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Gliffy User Manual
Introduction
Welcome to the Gliffy Help Guide!
Gliffy diagram software is designed to make it easy and intuitive for you to create professional quality flowcharts, floor plans, technical drawings and more. While it’s easy to figure out Gliffy on your own, this guide addresses the basics of using Gliffy and helps you find and use some of our more advanced features.
- Introduction
- The Document Manager
- Document Editor
- Gliffy Basics
- Working with Shapes and Lines
- Working with Text
- Working with Images
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Sharing & Exporting Documents
- More Information
The Document Manager
The way you access Gliffy will depend on whether you’re using Gliffy Online, the Gliffy JIRA Plugin or the Gliffy Confluence Plugin. The Gliffy Document Manager to allow you to create, organize, access, and manage your documents.
To access Document Manager, (1) Login at http://www.gliffy.com, the Document Manager is the first screen after login
Creating a New Document
If this is your first time using Gliffy, or if you’re starting a new project, you’ll want to begin by creating a new document.
Click the “new document” button in the top left of the Document Manager and enter a name for your document in the window that opens. New documents are saved in your top-level Account Documents folder by default.
Opening Documents
Once you’ve created a document, it will appear in the Document Manager. Select any document in this list to see a thumbnail preview. To open the document, either (1) Double-click the Document name, or (2) Select it by clicking once and choose 'open' to the upper right of the document manager.
Another option is to select the document name, then open the drop-down edit menu at the top of the Document column, and choose the menu option “Open”.
Renaming and Deleting Documents
In the drop-down edit menu at the top of the Documents column, you’ll also see the option to rename or delete whichever document you currently have selected. If you select “Rename,” you’ll be given the opportunity to enter a new name in a pop-up window. If you select “Delete,” a pop-up window will ask you to confirm the decision.
Using Folders
Creating new folders and organizing your Gliffy documents is simple. At the bottom of the “Folders” column, enter a new folder name and click the 
button to create it. Folders will be created within whichever folder you currently have selected. Once folders are created, go ahead and drag and drop your documents between them. If you want to delete a folder, just select it and click the “x” that appears after the folder name.
Note: You cannot create folders inside the Shared Documents folder.
Shared Documents
You’ll notice that you can’t drag documents into the Shared Documents folder. The Shared Documents folder is where you’ll find documents that other Gliffy users have created and shared with you. You can open them and edit them, but you cannot move or delete these documents. If you want to remove yourself as a collaborator on a shared document, you can do so by selecting that option from the drop-down edit menu or by selecting the document name and then clicking the 
icon beside the document’s name.
The Document Editor
The Gliffy Document Editor is the heart of the application and, with minor exceptions, works the same across all versions of Gliffy. There are four main areas of the Document Editor.
The Menu Bar
The Menu Bar gives you access to the basic commands you’ll need to save, share, and print your documents. The File Menu lets you open documents, export your work in SVG, PNG or JPG format, change your print setup (including the option to print documents to a single page) and print. The Edit Menu contains standard copy and paste commands, all of which have keyboard shortcuts. We’d also like to draw your attention to the Group and UnGroup commands found here. These commands allow you to combine text boxes, shapes and lines into clusters that can be manipulated as a single object.
The Library
Clicking on the individual tabs within the Library expands that chosen section so you can browse the shapes contained within. Some more dense tabs are broken into subsections---you can navigate through these using the drop-down menus, such as the one found under the Network tab.
You can drag and drop any shape from the Library onto the Drawing Stage.
The Drawing Stage
The Drawing Stage is the blank slate where you build your document. Use shapes pulled from the Library and elements you draw using the Toolbar to create flowcharts, diagrams, schematics, wireframes, floor plans or whatever else you desire.
The Toolbar lets you select tools to create lines, shapes, text and more. Take note of the “Revision History” drop-down menu in the upper right corner. This is a quick way to revert to previous drafts. The more often you save, the more useful this feature will be! Also notice the bottom and side scroll bars, which help you to move around in larger documents. If your mouse has a scroll wheel, it will also work on the drawing stage.
