Snap to grid


Just for starters, I’m a bit maniac and I like things to be aligned and even.


I mostly use Miro to create game design systems (UX flow, tech trees, level layouts...). Those can be pretty complex with hundreds of items but the ease of use, the simple shortcuts and the minimalistic UI of MIRO allow me to seamlessly materialize my ideas without friction.

Yet, something bothers me a lot, I can’t snap objects to the grid which means that in order to keep my stuff nice and clear to present to my colleagues I have to manually create a grid with boxes.

This process is tedious and suboptimal and I’d really love an option to snap objects to grid (whether it is their corners or their center I don’t really care).

Thanks for making my life easier with a great tool!

This is a table stakes feature where others, even Visio and Lucid is much better. 


+1 for universal grid-snapping! Makes Miro much less useful to my team of engineers!


ADD SNAP TO GRID PLEASE. 

 


I second that!

 

Snap to grid is a so essential and basic function that I could not believe that anybody would implement a canvas-type tool without it…

 

:scream:


+1, can't understand how such a full featured app doesn't have this basic/core feature. Whimsical.com beats Miro in this regard.


Dear Miro team. 👉 SNAP. TO. GRID. 👈

The lack of this feature is one of the main points that still makes me long for Whimsical. People like me have been tweaking their way around this for ages now. Especially, when working on extensive Story or Journey Maps, a little alignment helps a lot to keep things tidy and organized. Just do it! Please!😘


SAKES….. ^^^^ THIS!

For the OCD among us, and for the jillion “design matters” people everywhere JUST DO IT!

And wonderful product that you have created that has made all these passionate people plead with you to add this important and necessary feature.

Thank you!


Not being able to snap to grid is frustrating. I can see the grid and I can kinda use it to align things, but attempting to create any cohesive layouts becomes an infuriating task because you never get it just right and things start to distract you more than they should.

This is a basic feature in most other comparable services and applications.


Deal breaker for me moving over to Miro TBH.

Not sure why the concept is so foreign to this software.

Canvas has a grid > Right Click choose Grid Options > Make grid whatever size, amount you want > Snap Objects to grid > DONE


How is this not an option?

I want to edit the canvas grid to an 8px grid with 24px sub grid and then have all my objects snap to this grid. Why is this not an option? Mind Boggler.

I wanted to move my team over from another app to Miro but this is a complete dealbreaker.

If we make flow charts with out the snapping they will look ugly and misaligned. Then, if Miro somehow wakes up to the fact that every other app has this and it is because users want it, then I’ll have to go through all my files again and snap all the objects to the new grid. NO THANK YOU

And the Snap Objects has nothing really to do with this because I want to snap objects TO GRID as well as each other. They are 2 separate functions. We need both. (on a positive note, thank you for adding the feature of remembering what my last linking arrowhead was - both arrowheads or one)

Please +1 this so they implement it.


New to Miro.

Just started my first dashboard.

I put one object on the page. 

“Huh… no auto-snap to the grid… there must be a setting”

Type “Miro <space>” in the search bar and “Miro snap to grip” autocompletes. 

Now reading this thread. 


Hello. I am confused about something. I enabled Snap Objects on my dot grid:
 

But it doesn’t work? I mean, it snaps when I draw out a box, but if I try to resize or move it around, the snapping is broken. Anyone know why this is? I can’t imagine it’s intentional?


Hi everyone,

:tada:  Just wanted to announce that Snap to grid feature is now available in the Dot Grid! Please learn more in the Help Center article.

 


Need this feature yesterday.

Very surprised it’s not already a feature.

Will revert back to a different tool until this is sorted because everything looks much worse without it and I don’t want to spend time building rulers for workarounds.

 

Edit: Great to see there’s been a reply and a Snap to grid feature added.


I feel this still does not work properly?

Lines (endpoints) are not snapping to the grid…

Multiple selected items are not snapping to the grid...

(will add more as i discover)


I feel this still does not work properly?

Lines (endpoints) are not snapping to the grid…

Multiple selected items are not snapping to the grid...

