| I want to… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Make a motif fit a space | Drag a corner handle with Shift held (Resize) |
| Make a border a little taller | Drag the top or bottom edge handle (Resize) |
| Turn a motif on its side | Rotate R or Rotate L, 90° at a time (Rotate) |
| Mirror a motif for the other side | More → Flip horizontally (Flip) |
| Make a corner from a straight border | Copy, paste, rotate 90°, drag into place |
| Fit lettering to a slanted or tapering shape | Turn on Warp and drag the corners (Warp) |
Selection Transform Tool
Resize, rotate, flip or warp the stitches you selected, with a preview until you press Enter. One undo puts it all back.
- Shortcut
- T
- Where to find it
- Selection tool → Selection mode → Transform
Keyboard & modifiers
- T
- Transform the current selection (from the Selection tool)
- Enter
- Apply
- Escape
- Cancel and put the stitches back
- Arrows
- Move by 1 stitch
- Shift+Arrows
- Fine nudge (lands on whole stitches when you apply)
- Shift (while dragging)
- Move in a straight line
- Shift (while resizing)
- Keep proportions
- Cmd+RCtrl+R
- Rotate 90° clockwise
- W
- Turn Warp on or off
Basics
Transform changes the stitches you've selected: makes them bigger or smaller, turns them, mirrors them, or bends them into a new shape. It's how you fix a motif that came out the wrong size, or build a symmetric design from one half.
- Select the stitches with the Selection tool.
- Press T, or pick Transform from the Selection mode button.
- Move, resize, rotate or flip as much as you like. You're looking at a preview.
- Press Enter to apply, or Escape to put everything back.
If you only want to move stitches, you don't need Transform: in the Selection tool's Move mode, dragging the selection already moves them.
What do you want to do?
Move
Drag inside the selection to slide it. Hold Shift while dragging to keep it in a straight line.
The arrow keys move it one stitch at a time. Shift+arrow nudges it a fraction of a stitch, which helps line it up by eye; when you apply, it settles onto whole stitches.
Moving off the edge of the chart takes a deliberate extra pull, so you don't lose a column by accident.
Resize
Drag a handle on the dashed outline:
- Corners change width and height together. Hold Shift to keep the proportions, so a round motif stays round.
- Edges stretch or squash in one direction only.
Bigger and Smaller in More change the size by 10% per click, which is easier to repeat exactly than a drag.
Stitches can't be split, so making a motif bigger repeats stitches and making it smaller drops them. Lines stay crisp, but thin details can thicken or vanish. Enlarging by a whole multiple, double or triple, keeps shapes most even.
Rotate
Rotate R and Rotate L turn the selection a quarter turn (Cmd/Ctrl+R for clockwise). Quarter turns are lossless: every stitch lands on a stitch.
For any other angle, drag the round handle above the selection. On a grid, a slanted result has stepped edges, which is normal for cross stitch and usually looks fine from a distance.
Half and quarter stitches move with the motif but keep their original slant, so check them after a rotation.
Flip
Mirroring is the fastest way to build a symmetric design: stitch half a heart, a quarter of a snowflake, or one side of a wreath, then copy it and flip the copy.
Open More and choose Flip horizontally (left and right swap) or Flip vertically (top and bottom swap).
Warp
Warp lets you drag each corner of the selection on its own, so a rectangle of stitches can become a slanted or tapered shape. Use it to fit lettering to a sloping banner or give a building some perspective.
Turn it on with the Warp button in the tool options, or press W. While Warp is on, the first Enter turns Warp off; press Enter again to apply.
Apply or cancel
Enter writes everything to the chart as one undo step. One Cmd/Ctrl+Z takes back the whole transform, not just the last change.
Escape throws it all away and puts the stitches back exactly as they were. If a run of changes has drifted away from what you wanted, Escape and start over is quicker than undoing step by step.
On a tablet or phone, there's no Enter or Escape key: use the Apply and Cancel buttons in the tool options.
Switching back to Move or Marquee in the Selection mode button keeps what you've done so far.
Tips & gotchas
- Backstitches and embellishments come along with the stitches, unless you've turned off Move backstitches too or Move embellishments too in the Selection tool's More menu.
- Preview first, commit once. Stack a move, a resize and a flip, look at the result, then apply. It's all one undo step either way.
- T means Text elsewhere. T starts Transform only from the Selection tool with something selected. With no selection it switches to the Text tool.
- Big shrinks lose the most. If a motif must get much smaller, it's often cleaner to redraw it at the new size, or shrink it and then fix the details with the Brush.