Canvas editing
Align items and recover content outside the canvas
The gray work area lets you edit parts of an item that extend beyond the canvas.
Outside content
Selected or dragged items remain visible outside the canvas, with their outside parts dimmed. Their resize and rotation handles remain usable. Deselecting an item clips it at the canvas edge.
| View | Outside content |
|---|---|
| Selected or dragged item | Visible under a 60% gray cover. |
| Deselected item | Clipped at the canvas edge. |
| Export | Excluded from the output. |
The canvas has square corners. Fit leaves at least 20 screen pixels between the canvas and the surrounding work-area boundary.
Snapping
Dragging aligns an item's left and right edges with the corresponding canvas edges. Its top and bottom edges align in the same way. Its center aligns with the canvas center lines.
A guide appears when an edge or center is within 6 screen pixels of an alignment line. Hold Alt, or Option on a Mac, while dragging to disable snapping. This aligns items with the canvas; it does not snap one item to another.
Drag return
When a drag leaves less than 8 screen pixels inside on either axis, the item returns to its last position with a visible part inside. It slides back over 200 ms. With reduced motion enabled in the operating system, it returns immediately.
A group drag returns its companion items with the dragged item. An item that starts outside and never enters the canvas during that drag stays where you release it.
Recover an item
Edge markers locate items that are completely outside, including items loaded from a saved design or moved by an editing action.
- Select a marker on the canvas edge to select the nearest outside item.
- Select the same marker again to select the next item on that side.
- Drag the selected item into the canvas, or open its right-click menu and choose Move into canvas.
A marker shows a count when several unselected items are on that side. Markers are editing controls and never appear in the export.
Move into canvas appears for a completely outside non-background item. It moves the item's drawn bounds inside with the smallest required movement. An item larger than the canvas is centered along each oversized axis. Position locks still apply. The move is one undo step.
Resizing
Keep preserves item positions and sizes, so a canvas resize can leave items outside. Use edge markers to recover those items. Only the portion inside the resized canvas is exported.
See Resizing for resize modes.