Hi! I’m Libby, and I’m a marketer and designer at Lucidchart.
Whether you’re new to Lucidchart, or have been using it for years, it’s always good
to have a few new tricks up your sleeve.
I’m going to teach you 13 easy shape and line tricks in Lucidchart that I use pretty
much every day.
They’ll help you create better-looking diagrams in way less time.
If you want to follow along and try these tips out for yourself, I’ve turned this
document into a template and put the link below.
Ok, let’s get started:
Shape libraries Everyone starts out with the default shape
libraries on the left: Standard, Flowchart, and Shapes.
But you have a LOT more options to choose from.
To see more, click the Shapes gear at the top, or the “+Shapes” button here at the
bottom.
Scroll through dozens of useful shape libraries and select the ones you’d like to add to
your toolbar.
Grouping Shapes Grouping shapes makes it easy to keep important
elements together.
For example, if I try to move this ungrouped chart, only part of it moves.
Select all the objects you want grouped together, right click, and click “Group”.
You can group WAY faster using the shortcut “Command + G”.
You can double click into a group to move individual shapes and edit text.
If you decide you want to ungroup, just select, right click, and click “Ungroup”.
Transparency You can change the transparency of a shape
by selecting it, then going to the “Fill” button in the main toolbar.
Just drag the slider or enter the transparency percent on the side.
Rounding shapes + lines You can give a diagram easy polish by rounding
the edges of your shapes and lines.
Select the objects and lines you want to round, and then go to the shape icon in the toolbar,
go to the “rounded” option, and bump up your number there.
You can do the same thing for lines by going to the line icon and increasing the number
of rounding pixels.
Drop Shadows Since these screenshots have some white backgrounds,
it’s hard to figure out where the borders are.
You could add a border, but sometimes that looks clunky.
Drop shadows do basically the same thing, and will look more sleek in this situation.
You can add drop shadows to shapes and images in Lucidchart.
Select the object, click the shape icon, and then click “Shadow” to adjust your drop
shadow options.
This is an easy way to jazz up simple charts, or help images stand out instead of letting
them float around looking lost.
Locking Shapes Sometimes you have a shape you don’t want
to move.
For example, I’ve got this big background shape, but I want to rearrange these other
shapes on top of it.
Right now, I have to select them all individually, or else the whole thing will move.
It’s easy to mess up and accidentally select the background shape.
To lock a shape, select the shape (or shapes) you want to lock, and then right click and
select lock, or just click the lock icon in the top right corner or the toolbar.
Now you can move your shapes around freely without selecting a shape you don’t want.
To unlock, just select and click the lock button again.
Color picker tool You can use the eyedropper tool to quickly
sample and apply colors in your document.
For example, let’s say I’m working with this color palette, and I want to make my
shapes and font colors match.
All I have to do is select my shape, click to the “Shape Fill” icon, and select the
eyedropper tool to sample a color from this palette, or any other shape in my document.
I’ll do that for the other shapes, and then change the font colors to provide enough contrast.
Cropping If you want to crop an image in Lucidchart,
just right click the shape you want to crop, and select “crop image” from the menu.
Adjust the cropping however you want, and then hit enter.
Fill shape with an image Let’s say you want to include a picture
of someone on an org chart or influencer map, but you don’t want their picture to be square.
You can easily fill a shape with an image.
Just pull out the shape you want, click the “fill” icon, and select “image”.
Then you can choose any image on your computer to fill.
Formatting lines You have a lot of options for formatting lines
in Lucidchart.
Select the line you want to change, then go to the line icon in the toolbar.
I’m going to change this left line to a bezier curve, which I can adjust in more detail
if I want to.
For this middle line, let’s change the line style using the line dropdown menu.
For the right line, I’m going to change the right angled line into a straight diagonal,
and change the color.
You can also change or remove the arrow of a line using this menu.
Create line jumps If your diagram lines cross over each other,
it can be hard to tell how to follow a specific line.
One way to fix that is by adding line jumps.
Highlight your diagram, click into the line formatting dropdown menu, and select “line
jumps.”
Copy and paste style If you have a shape that you like the look
of, you can easily copy and paste that style to other shapes in your document.
Let’s say I like the look of this first shape, and I want the other ones to look just
like it.
Just select the shape, right click, and pick “Copy style.”
Now highlight the shapes you’d like to change, right click, and pick “Paste style.”
Ta da!
Set default shape/line If you want all new shapes to look like a
shape you’ve already created, you can set that as the default style.
Let’s say you want all your new shapes to look like this one.
Just right click and select “Set Default Style.”
Now all new shapes that you pull out will be pre-formatted like your original shape.
You can do the same thing with lines.
Right click, choose “Set Default Style,” and now any line you pull out of a shape will
automatically have the right formatting.
And there you go!
Now you have 13 shape and line tricks to help you work faster and smarter in Lucidchart.
Remember, if you want to practice what you’ve learned, there’s a link to this template
below.
To learn more Lucidchart design tips, check out our design playlist.
Finally, if you have any questions, or suggestions for future tutorials, let me know in the comments
below.
Happy diagramming!