Learn how to diagram using diagrams.net features
You can add maths equations to your diagrams by enabling mathematical typesetting via the diagrams.net menu. When you enter an equation into a text shape or label, enabling mathematical typesetting will use MathJax to render your equation. MathJax renders equations neatly and works in all browsers.
A more relaxed and informal style for shapes, fills and lines is often used in infographics, teaching materials, maps and reports so that the diagrams are little less sterile and boring. The rough style adds a hand drawn shading options, rough outlines and connectors, and handwritten text labels.
Tables have been overhauled in diagrams.net to be much more flexible and robust than the old HTML tables you previously used. With the new tables, you can choose from various layouts, drag to resize rows and columns, move rows by dragging them, and build cross-functional flowcharts within a table and its cells.
Connectors show how the different shapes in the diagram are related. In complex diagrams, you are likely to have many overlapping connectors. While line jumps are useful when you have one or two connectors that cross but shouldn’t intersect, you can change the path that your connectors take to make your diagram clearer by adding extra waypoints.
You can now create a new diagram even faster by going to diagram.new or diagrams.new instead of having to remember the full app.diagrams.net address.
The PNG image file format supports embedded metadata in a number of ways. diagrams.net can export a PNG image of your diagram and include the diagram itself in the image, by including the XML code in the zTxt section of the image file.
There are many reasons why you may want to print a diagram, or save it as a PDF file: floor plans with emergency routes or conference booth layouts, infographics, business plans and BPMN diagrams, or infrastructure and rack diagrams when you don’t have a tablet on hand for easy reference.
Mermaid is a syntax similar to Markdown where you can use text to describe and automatically generate diagrams. With Mermaid’s Markdown-inspired syntax, you can generate flow charts, UML diagrams, pie charts, Gantt charts, and more.
Custom shape libraries let you add the shapes, images, clipart, groups of shapes, custom shapes, and even entire diagrams to your own shape library to make diagramming faster and easier.
There are a large number of keyboard shortcuts that let you create diagrams faster and more easily with diagrams.net. One of the more common and time-consuming tasks when you create a diagram is styling shapes and connectors.
Versioning is built into Confluence, and diagrams attached to pages using the draw.io app for Confluence takes advantage of this. When you edit a diagram, the draw.io app creates a new page version so you can easily restore an older version of your diagram.
The free diagrams.net add-on for Google Docs lets you embed your diagrams into your documents. When the diagram files have been updated via your Google Drive, all you need to do is update them inside your document to show those changes.
Several features in our diagram editor let you create diagrams automatically from simple text statements.
Each shape in a diagram can contain metadata or custom properties - extra information about those shapes.
If you don’t want to use the fonts that are available by default in diagrams.net, you can use your own custom fonts or external fonts, such as Google’s fonts or web fonts stored on your own server. This is useful when you need to match the style guide of a publication, your company’s corporate image, or to add interest and emphasis in an infographic.
Some diagrams can get very large and complex, for example, business processes, UML diagrams, floor plans, or even large brainstorm mind maps and hierarchical tree diagrams. These diagrams are often more readable when they are broken into smaller component diagrams.
diagrams.net desktop is a downloadable application that runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux. Creating diagrams in the desktop app doesn’t need an internet connection. This is useful when you are disconnected or when you must create diagrams in a highly secure environment, where data protection is of the utmost importance.
You can store your diagrams in GitLab after authorising access to your account and repositories - diagrams.net will never see your GitLab password.
diagrams.net supports Github using OAuth - diagrams.net will never see your Github password.
You can share and collaborate on diagrams with anyone, either inside or outside of your company, when they are stored as public files in your Google Drive account.
Entity relationship diagrams show how data is structured in relational databases. Each entity consists of rows of attributes. ER diagrams are used in software development and by IT workers to design and document database structure.
diagrams.net is a unique diagramming tool in that we provide the application platform, but your diagram data only lives in your browser on your local device while you are working on it. Upon saving, your diagram data will be stored at the location you have chosen: in your cloud platform, on your local device, in GitHub, or to whichever integration you have selected. Your diagram data is never sent to the our servers when you save your diagram.
There are many different ways to connect shapes - some with the mouse, or a combination of mouse and keyboard shortcut, or even just with the keyboard.
You can define custom properties for the shapes and connectors in your diagrams. This shape metadata can help explain your diagram to viewers. For example, the tooltips that can appear when you hover over a shape are one such property.
As diagrams.net aims to become the de facto diagramming tool, used by everyone around the world, it’s important to be able to import from a variety of file formats and from a number of storage locations.
Normally, when you resize a group of shapes, all of the shapes are resized proportionally, and maintain their positions in relation to each other.
SVG images load quickly, especially when compared to loading diagram images in other formats. You can embed an SVG image exported from diagrams.net in a website, document or even a WordPress site if you have installed a plugin that support the upload of SVG files.
Floating connectors are easy to create - drag a connector from one shape, hover over another shape until the outline is blue, then release.
You can embed a diagram in a web page or in any online platform that can render HTML. While some third-party integrations can embed diagrams more efficiently (in WordPress, for example), embedding a diagram as HTML may be a good option. You can also share these HTML diagram files with others.
Publishing a diagram that you have saved on Google Drive as a link makes it easy to share them with people on forums, via chat apps or by email.
Instead of dragging shapes from the shape library in to the drawing canvas, you can quickly add them by simply clicking on the shape. This makes it faster to add a lot of shapes to the canvas at once, and then place, style and connect them later.
diagrams.net makes it easy to share your diagrams. You can even encode it in an URL if your diagram is smaller than a certain size. When someone clicks on the (very long) URL, they will open the diagram in the diagram viewer. From there, it’s easy to print or edit their own copy of the diagram - your original diagram will not be changed unless you specify otherwise.
You can share diagrams easily, open and edit them, no matter whether those diagrams are in .drawio, .vsdx, .vdx, .gliffy or .lucid file formats, by using diagrams.net as a free, online diagram viewer.
You can store and collaborate on diagrams using your company’s shared drives in G Suite, previously known as Google Team Drives, in the same way as you can use your personal Google Drive with diagrams.net.