Keyboard Shortcuts

Coggle has shortcuts to help you do lots of common things, and we've collected them all into this handy list:

Creating, Removing, and Navigating Items

While editing an item (with the text editor open):

  • [tab] creates a new child branch from the current one.
  • [shift] + [tab] moves back to the parent branch
  • [shift] + [enter] creates a new sibling branch (use [shift] + [ctrl] + [enter] to add a new item below the current ones, instead of automatically choosing whether to place it above or below)
  • double-tap [backspace]  in an empty item with no children to remove it, or
  • [ctrl] + [shift] + [backspace] in any item to remove it.
  • [ctrl] +[alt] + [shift] + arrow keys allow you to move around between items, along the direction of the branches. If no item is currently being edited, any combination will also select the root item.

Undo and Redo

  • [ctrl] + [Z]  (or [command] + [Z]  on Mac) undoes the last change (works for all changes since the page was reloaded)
  • [ctrl] + [shift] + [Z]  redoes the last undone change. ([command] + [shift] + [Z] on Mac)

Editing Items

While editing an item (with the text editor open), the following shortcuts apply:

  • [ctrl] + [enter]  creates a new line of text inside the existing branch ([alt] + [enter]  also does this)
  • [ctrl] + [+] (or [command] + [+] on Mac) increases the text size of the current item, or zooms the page if no item is active.
    • When changing the text size in an item, also hold the [shift] key to adjust in smaller steps of exactly 1 font size.
  • [ctrl] + [-] (or [command] + [-] on Mac) reduces the text size of the current item, or zooms the page if no item is active.
  • [ctrl] + [0] (or [command] + [0] on Mac) sets the text size of the current item back to the default, or sets the page zoom to default if no item is active.
  • [ctrl] + [shift] + [m] (or[command] + [shift] + [m] on Mac) to re-arrange the current branch and its descendents
  • [ctrl] + [shift] + [alt] + [r] to re-arrange all of the branches in a diagram.
  • To change the colour, and style of items, hold [ctrl] + [alt] and use the following keys. In all cases you can hold shift to apply the style to all child items at the same time:
    • [ctrl] + [alt] + [c] : cycle colour
    • [ctrl] + [alt] + [s] : cycle shape
    • [ctrl] + [alt] + [t] : cycle line thickness
    • [ctrl] + [alt] + [d] : toggle line dashed/solid (requires paid subscription)
    • [ctrl] + [alt] + [l] : toggle line smooth/straight (requires paid subscription)
  • [enter] or [ctrl] + [s] will save and close an item (or also click anywhere outside the item)
  • [escape] cancels editing, discarding any changes since the item was opened.

Keyboard + Mouse Combinations:

There are also some handy things you can do with the keyboard and mouse in combination:

  • [ctrl] + click on the (+) button of a branch to remove it (the (+) turns into an (x) as you hold the key). (On Mac, use [alt] intead of [ctrl] )
  • [shift] + click on the (+) button of a branch to insert a new parent above it
  • [ctrl] + [shift] + click on the (+) button of a branch to remove it without removing it's children (Or also use [command] + click on Mac)
  • [shift] + drag an item to transplant it to a different parent. You can press the shift key at any point while dragging.
  • While editing an item [shift] + drag the corner of the text area to resize the text of all its child items.
  • hold [ctrl] after starting to drag an item to snap to a grid as you move it.
  • Also try holding down [ctrl] and [shift] with the context menu open!

Copy and Paste

You can copy and paste from the node context menu and background context menu, or with an item open for editing keyboard shortcuts are available:

  • [ctrl] + [C]  (or [command] + [C]  on Mac) Copies text, or if no text is selected, copies the item and all its child items.
  • [ctrl] + [V]   ([command] + [V] on Mac) Pastes the clipboard.
    • If the clipboard contains whole copied items, these will be pasted onto the currently active item.
    • If no text is selected, and the clipboard contains multiple lines of text, each line is added as child items to the current item.
    • If text is currently selected: And the clipboard contains multiple lines of text, these will be inserted into the current item replacing the selected text.
    • If the clipboard contains a single line of text, it is added into the current item.
  • [ctrl] + [alt] + [V]  (or [command] + [ctrl] + [V]  on Mac) Pastes the style from the copied item to the currently active item.
  • [ctrl] + [alt] + [shift] [V]  (or [command] + [ctrl] + [shift] [V]  on Mac) Pastes the style from the copied item to the currently active item and all child items.