The Canvas

Changing the Canvas color

To change the canvas color, select the page in the Layer List and enable the Add canvas color option in the Inspector. Then, use the color picker to choose a color.

Zooming and navigating the Canvas

You can hold the spacebar and click and drag to pan around the Canvas, or use the arrow keys if you haven’t selected any layers.

There’s a few ways to zoom in and out:

• Hold the ⌘ key and use your mouse’s scroll wheel. We’ll scroll in by default when you scroll up, but you can change this at any point by checking the Invert scroll direction checkbox in the canvas tab in your Settings.
• Use the pinch gesture on a trackpad or use the Zoom menu in the toolbar.
• Use the Zoom tool by pressing Z and either click to zoom in or hold ⌥ and click to zoom out. With the Zoom tool enabled, you can click and drag a selection to zoom into a specific area.

There are also a few Zoom shortcuts:

Showing pixels on the Canvas

By default, you’ll view the canvas in vector mode. It’s resolution independent and you can zoom infinitely to work at any level of detail. The Mac app measures layers in points — where one point is equal to one pixel on the canvas — and when you export, you can scale things to different resolutions.

If you’re working on a design where it’s important to be able to see individual pixels, select View > Canvas > Show Pixels on Zoom or press ⌃P to enable Pixel Zoom and view individual pixels when you zoom in past 100%.

Showing the pixel grid

Select View > Canvas > Show Pixel Grid on Zoom, or press ⌃X, to see any edges of your layers that don’t align with the Pixel Grid once you zoom in past 600%.

Using Rulers

The Mac app hides rulers by default, but you can show them by selecting View > Canvas > Show Rulers or pressing ⌃R. Insert guides by clicking on the ruler. If you select a layer, its dimensions will be highlighted on the rulers.

Creating Guides

You can click anywhere on a ruler to create a guide. Guides will be visible when your rulers are and if you move a layer on your canvas it will snap to the nearest guide.

You can move a guide by clicking and dragging on it inside a ruler. To remove a vertical guide completely, drag it right towards the Layer List or Inspector until your cursor changes and the guide disappears. To remove horizontal guides, drag them to the top or bottom of the current window.

To remove all of your guides together, Control-Click one of the rulers and select Remove All Vertical Guides or Remove All Horizontal Guides, respectively.

Creating Grids

The Mac app supports two types of grid; a regular (square grid) and a layout grid. You can view both at the same time if you need to.

Square grids

To set up a square grid, choose View > Canvas > Show Grid or press ⌃G. To change its settings (the size of the cells, how often thicker lines appear and the color of the lines), choose View > Canvas > Grid Settings or press ⌃⌘G.

Layout grids

To set up a layout grid, choose View > Canvas > Layout Settings… or press ⌃⌘L and use the options that appear to choose the number of columns and rows, their widths, gutter widths and colors.

You can only apply grids to top-level frames, or to the canvas if there aren’t any frames on it. You can edit the layout options for multiple frames at the same time.

When you have a layout grid set up, layers will snap to it and ignore the Mac app’s Smart Guides.

Snapping and Smart Guides

As you move or insert layers and Symbols on the canvas, the Mac app will automatically show you measurements against nearby layers, as well as Smart Guides that help you snap to a nearby layer’s centre or edges.

If you have two or more layers next to each other, and move another near to them, we’ll highlight their distance and automatically snap that layer to distribute them all equally.

When you resize a layer, if there are similar layers nearby we’ll show you if they have a similar width or height. This also works when you’re resizing a layer that’s overlapping another.

Finally, when you insert or move text layers, they’ll snap to the height or width of nearby layers. Adjust the height of a text layer will also snap the bounding box to the last line of text.

Using Pages

You can use as many Pages as you like in your Sketch document. They’re handy for organizing your work, for example to create a new page for each iteration, or to split complex designs into multiple pages by dedicating a page to each area. Using multiple pages can also help to improve the Mac app’s performance with complex documents.

To create a new Page, click on the add button at the top of the Layer List, and give your new Page a name.

Click on the Page you want in the Layer List to navigate to it, or press Fn↑ or Fn↓ to jump between them.

You can also collapse your list of Pages using and use a drop down menu to navigate between them instead.

You can drag Pages to change their order, or Control-Click on a Page to duplicate or delete it.

Once you’ve created pages, you can drag frames or layers within the Layer List from one Page to another in the Pages panel.

Using frames

Frames are handy for creating containers on the Canvas to work within. They’re especially useful for interface design.

To create a frame, choose Insert > Frame from the toolbar or menu bar, or press F. You can either click and drag on the Canvas to create a custom size frame, or choose from the templates in the Inspector. To rename a frame, double-click on its name, type a new name, and press Enter. Alternatively, you can press ⌘R to rename it.

After you create a Frame, you can press ⌘D to duplicate it. If you change the spacing between your original Frame and the duplicate, then press ⌘D again, the next duplicate will use the same spacing.

Moving frames

To move a Frame, you’ll need to select it. You can click anywhere within an empty frame to select it. If it contains any layers, you’ll need to click its title on the Canvas, or select it in the Layer List. You can then drag it around the Canvas, use the arrow keys to move it, or change its X and Y values in the Inspector.

Resizing frames

To resize a frame, select it and then click and drag on the selection handles that appear around it. You can also edit its dimensions in the Inspector.

You can click the lock icon between the width and the height values in the Inspector, or use the shortcut ⌥⌘L, to maintain the frame‘s aspect ratio as you resize it.

By default, frames will resize its contents as you change its dimensions. You can press and hold ⌘ while resizing a frame to prevent any changes to any of its contents. Alternatively, you can use the Edit tool in the toolbar to resize it.

Finally, you can resize your frames to fit their contents by using the Size to Fit button in the Inspector, or by pressing ⇧⌘Y.

Creating a template

To save any frame as a template, select it and choose Arrange > Container > Set as Template in the menubar.

Any content, grids or guides you include within the frame itself will become a part of the template. If you update the original frame it will automatically update the template but not any frames created from the original template.

The frame will now appear under the Current Document dropdown option of the templates Library.

You can create custom preview thumbnails for your templates by adding a frame with the name Previews/Frame_Template_Name in the same document or Library.

Frame Templates can be included as part of a Library to make them available for other documents.

Deleting frames

To delete a frame, select it and press backspace on your keyboard. Doing this will also delete any layers within it. If you want to keep the frame contents but delete the frame itself, select it and choose Ungroup from the toolbar, or press ⇧⌘G.