Sketch Tips & Tricks

I have been using Sketch for a while now for designing iOS Apps. In this post, I’ll be sharing a few tips and tricks I’ve learned that have helped me become better and faster at using Sketch to design mockups for iOS apps.

1. The “Insert” shortcuts

The most common objects you need to insert are creating new artboard A, Insert text T and inserting rectangles R or ovals O.

2. Hide/Show sidebars

You can Show/Hide the (left) Layer-List-Sidebar and (right) Inspector Sidebar via ⌘ + ⌥Alt + 3. (If you only want to hide the left sidebar: ⌘ + ⌥Alt + 1, or the right: ⌘ + ⌥Alt + 2). This feature is particularly useful on laptop screens.

3. Presentation mode

If you press ⌘ + . you switch to the “presentation” mode, the perfect mode to show your work to your clients.

4. Ruler

With Ctrl + R you can show/hide a ruler on the top. With a double-click on the ruler you can add lines and by dragging the lines to the left or the right, you can remove them. This is useful when you want to place an object at a particular position or align the object while placing it to other objects.

5. See margins while moving

You can hold the ⌥Alt Key to see the margins of the Object while moving.

6. Resizing objects

Pressing ⌘ + Arrow resizes Objects. As you might guess, ⇧Shift + ⌘ + Arrow you can resize Objects in 10px units.

7. Move layers up and down

Move layers up ⌘ + ⌥Alt + ↑ and down ⌘CMD + ⌥Alt + ↓ in your layer list with keyboard shortcuts instead of dragging and dropping.

8. Symbols. Change one thing — it changes everywhere.

Symbols in Sketch are special elements you can use repeatedly throughout your document, across pages and artboards. Symbols around your document automatically stay in sync, so when you change one, all the others instantly fall in line. To know more about Symbols Click here

9. Duplicate anything in seconds

If you hold ⌥Alt, then click and drag an element, it will copy it. Once you’ve placed it, just hit ⌘ + D to do it repeatedly.

10. Move shapes while you draw them

When you’re drawing a shape (say, a circle), it’s tough to get the placement just right on the first go. But if you hold spacebar while drawing, you can move your shape as you create it, then continue sizing it before committing it to your artboard.

11. Save frustration with “Scale”

Let’s say you designed a button, but made it too big. You’ve got a border radius of 20px and a 4px outline. If you just drag the corner to shrink it, the result might be unsatisfying. So instead, click Scale and enter the dimensions you need.