Time-saving tips for faster diagramming

Make every moment count

It’s often said that good things take time, but in the case of diagram-building, more time spent on making adjustments and perfecting your visualization means less time spent on other important tasks. Intricate diagrams can take up precious time, and starting with a blank page isn’t the most inspiring.

Luckily, with draw.io there are a few helpful tricks to help you get the ball rolling quickly. There may be templates and shortcuts you’re not aware of that could save you tons of time, and reduce the effort needed to create and customize your diagrams.

Every Moment Matters, so here are our time-saving features to give you some time back, and make every moment count.

1. Templates

Instead of starting from scratch each time, you can quickly use the search bar in the template library to find the relevant template to suit your needs, or even generate diagrams using AI with our Smart Templates.

Smart Templates

The fastest way to create a customized diagram is by using our AI-driven feature, Smart Templates. Simply type in the parameters of your diagram and hit “Generate”. Preview the diagram using the zoom icon, and if you’re happy, click “Create”.

The diagram is already built for you as per your requirements, and from there, you can edit and customize the diagram, without having to create anything from scratch.

Create diagrams with the click of a button with Smart Templates

Standard templates

Our Template Library has plenty of diagrams to get you started. We have templates for all sorts of use cases and business sectors, including flowcharts, org charts, mind maps, and network diagrams.

Browse through our template library, or use the search bar to locate a specific diagram type

Custom templates

Once you have created a diagram in draw.io, you can use it as a custom template to speed up creating these diagrams, and ensure they are consistent across your company. These might have your own company logo, fonts and styles, for example.

This is ideal for bespoke diagrams you share in and across teams that you and your colleagues want to use time and time again.

For more information on how to build and store these, see Set up custom template diagrams in Confluence Cloud.

2. Shape libraries

Our shape libraries are here to save you time. We highly recommend you browse through these to find what’s available to you for your specific use case. You might be creating your own custom shapes and adding them to draw.io, when in fact the very shapes you need may already be there, ready to use!

You only need to know where to look:

• In the diagram editor: in the left side menu, scroll to the bottom and click on +More Shapes. Alternatively, use the “Search Shapes” search bar at the top of the panel.
• In the board editor: in the left side menu, click on the plus (+) icon at the bottom, select Shapes from the dropdown menu, and then click on +More Shapes.

1. Head to +More Shapes

2. Discover a wide range of shape libraries to meet your use case!

3. Keyboard shortcuts

Did you know there’s a way to only select vertices (Ctrl+Shift+I or Cmd+Shift+I), or edges (Ctrl / Cmd+Shift+E) on your diagram? You can also quickly add links to shapes, and rotate objects, simply by using shortcut keys.

All these shortcuts and more can be found in our draw.io Shortcuts playlist.

Our draw.io Shortcuts Playlist

4. Automatic layout and alignment tools

You can quickly add and arrange a group of shapes on the canvas using a couple of handy features:

• The Advanced shape library allows you to quickly select a container shape to get started. Once you have your initial container shape, adding more shapes to the diagram will result in the layout adapting to any newly-added objects.

• To custom-build a container shape, head to Arrange > Insert > Layout, then choose the desired layout.

For more information, see our blogpost, Need a quick org chart?

If you add new shapes, your container shape will adapt accordingly

5. Revision history

Our final feature saving you bundles of time is draw.io’s revision history. This is especially useful for teams working collaboratively on diagrams. We all make mistakes, and when a group of people are collaborating on the same diagram, this increases the likelihood of mistakes being made.

Fortunately, draw.io automatically saves versions of your diagram, allowing you to revert to a previous version if needed. You and your teammates can take bold risks and experiment with different design options, knowing you can easily revert to an earlier version without redoing your work.

When working in Confluence, reverting changes in draw.io directly will not affect the Confluence page your diagram is embedded in. This means you can rest assured, knowing your Confluence page data is preserved while making changes to the diagram itself.

Revision history in draw.io

We’ve got you covered

From templates, to automatic layouts, to revision history – draw.io has you covered when it comes to quick tips and shortcuts to save the time you spend on diagramming. Your diagrams will still need your careful consideration and input on what to include and how to lay out the processes you wish to capture. However, from a build point of view, building your diagrams in draw.io with these top tips will make your diagram creation as efficient as possible.

Now, sit back, relax, and imagine what you’ll do with all that free time saved!

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.