Stencil Keyboard Shortcuts

Stencil is all about being as fast as possible. We pride ourselves on being the fastest tool available to make images. To help achieve this, we have a number of keyboard shortcuts to help you really quickly use Stencil. They are as follows:

Escape Key
Pressing the Escape Key will generally do what you think. For example, if you have some text selected, and are choosing it's font, pressing the Escape key will close the font drop down, and pressing it again will deselect the text.

"C" Key
Pressing the "C" key while you have a layer selected on your image (eg. some text, your logo/watermark, or an icon) will center that layer perfectly in the middle of your image.

"Up", "Down", "Right" and "Left" Keys
Want to perfectly nudge your selected layer to the right position? Use your keyboards "Up", "Down", "Right" and "Left" keys to move a layer by one pixel. This is really helpful for getting your image to look just right.

"Tab" Key
Pressing the "Tab" key while a layer is selected will switch you to the next layer that is visible. This is super-helpful for quickly moving to another layer to make changes, without using your mouse to perfectly click on it.

"Delete" Key
The "Delete" Key will almost always do what you think: delete the layer you have selected. This is helpful to quickly remove some text if it's from a previous image. And don't worry: You can always Undo your changes (see the next Keyboard Shortcut).

Command/CTRL + Z (aka Undo)
Pressing the Command/CTRL + Z keyboard combination will undo whatever changes you last made to your image. While we have an icon that lets you do this, sometimes it's just faster to use the same keyboard combination you're used to from Word Processing programs.

Command/CTRL + Y (aka Redo)
Pressing the Command/CTRL + Y keyboard combination will redo whatever changes you last undid (see Keyboard Shortcut above).

Command/CTRL + SHIFT + Z (aka Redo)
This does the same thing as the Command/CTRL + Y keyboard shortcut mentioned above. We've included it because it's a command keyboard shortcut for Word Processing programs, and we wanted to be consistent with them.

"Enter" Key
Pressing the "Enter" Key while you're focused on a Text Layer will switch you into "editing mode". This is helpful if you're deciding on the styles of some text, and then wanted to quickly make changes to the actual words. Just press Enter :)

Command/CTRL + Resize Layer
This shortcut is a little different because it requires you to also be using your mouse. But what it allows you to do is while you're resizing a layer (for example, some text or your logo/watermark), if you hold the Command/CTRL Key, it will ensure that it's resized proportionately on both sides (or all sides if you're resizing it from a corner). This is really helpful to ensure the proportions of whatever you're resizing are symmetrical.