(will add more as i discover)

Hi, Till.

Thanks a lot for your feedback, I really appreciate it.

I’m Taras, the designer of Miro grid snapping, so let me add a few cents to clarify how things work and why…

 

Line connections are not snappable (yet).
We have experimented with numerous prototypes of connection snapping and in general connectors don’t benefit much from the grid while creating negative side effects for diagrams. We had a few ideas for fine-tuning this behaviour, but they’re rather expensive, so we’ll probably get back to them after polishing the basics.

Multiple objects are being snapped as a group (that has a rectangular bound), not by the bounds of individual widgets. That’s the way it works in most CAD systems and the reason is simple: correcting position of individual objects in a group may adjust positioning in an unwanted way.
The good news: if the objects were snapped to the grid prior to moving, they will most likely be placed on the grid after you drop it. 
I know, this behaviour is not ideal (even thought it works great in most cases) and we will continue investing resources into making our content alignment tools even better.


Hey All,

Took a while to find the answer that works for me. It is the solution posted by @Marina

The feature you are able to use for this is the Dot Grid which has Snap to Grid enabled.

  1. Settings
  2. Background grid
  3. Dot grid
  4. Snap objects to the grid

@Marina can I suggest that you add a simple note on the Line grid tab that notes the Snap to objects grid is currently available under Dot grid only:

 

Perhaps the Dot grid would best be the default grid until the Line grid also has this feature option?

 

Cheers,

Martyn


  • Amusingly, the shape defaults do not fit the dot grid - they’re a little larger than the grid itself.
  • This feature is a lot harder to access than it should be, as well; from this user’s perspective, the sliders don’t read as options because that’s a non-standard icon for settings - a gear, “hamburger,” or ellipsis (currently in use for “apps”) are more standard.
  • Better, make it a top-level button on the left nav bar.

Totally need snap to grid for all grid layouts, not just the dots. And it should work better...WYSWYG...so as you move your object it automatically aligns to the closest line, not what you currently have, which only aligns after you let it go, which is problematic if it does not do what you thought. I hate moving things twice...waste of time. Please add this feature! It is in every other tool! Thanks!


When will we get actual grid snapping? How can I be sure everything is perfect if the snap to grid does not work?

 


Line connections are not snappable (yet).
We have experimented with numerous prototypes of connection snapping and in general connectors don’t benefit much from the grid while creating negative side effects for diagrams. We had a few ideas for fine-tuning this behaviour, but they’re rather expensive, so we’ll probably get back to them after polishing the basics.

Hi Tars, 

You suggest main use case for snapping is diagrams, however it is not the only case. The inability to snap lines is a big limitation if I want to make a simple vector drawing/scheme. Not sure what do you imply by “expensive ideas”, is a simple toggle expensive?

Thanks,
Dmitriy.


Ive been using Miro for more than 10 years since it was realtimeboard, recently been testing out figjam, thats a good reference for how grid should work here in Miro, miro’s snapping is super annoying you need to separate it out like other apps do maybe, separate snap to grid and smart snapping features

or maybe if you want to keep it super simple, just make snap prioritise the grid over other objects that are miles away on the board, perhaps could use the extends of the current view to make the decision what the user wants to snap to

 


Maybe I missed something here, in this case I need to have the mind map subjects not snapping to a grid, while I can add objects that doesn´t snap, the text subjects I enter and move, is locked to a grid somehow, and it doesn´t matter if I in the preferences turn off the grid, or right click and turn off snap objects.

 

it could be the template that has some sort of setting maybe?

So in this case until I want it differently, I need to have the snapping off, but it´s just not working, how´s that for a difference :)

/Michael

 


My case solved.

I used a mind map template, autolayout was turned on, thus the subjects just snapped back to where they were created.

Though I though I had that checked when selecting all items previously ..but I somehow missed that.

Unchecking autolayout, and the subjects can then be moved freely without snapping back.

/Michael


Hello from 2023, snap to grid still doesn’t work, even if the feature is enabled in canvas-dot mode.