Your First Diagram

Open a new diagram. This is livediagram's entry point: the welcome flow where you can start from a blank canvas or pick a template and a theme.

Choose Blank to follow along from scratch, or pick a template if you would rather start from a ready-made layout. Either way you land on the editor with your canvas ready.

Give the diagram a name. Click the title in the header at the top of the editor and type. Renaming is instant and saved for you.

Find the Palette panel (the floating panel labelled PALETTE, in the top-right of the canvas by default). The Shapes tab is open by default.

Tap a shape tile to drop it onto the canvas at its default size, or drag on the canvas to draw it at the size you want. Try a Square or a Stadium (the pill shape) to start.

Double-click the shape to add a label, then type. Press Enter or click away to commit the text.

Drop a second shape nearby the same way. If a shape is selected when you add the next one, the new shape inherits its size, handy for chaining similarly-sized nodes.

Hover a shape and look for the quick-connect + affordances around it. Drag from one to another shape to draw an arrow that stays pinned to both.

Prefer to draw freely? Pick the Arrow tool from the Palette's Tools tab and drag between two points.

Select an arrow and right-click it to change its style: straight, curved, or angled, plus line thickness, dashes, and arrowhead shape. Double-click an arrow to give it a label.