Create and edit a diagram

You create and edit diagrams under Diagrams in the left menu. Click New Diagram, give the diagram a name, draw it in the drawing editor and click Save Diagram. To change a diagram later, open it from the library with Edit Diagram. The library is shared by everyone in your company who has access to Diagrams: every member can see, change, copy and delete every diagram, whoever made it. Agree with your colleagues who maintains which diagram, so you don’t overwrite each other’s work.

Before you start

You need access to Diagrams. It comes only through membership of the Diagrams access group; see Get access to Diagrams. Without it, Diagrams is not in your left menu.

Steps: create a diagram

In the left menu, click Diagrams. The diagram library opens.
Click New Diagram. If the library is empty, click Create Your First Diagram instead. The diagram page opens with the heading New Diagram.
Type a name in Name. The name is required.
Optionally, type a short description in Description.
Draw the diagram in the drawing editor below the fields. Wait until the drawing editor has loaded; until then it shows “Loading draw.io editor…”. For a walkthrough of drawing, see Draw your first flowchart; the drawing editor’s menus and panels are described in The drawing editor: menus, panels and toolbar.
Click Save Diagram, above the drawing editor next to Cancel. The diagram is saved and you return to the library.

Steps: edit a diagram

In the library, find the diagram. You can search by name or description; see The diagram library.
Click Edit Diagram on the diagram (a button that appears when you point at a card, or the edit icon in the table row). The diagram page opens with the heading Edit Diagram: followed by the diagram’s name.
Change the drawing, the name or the description.
Click Save Diagram. It becomes clickable once something has changed.

To leave the diagram page without saving, click Cancel. You return to the library straight away, without a question, and your unsaved changes are lost.

Steps: copy a diagram

In the library, click Copy diagram on the diagram.
In the Copy diagram dialog, check the Name. It is filled in with the original name followed by “ Copy”; change it if you like. The name is required.
Change the Description if needed. It is filled in with the original description.
Click Save. You see “Diagram copied successfully”, and the copy appears in the library as a separate diagram with its own drawing.

Steps: delete a diagram

In the library, click Delete on the diagram (in the Table and Preview list views, the delete icon).
The Confirmation dialog asks “Are you sure you want to delete this diagram?”. Click Delete.
You see “Diagram deleted successfully”, and the diagram is gone from the library.

What you should see

A new or changed diagram in the library, with a thumbnail of the drawing, its name, its description and the date it was created. The Table and Preview list views also show the date it was last updated. That date changes only when the diagram’s name or description is changed; saving a change to the drawing alone does not change it.
After a save, the diagram page closes and the library is shown again.

Good to know

Everyone with access can change everything. For diagrams in the library, there is no owner and no approval step: any member of the Diagrams access group can edit, copy or delete any diagram.
No undo after deleting. A deleted diagram cannot be restored from the library, and earlier versions of a diagram cannot be opened from the library or the diagram page. Before a large change, copy the diagram so you keep the old version.
Documents keep their copy. A diagram inserted in a document stays there unchanged when you edit or delete the diagram in the library; see Insert a diagram in a document.
One page per diagram. A diagram has one page; the drawing editor has no page tabs, and you cannot add pages.
An empty drawing is not saved over an existing one. If you save an existing diagram while the drawing is empty, the save is refused and the stored drawing is kept.