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Editor overview

The Balsamiq Wireframes editor interface is made up of five primary areas:

Each area is described below.

The toolbar

The outer edge of the Balsamiq Wireframes editor has a series of buttons and fields that allow you to wireframe with just the canvas.

We've split the toolbar into three main sections.

The left bar

The Left Bar has five buttons that help you to navigate and add wireframes to your project:

  • Toggle Navigator - This allows you to diplay and hide the navigator. Great for clearing up screen real estate.
  • New Wireframe - This adds a blank wireframe to your project.
  • Previous Wireframe - This switches the selected wireframe to the one above it in the Navigator (it will be greyed out if there are no wireframes above this one).
  • Next Wireframe - This switches the selected wireframe to the one below it in the Navigator (it will be greyed out if there are no wireframes below this one).
  • Toggle Background Music - This allows you to play and stop the built-in background music.

The top bar

The Top Bar has more functions than The Left Bar.

The upper-left holds three of the editor's menus.

  • The Smiley Menu - This menu has a lot of the editor's view options. You can close the editor from here.
  • Project Menu - This menu has all of the options for the project.
  • Wireframe Menu - This menu has all of the options for the currently selected wireframe.

The middle part of the Top Bar has four buttons.

  • Undo - This reverts the last change you made.
  • Redo - If you undid the last action, you can use this button to redo it.
  • Edit Menu - This menu has all of the editing options for the currently selected wireframe.
  • Trash - This button only appears when there are items in the trash. It opens the Trash Menu.

Finally, the upper-right portion of the Top Bar has a couple more useful tools.

  • Quick Add - This is the Quick Add field, which you can read more about here.
  • Share Menu - This opens the Project's Sharing settings.
  • Avatar Menu - This is where you can open your User Settings, Manage Your Subscription (only in Balsamiq Cloud), change Spaces (if you have more than one), Create a new Space.

The right bar

The Right Bar is also split into three sections.

The top of the Right Bar is all about toggling pieces of the editor.

The middle of the Right Bar allows you to control your view of the canvas.

  • Zoom Out - Zooms the canvas out (making things appear smaller).
  • Zoom In - Zooms the canvas in (making things appear larger).
  • Zoom to Actual Size - Adjusts the canvas so that all the controls are their actual size.
  • Zoom to Width - Adjusts the canvas to best fit the width of the wireframe in the current diplayed canvas.
  • Zoom to Fit - Adjusts the canvas to best fit all the wireframe's controls in the current diplayed canvas.

The bottom of the Right Bar has only a single button.

The quick add tool

The Quick Add tool is the best way to add UI controls to your wireframes. To use quick add, click inside the quick add input box (or press / or + to enter it).

Type a few letters from the name of a UI control or icon and Quick Add will diplay a list of suggestions. Use your mouse or arrow keys to scroll down the list, and click (or press ENTER) to add the control or icon on the canvas. You can also use SHIFT+ENTER to place the control where your mouse cursor is on the canvas.

For example, typing "bu" diplays a list containing "Button", "Button Bar", "Help Button", "Radio Button" and "Round Button". Typing "hel", on the other hand, only returns "Help Button". Pressing the ESC key makes the list disappear.

The UI library

The UI Library, or User Interface controls Library, is the long strip of user interface controls just below the toolbar. It lists all of the UI control types that are included as well as Assets, Icons, and Symbols. The main goal of the UI Library is to let you add UI controls to the canvas, but you can also use it to get inspiration for your wireframes.

The UI Library is divided into four main sections: UI Controls, Icons, Images, and Templates. This helps you sort through a lot of controls efficiently without getting lost in a sea of Icons or Images.

To add a new UI control to the canvas, select the control type you wish to add and then either drag it to the canvas below, or double-click it.

The UI Library is resizeable. If you grab the bottom of the library you can drag it down to make the library bigger, or move it up to make it smaller.

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The UI Library can also be toggled on and off by either clicking the icon in the Right Bar, or by using the keyboard shortcut CTRL/⌘+L.

Using templates

Our Template section contains dozens of highly curated templates designed to speed up your wireframing.

Once you have pressed the Templates button, the UI library will expand and display all of the templates available. You can browse the various categories by selecting a filter from the filter button bar.

Once you find a category or folder you want to explore, click on it to open it, and then you can drag any of the templates from that folder into your project. If you need them all, you can press the Add All as New Wireframes button.

You can also use the Quick Add tool to search for a template you would like.

The canvas

This is the main working area of the editor. You can add, move, resize, and tweak any control added to the canvas. Check out Adding and Arranging UI Controls to learn more.