Page Properties
The Properties Bar, to the right of the Drawing Stage, lets you fine tune not only the elements you add to your document, but also the document itself. The information displayed in the Properties Bar will change depending on what you have selected in the Drawing Stage. If you click on the drawing stage (or select nothing by pressing the Escape key) the Properties Bar will display the Page Properties.
From here you can control the basic setup of your document. Define your page size in pixels and you’ll see thin lines that define your document boundaries. Click on the 
icon to set your document’s background color. Also, here you can select to display a background grid and have your page elements automatically snap to that grid. Marking the “page breaks” box will display bold purple lines denoting where page will break for printing purposes. To change the default page size from 8.5”x11” or from Portrait, click “File,” then “Print Setup” in the Menu Bar.
Gliffy Basics
Getting started with Gliffy is straightforward. We’ll go into more detail on how everything works further along in this Help Guide, but for now, let’s say you want to create a simple flowchart.
Adding Elements to the Drawing Stage
To begin, click the “Flowchart” tab in the Library and click a “start/end” shape and drag it onto the Drawing Stage, now drop the shape on the drawing stage (Note how if you let your mouse hover over a Library shape you’ll see the shape’s title appear as a note).
While that shape is still selected, type “Start”---the text should appear directly inside the shape. Now, click the 
icon in the Toolbar. Use your mouse to draw a rectangle directly onto the drawing stage: click, drag and release. While the rectangle is still selected, type “End”. Finally, click the 
icon in the Toolbar. To draw a connector between your "Start" and your "End", click on the start shape and drag the end of the line to the end shape.
While we’re having fun, go ahead and click on the 
icon and then click on your new flowchart to zoom in. You can zoom back out using the 
icon or by choosing your magnification of choice from the drop-down menu in the Toolbar.
Moving and Manipulating Elements
Regardless of whether elements on the Drawing Stage come from the Library or if they were drawn using the Toolbar, you can move and manipulate them the same way. If you click on an element, you can drag and drop it where you choose on the Drawing Stage. Each shape, like the 'start' and the 'rectangle' in this example, will display its boundary box when selected. You can use the connection points (little squares in the boundary box’s corners and midpoints) to extend the dimensions of the shape. Just click and drag them. To rotate a shape, click and drag over the curled arrow that you’ll see above the shape.
Lines and connectors are slightly different. Instead of boundary boxes, lines and connectors have small circles defining each endpoint and, in the case of connectors with more than two segments, one to control each middle segment. If you click on the line or connector anywhere but on these circles, you’ll move the entire line without changing its shape. Clicking and dragging the circles will move only that portion of the line or connector.
Setting Properties
When you select an element on the Drawing Stage, the appropriate properties panel appears in the Properties Bar. If you select more than one shape, even if they’re different kinds of shapes, you can set the properties for all selected shapes at once. This won’t work if you select two types of elements, for example, a shape and a text box or a line and a shape.
For this example, click on your start shape, then control-click on your rectangle (or command-click on Mac) to select both elements. They both should be outlined in blue to indicate they’ve been selected and Shape Properties should appear in the Properties Bar.
In the Properties Bar, click the icon and select a new fill color for both shapes. Next, click the 
icon to align your shapes along the top axis. Now select the connector on the drawing stage. Clicking on this should unselect the other two shapes and outline the connector in blue. You’ll see Line Properties displayed in the Properties Bar.
To turn the connector into an arrow, click on the icon and choose the type of line end you want.
Saving Documents
The only thing left to do now is to save your document. You can save using the button at the top right of the Drawing Stage or through the “File” menu in the Menu Bar. Each time you save a document, it gets logged as a new revision. At any time you can use the “revision history” drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the Drawing Stage to revert back to any previously saved version.
Through the File Menu, you'll also have the option to "Save As". Many customers use this to create template diagrams or another diagram very similar.
Working with Shapes and Lines
You can add shapes to the Drawing Stage in two ways, either by drawing them with the Ellipse or Rectangle Tool or by dragging them in from the Library. You can draw connectors and lines using the Connector Tool and the Line Tool.
Using the Elipse and Rectangle Tools
The most basic way to draw shapes is using the Ellipse and Rectangle Tools. These tools work identically, just one draws a shape with rounded corners and the other draws a shape with right angle corners.
