A five-minute walkthrough from a fresh sign-in to a saved, shareable diagram. You'll draw two boxes, connect them with an arrow, add a label, rename the file, and copy a share link.

You're signed in and the dashboard is showing an empty Default folder. The fastest way to learn the editor is to build something tiny — a two-box flow with a labelled arrow. End to end, this takes about five minutes. By the time you're done you'll have used the rectangle tool, the arrow tool, the text tool, the title bar, and the share dialog — five of the six things you'll touch 90% of the time. Every step below is point-and-click; the matching keyboard shortcut sits in a parenthetical at the end of each step for when you want to speed up later.

Step 1 — Create a diagram

On the dashboard, click the big New diagram button. The editor opens immediately at /editor/<new-id> with a blank infinite canvas, the shape toolbar running vertically along the left edge of the canvas, and a welcome screen overlay showing the CorriDraw logo with quick-action links — Open, Help, and Live collaboration. The welcome chrome disappears the moment you start drawing.

Figure 1 — fresh canvas, welcome screen visible. The shape toolbar runs vertically along the left edge.

Step 2 — Draw a rectangle

Click the rectangle icon on the shape toolbar that runs along the left edge — it sits between the eraser and the ellipse icon. The cursor turns into a crosshair to confirm the tool is armed. Click anywhere on the canvas, drag to define the size, and release. You just placed a rectangle. Hold Shift while dragging to lock the proportions to a square, and hold Alt to draw outward from the center instead of from the corner. On a tablet, tap and drag with your finger or pen — the gesture is identical.

To make a second rectangle, click the rectangle icon again and draw another one a few hundred pixels to the right of the first.

Pro tip: The toolbar has a Keep selected tool active lock — the small padlock button at the bottom of the toolbar. Click it once and the rectangle tool stays armed after each shape, so you can draw five rectangles in a row without re-clicking the icon. From the keyboard, press R to grab the rectangle directly and Q to toggle the tool lock.

Two hand-drawn rectangles side by side on the canvas, separated by about 200px of empty space. The rectangle tool icon at the top is highlighted to indicate it's active. — Figure 2 — two rectangles, roughly the same size, spaced for an arrow.

Step 3 — Connect them with an arrow

Click the arrow icon on the left-edge toolbar — it sits below the shape cluster and above the line tool. With the arrow tool armed, hover over the right edge of the first rectangle. A binding endpoint marker snaps onto its border — that's the visual signal that the arrow's tail will bind to the shape. Click to anchor the tail, drag toward the second rectangle, and a second marker snaps onto its left edge. Release. The arrow now connects the two boxes and stays connected when you drag either of them around. (Pro tip: press A to grab the arrow tool from the keyboard.)

Bound endpoints survive moves, resizes, and rotations. To break a binding, click the selection icon on the toolbar (the arrow cursor, second from the top), grab the arrow's endpoint, and drag it off the shape — the binding marker disappears and the endpoint becomes a free-floating dot. (Pro tip: press V to grab the selection tool.)

The two rectangles connected by a hand-drawn arrow. The arrow's tail sits on the right edge of the left rectangle and its head meets the left edge of the right rectangle. Endpoint dots and the midpoint handle are visible while the arrow is still selected. — Figure 3 — bound arrow. Drag either box and the arrow follows.

Step 4 — Add a label

There are two ways to add text:

Click the text icon on the toolbar (looks like a capital A, sits between the line tool and the image tool), then click on the canvas where you want the label and start typing. Click outside the text or press Esc to commit. This makes a free-floating label.
With the selection tool active, double-click inside any shape — even on a touchscreen, a double-tap works the same way. The shape becomes a text container — the label sits inside it, resizes with it, and centers automatically.

Double-click the left rectangle and type Idea. Click outside the shape to commit. Double-click the right one and type Diagram. To label the arrow itself, double-click the arrow and type becomes; the text rides along the arrow even when you reroute it. (Pro tip: press T to grab the text tool from the keyboard.)

The two rectangles now labelled 'Idea' and 'Diagram' centered inside them. The arrow between them carries the word 'becomes' as a midpoint label. — Figure 4 — labelled flow. Double-click is the fastest way to add text inside a shape.

Step 5 — Saving

You don't have to do anything. The editor autosaves continuously — every change is queued to the server within a second or two. The save indicator next to the title bar flicks to a spinner while a save is in flight and back to a checkmark when it lands. There's no save button to hunt for.

Two caveats are worth knowing about:

Guest mode (no account) saves only to localStorage in this browser. Clear site data and the diagram is gone. Sign in to mirror to the server.
Offline edits queue locally and flush the next time the browser reconnects. The dot turns yellow while you're offline so you know writes haven't shipped yet.

If you ever want a hard local snapshot, click the hamburger icon in the top-left corner to open the Main menu, then choose Save to disk. That writes a .corridraw file you can re-open later from the same menu. (Pro tip: Ctrl+S / ⌘+S triggers the same save-to-disk dialog.)

Screenshot pending

The top-center title bar showing the diagram name on the left and a small green checkmark icon on the right indicating 'Saved'. Just to the right is the autosave timestamp 'Saved a moment ago'.

/screenshots/docs/first-diagram-5.png

Figure 5 — the autosave indicator. Green checkmark = on the server, spinner = in flight, yellow dot = offline.

Step 6 — Rename the diagram

The title bar sits at the top center of the editor, between the toolbar and the canvas. New diagrams are called Untitled by default. Click the title text once — the entire string becomes editable inline. Type a new name, then click anywhere off the field to commit. The new name persists to the server with the next autosave and shows up on the dashboard immediately. (Pro tip: Enter commits the rename without moving your hand to the mouse.)

The title bar in edit mode. The text field is highlighted with a yellow underline and shows 'Idea-to-diagram flow' being typed. The cursor sits at the end of the string and the right side of the bar shows the save indicator. — Figure 6 — renaming. Click the title once to enter edit mode, click outside to commit.

Step 7 — Share it

The fastest way to share what you just drew is the Share panel in the activity bar on the left edge of the editor. Click the share icon in the activity bar (the one shaped like a paper plane / share glyph) to open the panel. It surfaces a stack of sharing tools:

Rename — quick rename of the current diagram without leaving the panel.
Share with people — opens the dialog where you generate a live collaboration link (real-time, presence cursors, edit permissions) and a read-only public link (static snapshot at /p/<hash>).
Version history — browse and restore earlier autosaves of the diagram.
Comments — read and post pinned comments. Comments stick to a spot on the canvas; drag the pin to move it, click the checkmark to resolve.
Export & backup — download the scene as .corridraw, PNG, or SVG.

Click Share with people, then Copy link next to either link type. The button briefly flashes Copied! so you know the clipboard has it. Paste into Slack, an email, a doc — anywhere a URL goes. (Pro tip: Ctrl+Shift+S / ⌘+Shift+S opens the Share panel from the keyboard.)

The Share panel open along the left side of the editor, expanded out from the activity bar. A vertical list of five rows: Rename (with a pencil icon and the current diagram name), Share with people (link icon), Version history (clock icon), Comments (speech-bubble icon), and Export & backup (download icon). — Figure 7 — Share panel. Click Share with people to get the live-collab and read-only links.

What's next

You drew, connected, labelled, saved, renamed, and shared a diagram. That's the complete loop. From here, the manual splits into focused chapters:

Map every part of the editor UI in Anatomy of the editor.
Explore the full shape catalogue in Shapes.
Learn arrow types and bindings in Arrows & lines.
See how to invite collaborators in Share a link.