇧Shift↩Enter to select the parent again.
⌘Ctrlclick selects the deepest layer under the pointer directly, ignoring groups.
⇧Shiftclick adds or removes layers from the selection.
Drag on empty canvas to select everything the marquee touches.
⌘CtrlA selects everything on the page; Esc deselects.
Tab and ⇧ShiftTab move the selection to the next or previous sibling — a quick way to step through layers with the keyboard.

Locked layers cannot be selected on the canvas; select them in the Layers panel instead.

Moving#

Drag the selection, or nudge it with the arrow keys: one pixel per press, ten with ⇧Shift. Hold ⌥Alt while dragging to duplicate as you move. Layers snap to guides, the grid and their neighbors as described in canvas & navigation.

Drag a layer into a frame to put it inside; drag it out to take it out. In an auto-layout frame, dragging reorders children instead of placing them freely.

Resizing and rotating#

Drag a handle to resize. Hold ⇧Shift to keep proportions (or turn on the aspect lock in the Position tab), and ⌥Alt to resize from the center. Resizing a text layer changes its box, not its font size.

Move the pointer just outside a corner handle to rotate. Hold ⇧Shift to snap to 15° steps. Flip horizontally with ⇧ShiftH and vertically with ⇧ShiftV.

Exact values#

The Position tab of the inspector shows X, Y, width, height and rotation. Every number field accepts arithmetic (120*2, +16, 50%) and supports scrubbing: drag the label left or right to change the value, with ⇧Shift for bigger steps. When several layers are selected, editing a field sets it on all of them; fields that differ show Mixed.

Align and distribute#

With two or more layers selected, use the Arrange tab or the shortcuts:

Align left, center or right: ⌥AltA, ⌥AltH, ⌥AltD
Align top, middle or bottom: ⌥AltW, ⌥AltV, ⌥AltS
Distribute horizontally or vertically: ⌥Alt⇧ShiftH, ⌥Alt⇧ShiftV

With a single layer selected, alignment is relative to its parent frame or page. Tidy up arranges a messy selection into an even row, column or grid, and Match size makes every selected layer the size of the first.

Order#

Bring forward and send backward with ⌘Ctrl] and ⌘Ctrl[; add ⌥Alt to go all the way to the front or back.

Group, frame and mask#

Group (⌘CtrlG) bundles layers without adding any visual. Ungroup with ⌘Ctrl⇧ShiftG.
Frame selection (⌘Ctrl⌥AltG) wraps the layers in a frame you can style, clip and give auto-layout.
Use as mask (⌘Ctrl⌥AltM) turns the bottom selected layer into a mask for the layers above it in the same container: they are only visible where the mask is opaque.

Constraints#

When a frame resizes, its children follow their constraints: pinned to the left, right or center, stretched with the frame, or scaled proportionally — set separately for horizontal and vertical. Constraints are what make resizing a design to other formats look intentional.