There’s no trick to using either tool. Just select the tool you want from the Toolbar and draw by clicking, dragging and releasing. The first place on the Drawing Stage that you click defines the first corner of the shape’s boundary box. As you drag your mouse with the button depressed, the box grows. When you release the mouse button, the ellipse or rectangle is created to fill the boundary box you’ve drawn.
Using the Library
If you’re using shapes from the Library, it’s even easier. Just find the shape you want, click it, drag it onto the Drawing Stage and drop it where you want.
Moving and Manipulating Shapes
As explained in Gliffy Basics, any shape can be resized, rotated or moved once it’s been placed upon the Drawing Stage. You can use the little squares that appear in any selected shape’s boundary box’s corners or midpoints to extend the dimensions of the shape. Just click and drag them. To rotate a shape, click and drag the curled arrow that you’ll see above the selected shape.
Also worth noting is your ability to lock a shape to its current dimensions. To do this mark the “Lock Shape” box in the shape’s properties (to the right of the drawing stage). (Using Gliffy Online, you can also right click on a shape and select “Lock Shape” from the context menu.) When you lock a shape, the little squares around the boundary box turn red to indicate the shape is fixed. You will not be able to change the dimensions, or other properties, of the shape until you unlock the shape.
Setting Shape Properties
When you select a shape, you can edit its properties using the Properties Bar. At the top of the shape properties section, you will see three icons that control the shape’s appearance. The icon lets you choose what color fill you want the selected shape to have. The 
icon controls the color of the shape’s border. The final 
icon determines how thick the shape’s border is, or whether it has a border at all.
If you find your mouse isn’t giving you the level of control you want, you can also use the Size, Position and Rotation properties to specify the exact dimensions, location and angle of rotation of the selected shape. The position coordinates correspond to the position of the upper left corner of the shape’s boundary box.
At the bottom of the Shape Properties section, you’ll also see check boxes for “Lock Aspect Ratio,” “Lock Shape”, “Drop Shadow” and “Gradient Fill.” Marking the “Lock Aspect Ratio” box forces the selected shape to retain its current shape, but not its size. You can still make an ellipse or rectangle larger or smaller, but it will hold its aspect ratio. “Lock Shape” not only secures the aspect ratio, but also secures the size, color and other properties of the selected shape. Marking the “Drop Shadow” box will give the shape a shadow that suggests depth. “Gradient Fill” affects a shape’s fill color. When you tick this box, the fill color will transition from lighter to darker from top to bottom.
Using the Connector and Line Tools
The Connector and Line Tools work identically to each other. The Connector Tool lets you draw a line forced to turn at right angles where necessary and the Line Tool draws a straight line between whichever endpoints you select, with no turns. To draw either a connector or a line, select the appropriate tool from the Toolbar, place your cursor where you want your connector or line to start and click and drag to your desired endpoint.
Moving and Locking Lines and Connectors
Once you’ve drawn a line or connector you’ll see that each endpoint and, if it’s a connector with more than two segments, each middle segment has a little circle. These circles work like the squares around the boundary boxes of shapes. If you click and drag on one of the circles, you’ll only adjust that segment of the line/connector. If you click anywhere else, you’ll move the whole line.
Frequently, you’ll want to connect the end of a line to a shape so that if the shape moves, then the line will sticks to the shape. When you select a line, you’ll see that all the shapes in your diagram become flanked with little ' + ' symbols. There should be one in the middle of each shape as well. These ' + ' symbols are connection points. If you drag the endpoint of a line or connector to one, you’ll see the little circle turn red. That indicates the line is locked to the connection point. From then on, if you move the shape, the line will remain connected.
When initially drawing a line or connector, you can start off on a connection point---if the connection point shows a red circle, your line will be locked to it.
Setting Line and Connector Properties
When you select a line or connector, you can change its properties using the Properties Bar. If you select any number of lines or connectors at one time, you can set properties for all of them at once.
Click on the icon to change the color of the line. The icon lets you choose how thick the line will be. Next, the 
icon gives you a selection of different patterns for the selected line, from finely dotted to solid. Use the 
icon to add directionality to your line--you can choose from a selection of three different arrow styles pointing in either or both directions.
