Resizing and rotating layers

Resizing layers

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Resizing and rotating layers

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To adjust a layer’s height or width, drag any of its edges. To adjust both the height and width at once, you can use the corner handles.

Holding ⇧ and dragging will resize the layer proportionately, keeping its height and width at the same ratio. If you want to resize a later from its center, hold ⌥ and drag.

Resizing layers in the Inspector

You can also resize a layer by selecting it and typing new dimensions in the Inspector. As you type, you’ll see a preview of how your layer will look. When you’re done, press ⏎ to apply your changes.

By default, resizing is anchored to the top-left corner. You can change this by entering these keyboard operators after a dimension in the Inspector’s Layer Properties fields:

You can also use the operators w,h,x, andy as stand-ins for the width, height, X, and Y of a selected layer. For example, if you set a rectangle’s height tow it will turn it into a square.

The Inspector also lets you use math to resize or move layers:

You can also use percentages to change the height or width of layers relative to its group or Artboard. For example, setting a layer’s height to 10% in a 960 pixel-wide Artboard will change its width to 96px.

Finally, if you’re editing the corner radius of a rounded rectangle, you can use ; to specify a different value for each corner (e.g. 30;40;20;30).

You can click the lock icon that’s between the width and the height values or use the shortcut ⌥⌘L to make sure the layer resizes proportionately.

Resizing layers with keyboard shortcuts

For precise adjustments, you can select layers and resize them using these keyboard shortcuts:

You can set your own increment values for these shortcuts using the Nudging options in the Canvas tab of the Settings window.

Rotating layers

To rotate a layer, hold ⌘ and click on any of the corner selection handles to rotate it in the direction you want.