The canvas is large - it's 20000px x 20000px - and flexible so you can scroll in every direction to make room for bigger wireframes or more controls if you need to.

When you zoom in or out, the Mini-map appears to help you navigate large wireframes with lots of screens or pages.

The navigator panel

The navigator panel on the left displays the list of wireframes. The currently selected wireframe is highlighted.

You can select multiple wireframes in the navigator panel by holding down CTRL or SHIFT and clicking on them. They can be displayed in text-only form, or with a thumbnail preview.

Jumping in-between wireframes can also be done using your keyboard via CTRL+TAB or by clicking on one in the navigator and using ↑ and ↓. You can also hide the navigator panel by clicking the navigator toggle in the Left Bar (keyboard shortcut: CTRL/⌘+J).

Wireframes can be reordered by dragging them up and down in the navigator panel. This can be useful when exporting to PDF, for example.

Using a hierarchy

The navigator panel also offers a hierarchical structure to better organize your wireframes.

To use it, select the wireframe you wish to be the child and press TAB. The child wireframe will be placed in a tree hierarchy below the wireframe above it.

You can then use the arrows to the left of the parent wireframe to display and hide the wireframes under it.

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To restore it to the top level, use SHIFT+TAB. The animation below demonstrates nesting wireframes in action.

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Context menu actions

A context menu is also available for the wireframes that are open in the navigator panel. You can either right-click on the selected wireframe, or click the small caret that appears when you hover over it, to open the menu.

This menu contains options such as rename, cut, copy, move to trash, and duplicate. It also contains actions for working with alternates.

Renaming wireframes

Renaming wireframes can be done via the context menu or by double-clicking on the name of the wireframe in the navigator panel. Wireframes with links will automatically be updated when a linked wireframe name changes.

The property inspector

The Property Inspector allows you to set some common properties for controls, such as alignment, position and size as well as specific settings for certain controls (selection state, text properties, color, etc.).

You can toggle the Property Inspector with the keyboard shortcut CTRL/⌘+; or ALT/OPTION+ENTER. When hidden you can also toggle it by right-clicking a control and selecting "Properties...".

If you have multiple controls selected it will display properties that are common to all the selected controls, as well as options for aligning and distributing the selection.

When no controls are selected, the Property Inspector shows notes for the selected wireframe.

For Symbols, it also shows the count and name of wireframes where the selected object is used.

The comments panel

The Comments Panel allows you to collaborate on your designs by sharing feedback asynchronously. It also is useful for taking notes for yourself as you work. You can display the comments panel by clicking on the icon in the Right Bar.

A blue dot indicates that a Comment is unread. Comments can be marked as read and unread by clicking the blue/grey dot. You can add Callout markers to indicate specific places in the wireframe where the comments applies or add a link to an alternate version.

You can learn more about comments in Sharing and Reviewing.

Project properties

Every project has a set of properties that you can define from the Project Menu:

  • Style: The Look and Feel of the project
  • Font and Colors: The specific font and colors you want your project to use

Project style

Project Style is the first option in the properties section of the Project Menu, and gives you three styles to choose from.

  • The Draft style resembles sketching with markers. It's great to generate a lot of ideas without worrying about the details.
  • The Sketch Style will more closely resemble as pen and paper sketch - something like you would design on the back of a napkin. Great for giving the feeling of fast ideation.
  • The Presentation Style is a much more straight-lined, clean corners style that is great for presenting your project.

The screenshots below show a comparison of a sample design in the Draft, Sketch and Presentation styles, respectively.

Font and colors

Font and Colors is the second option in the properties section of the Project Menu, allowing you to adjust the font the project uses, the color used for links, and the color used for selections in controls (like menus).

The default font is our very own Balsamiq Sans font. To maximize compatibility across all of our products, we have also hand picked fonts from the Google Fonts catalog.

The trash

The Trash is available for the Wireframes, assets, and Symbols you have deleted. This allows to keep your project tidy as you make progress; browsing (and recovering) earlier concepts when needed.

To recover a trashed item, click on the Trash icon in the Top Bar, select the desired item and click "Restore". The other options allow to delete the selected item permanently or empty the entire Trash.

Working on small screens

When working on a small laptop screen, you might want to maximize the amount of canvas available.

For this reason the UI Library, Navigator, and Property Inspector can all be toggled on and off using the mouse or keyboard.

The keyboard shortcuts for toggling them are listed here:

  • UI Library: CTRL+L
  • Navigator: CTRL+J
  • Property Inspector: CTRL+;

Note that you can still add controls to the canvas when the UI Library is hidden using Quick Add. And you can navigate between your wireframes using the dedicated icons in the Left Bar that appear when the Navigator Panel is hidden.