The direction the arrows in this menu point translates as ‘left = line start point’ and ‘right = line end point’. So if you drew your line from right to left, and select the arrow that points to the right, you’ll see your line will get an arrow pointing to the left! If you consistently draw your lines/connectors from start to end, this will make adding arrows much easier.
You can also use line properties to change lines to connectors and vice versa. If you click the “right angle” radio button, the line or connector you’ve selected will become a connector. The “straight” radio button does the opposite, transforming lines and connectors into lines.
Selecting More than One Element
You can select more than one element in order to move or manipulate them all in concert. If you want to select a large swath of elements, select the 
icon from the Toolbar and draw a box around the elements you want to select by clicking and dragging the arrow. You’ll be able to tell which elements have been selected, as they’ll be outlined in blue. You can fine tune which elements are part of your selection by holding down the Control key (or Command key on a Mac) and selecting or unselecting individual elements.
If the elements are all of the same sort, you can set the properties for all of them at once using the Property Bar. If they’re all shapes, then you can also align them all by their left, right, top or bottom borders or through their center or middle axes using the “align” section that will appear in the Property Bar.
You will also notice that your selected area will be enclosed in its own boundary box. You can use the little squares around this area to adjust the size and aspect ratio of the shapes and lines you’ve selected as a whole. Should you want these objects all to remain linked together, you can group them by selecting “Group” in the Edit Menu of the Menu Bar or by hitting the keyboard shortcut “Control+G.” Grouped elements will remain grouped together until you ungroup them through the Edit Menu’s “UnGroup” command or by hitting “Control+U.”
Send to Back/Send to Front
As your document becomes more complex, you may find that you need to control which elements are in the foreground and which are in the background. You can do this by selecting the desired element, be it a shape, a line, or a text box, and using the 
icon to send the selected element to the front or the 
icon to send it to the back. In Gliffy Online, you can also send elements to the front or back by selecting them and right clicking to see those options in the context menu.
Working with Text
There are two ways to add text to your document. Using the Text Tool lets you create text boxes, which can be moved and resized independently from other document elements. Easier, but offering less control, is the option of entering text directly into elements.
The Text Tool
Selecting the 
icon from the Toolbar allows you to draw a text box so you can immediately start typing in text. Text will automatically wrap at the end of a line to remain within the box you’ve drawn. If you enter more lines then will fit in the box, the text will extend above and below the borders of the text box.
When you’re done entering text, you can move, resize or rotate a text box just as you would any other shape. If you want to edit the text inside the text box, just double-click on it, you'll notice a flashing cursor, now you can then edit the text.
Entering Text in Elements
Sometimes you’ll want to enter text directly into a shape or over a line. If you do this, you won’t be able to control exactly where the text sits---it will automatically center itself over the middle or under the element you’re adding text to.
To enter text this way, just select the element you want, by clicking one time, and start typing. You can edit this text at any time by double clicking on the element. To completely remove text from an element, double click the element, highlight the text and click.
Setting Text Properties
Regardless of how you’ve entered text, you can edit the properties of selected text in the Properties Bar. If you select a text box, an element with text typed over it, or any combination of the two, the text properties section will show up in the Properties Bar.
Here, you can choose between the five current available fonts (Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Courier and Times), change the font size and color, make text bold, italic and underlined, and change the alignment of the text. You can also add hyperlinks to text (not available in the Gliffy Plugin for JIRA).
To add a hyperlink, double click on the text and select the words you want to turn into an active link. Then click the 
icon and enter the desired URL. Hyperlinks will remain active if viewed as full-size image on a Gliffy Plugin for Confluence wiki page, exported as SVG or a published URL Gliffy Diagram.
You can set different sections of text to have different properties within the same text box or element. For example, one word in a sentence can be bold and in a larger font size. All you need to do is select the words you want to change the properties for and make your changes.
Working with Images
Depending on which version of Gliffy you’re using, there are alternate ways that you can insert full color images directly into your document via the Library.
