Individual elements can be selected by clicking them with the left mouse button. For connectables, you must click the target point. You can also press Tab and Shift+Tab to cycle the selection through the elements by their Z-order. It is also possible to select elements from the sidebar’s tree view by clicking the list element with the left mouse button. This option is especially useful when working with grouped elements. Selecting an element will also update the sidebar’s property sheet.

To select multiple elements, press and hold down the Ctrl key and click them with the left mouse button. You can also select multiple elements by defining a selection area with the mouse. Take the mouse to a corner of the area you want to select, press and hold down the left mouse button, drag the cursor to the other corner of the area, and release the mouse button. All elements within the area will now be selected.

To select all the elements in the drawing area, press Ctrl+A or select Edit | Select All from the menu bar.

To move a symbol element, simply drag it. The position of the top-left corner of its area will snap to the current grid if Snap to Grid is on. Holding down the Alt key while moving will extend the operation to all elements contained by the selection.

You can also move the selected element or elements with the cursor keys, providing keyboard focus is in the drawing area. The cursor keys normally move the selection by the grid increment; if Ctrl is held down, they move the selection by a single unit.

Connectables behave a little differently. To move the whole connectable:

To move the target point within the connectable:

To scale a symbol element:

While scaling, holding down the Shift key maintains the aspect ratio of the element. Holding down the Ctrl key makes the center of the element remain fixed while scaling: otherwise the top left corner of the element remains fixed. Holding down the Alt key will enforce the grid while resizing.

If more precision is required, the scale and size of the element can be fine tuned in the Format Dialog’s Position and Size tab.

Only a single element can be scaled at a time. To scale multiple elements together, first make them into a group.

To delete the selected element(s), press the Delete key, or select Delete from the pop-up menu or the Edit menu.

To copy a symbol element, first select it and then do one of the following:

To cut an element, select it and press Ctrl-X. You can also press the Cut button in the toolbar, or select Cut from the pop-up or Edit menu.

To paste the element you copied or cut, press Ctrl-V. You can also press the Paste button in toolbar, select Edit | Paste from the menu bar, or select Paste from the pop-up menu when nothing is selected.

To group a set of elements:

When grouped, operations such as changing a color will affect all members of the group for which the operation is applicable. Conditions can also be applied to a group: if the group condition fails, no elements of the group will be displayed; if it passes, the condition of each element will also be evaluated.

To ungroup elements:

By default, any newly created symbol element is placed on top of all other elements. To change the order of elements, first select the affected elements. The commands to change the order are found in both the Format menu and the pop-up menu’s Order sub-menu.

To align one or more elements relative to another shape:

Available alignments are: left sides, right sides, bottoms, tops, vertical centers, horizontal centers, centers, left to right, right to left, bottom to top, and top to bottom. For example, Bottom to Top will align the bottom of the other selected elements with the top of the first element: they will effectively sit vertically above the first element.

Sometimes there is a need to duplicate a symbol as another kind of element, according to the original element’s perimeter. The most typical use case for this kind of behavior is the creation of a connectable around the selected element. To do this, select Duplicate As from the element’s popup menu and choose the type of the new element (either Connectable, Template, Polyline or Spline). This operation is available for all elements except groups.