Keyboard shortcuts

Learning even a handful of these makes a noticeable difference on a large sheet, because switching tools by keyboard keeps your cursor where you are working.

Tools

Press the key to switch tool. These work whenever the editor has focus and you are not typing in a field.

Key	Tool
R	🎯 Region
X	🎯⬆️ Expand Region
P	🎨 Precision Region
S	⭕ Shape
D	🔵 Color Sweep
I	🔄 Inclusive Region
F	✏️ Free Trace
B	🖊️ Manual Border
E	🧽 Eraser
L	📏 Linear Region
C	🔢 Count
A	🔍 Auto Count
H	🔍 Magnifier
W	📐 Measure Width
M	✏️ Markup
V	👆 Inspect
Z	🗺️ Zone

Eraser modes

Available while the Eraser (E) is selected.

Key	Mode
1	Polygon
2	Box
3	Drag Circle
4	Circle
5	Brush
6	Ellipse
⇧R	Region
⇧S	Sweep
⇧M	Multi
⇧X	Expand
⇧F	Free Trace

Linear Region modes

Available while Linear Region (L) is selected.

Key	Mode
1	Polyline
2	Dashed Trace
3	Freehand Trace
4	Ellipse
5	Dot Trace
6	Auto Boundary
7	Auto Line
C	Cut

Working

Key	Action
Esc	Cancel what you are drawing
Enter	Complete the current shape or path
Delete or Backspace	Delete the selection

Esc is the one to remember. Whatever you have half drawn, Esc backs out of it without leaving anything behind.

Undo and redo

Key	Action
Ctrl + Z (Cmd + Z on Mac)	Undo
Ctrl + Y (Cmd + Y on Mac)	Redo

Work in progress groups also have their own Undo and Redo buttons, which step through operations on that group alone. Use those when you want to reverse something on one material without disturbing work done since. See Groups, work in progress and saved layers.

Batch takeoff

Key	Mode
1	Merge
2	Unmerge

A suggested order to learn them

You do not need all of these. In practice these five carry most of the benefit:

1. R for Region, since it is most of the work.
2. E for Eraser, since correcting is constant.
3. Esc to back out of anything.
4. Ctrl + Z to undo.
5. L or C depending on whether your jobs are length heavy or count heavy.

Add the eraser sub-modes once erasing becomes routine, since switching between Box and Region erasing by keyboard is much quicker than going back to the toolbar each time.