Get started with Vector

Vector is where you make drawings and diagrams in Eigen. You work on an infinite canvas, so there's no page edge to bump into: add shapes, connect them with arrows, drop in text and images, and the canvas grows to fit. This page is a quick tour of what you can do.

Create a drawing

Open Vector from the app switcher. Your drawings are stored in Drive, so the main view shows your existing files. Click New vector to open the New vector dialog, give it a Vector name, and it opens straight away.

You can also start one from Drive, or from any other Eigen app that shows the New menu.

The editor layout

When you open a drawing, the editor has three areas:

• Toolbar across the top: the File, Edit, and Insert menus on the left, then the drawing tools in the middle, and the share and comment buttons on the right.
• Canvas in the centre: the surface you draw on. It has no fixed size.
• Properties panel on the right: it changes to reflect whatever you have selected. With an object selected, it shows that object's properties, such as its position, size, and colour.

On a narrow window the tool buttons fold into the Insert and Edit menus, so you can still reach every tool.

The drawing tools

The toolbar in the middle holds the tools you draw with. Click one, then draw on the canvas:

• Select: the default tool. Click an object to select it, or drag a box to select several.
• Rectangle, Diamond, and Ellipse: draw a shape by dragging.
• Arrow: draw an arrow. Start or end it on a shape to connect the two, and the arrow stays attached when you move the shape. See Connect objects with arrows.
• Line: draw a straight line.
• Draw: draw a freehand line, as if with a pen.
• Text: place a text box, then type.
• Image: add an image from your computer or from Drive.
• Eraser: delete objects by dragging across them.

For more on shapes and text, see Draw shapes and text. To change an object's look, see Style your objects.

Move, resize, and rotate objects

Pick the Select tool and click an object to select it. Handles appear at its edges and corners. Drag the object to move it, drag a corner or edge handle to resize it, and drag the handle at the top to rotate it. You can also type exact values into the fields in the properties panel.

Hold Shift and click more objects to select several at once, or drag a box around them on empty canvas. With more than one selected, the properties panel adds options to align them to each other and space them evenly. See Arrange and align objects.

Zoom and move around the canvas

Because the canvas is infinite, you spend a lot of time moving around it. Scroll the wheel to pan, hold Ctrl or Cmd and scroll (or pinch on a trackpad) to zoom towards the pointer, and hold Space and drag to pan with the mouse. The zoom pill in the bottom-right corner shows the current zoom; click it to snap back to 100%. See Zoom, pan, and keyboard shortcuts.

On a phone

On a phone, Vector opens read-only. You can view a drawing, move around the canvas, and read comments, but you edit on a computer or tablet.

Share and export

Open the File menu to rename your drawing, share it with other people, or download it. To share, use File → Share or the Share button in the top-right corner of the toolbar. See Share a drawing and comment for the full sharing options.

Vector can save your drawing to a file too, from File → Download: SVG image (.svg) for a sharp, scalable picture, or PDF (.pdf) for printing and sending on. See Export a drawing.