Uploading Images
In Gliffy Online, the Account Images tab is where you can upload images directly into your Gliffy account. Any image in this tab can be click, drag and dropped to the Document Editor and manipulated like any other shape. Images must be in GIF, JPG or PNG format and cannot be larger than 1 MB.
When you’re uploading Account Images, you’re required to tag each image. These tags are searchable from within the Account Images tab.
If you tag a group of photos all as “DVD” for example, you can enter “DVD” into the search field in the Account Images tab and click “Go” to bring up only those photos.
Image Search
The Image Search tab in the Library lets Gliffy Online users search Yahoo! Web Services for images. Just enter your search term in the field provided and click “Go.” Gliffy will display the first hundred images returned from your search, broken into pages of ten. You can scroll down through pages using the scroll bar at the side of the tab or navigate through pages using the “previous" and "next” links.
These images will be annotated with their size in pixels, so you can judge their quality before adding them to your document. They are editable just like any other shape in Gliffy.
Keyboard Shortcuts
As you get more proficient using Gliffy, you’ll find that the built in keyboard shortcuts speed up your work. You can see a full list of keyboard shortcuts at any time by clicking the help link in the top right of the Document Editor.
Sharing & Exporting Documents
Whether you plan to print your document, post it online as a live document, or invite other users to collaborate on it with you, sharing and exporting Gliffy documents is likely crucial to your work process. Because of the inherent differences between Gliffy Online, the Gliffy Plugin for Confluence and the Gliffy Plugin for JIRA, your options will be different depending on which application you’re using.
Exporting and Printing Documents
In all three Gliffy programs, you have access to export and print options through the File menu in the Menu Bar.
In this menu, you can export Gliffy documents in SVG (Visio), JPG and PNG format and save them for off-line access. The Print Setup options include the ability to print your document to a single page, set the document to various page sizes and to print gridlines.
Collaborating on Gliffy Documents
If you’re using Gliffy Online, you can control who has the ability to edit your document.
Add Collaborators
To allow edit access to a Gliffy Online document, use the “Collaborate” command found in the Share menu in the Menu Bar. This will open the Add/Remove Collaborators window. You can also access this window by clicking the 
icon above the Properties Bar.
Simply add the emails of those you wish to collaborate with to the “Add new collaborators” field, each email address separated by a comma, and click the 
icon. When you click “OK,” Gliffy will send each new collaborator an email including a link to your document and a temporary password. When they follow the link and enter the password, they will be automatically prompted to select a new password. Collaborators have full editing privileges and, if they have Gliffy Online Premium accounts, they will also be able to share your document with other users. A Multi User Premium Account allows for even simpler collaboration.
Remove Collaborators
To remove a collaborator from a Gliffy document, click on their email address in the Collaborators list in the Add/Remove Collaborators window and then click the “x” beside their name.
Access Collaborated Documents
To find diagrams that you have been invited to collaborate on, click on the Shared Documents folder from the Document Manager. There is also a URL at the bottom of this Add/Remove Collaborators window. A user that is on the collaborator list can use this URL, log into Gliffy to access the diagram.
Publishing Documents
While all documents created by Gliffy Online Basic users are public, meaning anyone on the Internet can access a read-only version of them, Gliffy Online Premium users will by default create private documents that they can choose to make public. During your 30 day free trial, your account will operate as a Premium account, all diagrams will default to private.
To change the public/private status of a document, use the “Publish Info” command found in the Share menu of the Menu Bar. This will open the Publish Document window. You can also access this window by clicking “blog & share this diagram” above the Properties Bar.
As a reminder, basic, free users will not have access to make a diagram private.
At the top of this window, radio buttons allow you to switch between “Make private” and “Make public.” If a document is made public, the embed code and links that populate the window will work. These links let you embed the latest saved version of the document in a webpage as a JavaScript or as a JPG image. All links will always call the latest saved draft, so you do not need to update links if you edit the document in the future.
While the embed code will not work in WordPress or LiveJournal, both the embed JavaScript and the “Web page” link provided here will produce a version of your document that preserves any included hyperlinks.
Please note, if you switch a previously public document to private, any links to this document (ex. on a blog) will fail.
More Information
For more information about using Gliffy, please visit our online forums or contact our support team.
