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Touch and Pen ​

Editing a drawing with a finger or a stylus on a tablet or phone — the gesture map, what changes on a touch screen, and the current limitations.

The Draw page works with touch and pen, not just a mouse. On a tablet or a 2-in-1 you can pan, zoom, select, move symbols and open the context menu without a mouse attached; a stylus works the same way, with its barrel button standing in for right-click.

There is no "touch mode" to switch on. The editor recognises how you are pointing at it and adapts on its own, so a 2-in-1 that you sometimes use with a finger and sometimes with a trackpad behaves correctly either way without a setting.

Gesture map ​

GestureWhat it does
One finger on empty canvas, dragPan the drawing
One finger on empty canvas, drag (Lasso tool active)Paint a selection band
One finger on a symbol, dragMove the symbol
Two fingers, pinch or spreadZoom about the point between your fingers
Two fingers, dragPan (works at the same time as pinching)
TapSelect the symbol or connection you tapped
Double-tapSame as double-click — opens the properties for what you tapped
Press and hold (about half a second, without moving)Open the context menu at that point
Pen barrel buttonOpen the context menu — the stylus equivalent of right-click

Zooming is anchored between your fingers rather than at the centre of the screen, so the part of the drawing you are pinching stays put while everything around it scales.

The context menu is the same menu the mouse gets, on whatever you pressed — a symbol, a connection or empty canvas. If you move your finger more than a few millimetres during the hold, the editor reads it as a drag instead and no menu appears.

What looks different on a touch screen ​

Three things change when you are using a finger rather than a mouse. They appear automatically on touch devices and never on a desktop with a mouse.

  • Bigger grab targets. The resize handles around a selection keep their on-screen size — full-size handles would hide the symbol underneath — but the area that responds to your finger grows to about 44 px, the accessibility minimum for touch targets. In practice the handles are simply easier to grab than they look.
  • A selection action bar. With a mouse, symbol actions sit behind a small cog button. On a touch screen that cog is replaced with a row of large buttons above the selection: rotate left, rotate right, flip, delete and properties.
  • A properties sheet instead of a properties column. On a phone-sized screen there is no room for the properties panel beside the canvas, so it opens as a sheet from the bottom of the screen instead — tap Properties in the selection action bar. It holds exactly the same fields as the panel on a desktop. Close it with the ✕, by tapping outside it, or with Esc on an attached keyboard.

Requirements and limitations ​

Your browser needs WebGPU. The canvas draws through WebGPU, and a browser without it cannot show the editor at any screen size. Current versions of Safari on iPadOS and iOS, and of Chrome and Edge on Android and Windows tablets, all have it. If yours does not, the editor tells you so and everything else — drawing and project lists, approvals, PDFs — still works normally.

Screen size is no longer a limit in itself. Earlier versions refused to open the editor below 1024 px wide; that restriction has been removed.

Some things still expect a keyboard or a mouse:

  • Keyboard shortcuts need a keyboard. Most have an on-screen equivalent in the ribbon, but not all of them do.
  • Hover-only affordances — tooltips, and the connection ports that appear when you hover a symbol — have no touch equivalent. Drawing a connection with the Connector tool works by tapping the source port and then the target port.
  • Precision work is harder. Fine alignment, dense areas of a drawing and small connection ports are all easier with a stylus than a fingertip, and easier still with a mouse. Zoom in before precise edits.
  • A phone is a tight fit. The editor runs on one, but it is designed around a tablet. For real drawing work, use a tablet or a desktop.

If a gesture does not seem to register, check that you are not resting a second finger on the screen — the editor treats any second contact as the start of a pinch.

See also ​