FigJam Keyboard Shortcuts
FigJam runs on the same underlying engine as Figma and shares a meaningful chunk of its tool-switching shortcuts as a result, but it's built for a genuinely different purpose — collaborative brainstorming and workshop facilitation rather than precise interface design — and adds its own layer of shortcuts around sticky notes, voting/reactions, and the timer feature commonly used to keep workshop activities on schedule. Design teams already fluent in Figma's shortcuts transfer that knowledge to FigJam almost immediately for the shared basics, with the real new learning concentrated in FigJam's workshop-facilitation-specific tools. The one exception is the timer widget, whose start/pause/reset controls only appear once a timer object already exists on the board, so there's no global keyboard way to summon one from scratch. What follows is written for facilitators leading live workshops, design sprints, and remote brainstorms, rather than interface designers who dip into FigJam occasionally as a side tool alongside Figma proper, since that facilitation context is where the emoji reactions, cursor chat, voting, and timer features actually earn their place in a session. If your team already lives in Figma for product design, expect the tool-switching shortcuts here to require essentially zero relearning, while the workshop-facilitation category is worth a few minutes of deliberate practice before running a live session with an audience watching.
Shape Sticky Tools
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sticky note tool | S | S | Activates the Sticky Note tool, FigJam's core brainstorming element, letting you click to place a colored note ready for immediate text entry. |
| Shape tool | R (cycles through shape types) | R | Activates the shape tool for drawing rectangles, circles, and other basic shapes used in diagrams and flowcharts, shared conceptually with Figma's own shape tools. |
| Connector/arrow tool | C | C | Switches to the connector tool for drawing a line between two shapes or sticky notes that keeps tracking both endpoints automatically as either one gets dragged around — the backbone of any flowchart or process map built in FigJam. |
| Text tool | T | T | Activates the standalone text tool for placing freely positioned text on the board. FigJam text placed this way inherits the same commenting and reaction affordances as sticky notes when clicked by another collaborator during a live session, so a floating text label can still gather emoji reactions in a workshop the same way a sticky can, despite not being an actual sticky note object. |
| Pen/drawing tool | P | P | Activates freehand drawing mode for sketching directly on the canvas with a mouse, trackpad, or stylus, useful for quick annotations or rough diagrams that don't need the precision of the shape or connector tools. |
Workshop Facilitation
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add emoji reaction to canvas | E, then click canvas | E, then click | Places a floating emoji reaction at the clicked canvas location, commonly used during live collaborative sessions for quick, low-friction feedback or reactions without needing a full comment. |
| Open Cursor Chat | / | / | Opens a small chat bubble attached to your live cursor, letting you type a quick message visible to other collaborators in real time without switching to a separate comment or chat panel, useful for brief in-the-moment communication during a live session. |
| Start the Timer widget | Add Timer widget from toolbar, no default key to start | Same | FigJam's Timer widget, commonly used to keep a workshop brainstorming activity time-boxed, is added from the widget toolbar and started via its own on-canvas controls rather than a dedicated global keyboard shortcut. |
| Cast a vote (dot voting) | Click sticky/shape with Vote tool active, no default key | Same | FigJam's dot-voting feature lets workshop participants click to place a vote marker on their preferred idea among several sticky notes, primarily a click-driven interaction once voting mode is activated from the toolbar. |
| Use the Stamp tool | Click stamp icon in toolbar, no default key | — | Places a small pre-designed icon (a checkmark, star, or question mark, among others) at the clicked location, a slightly more structured alternative to a freeform emoji reaction, commonly used for lightweight approval or flagging during a review session. |
Navigation
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom to fit all content | Shift+1 | Shift+1 | Adjusts zoom and pan so all canvas content is visible within the viewport, shared with the same shortcut convention in Figma itself. |
| Follow another user's view | Click their avatar, no keyboard shortcut | Same | Locks your view to follow a specific collaborator's cursor and viewport in real time, useful for a facilitator guiding a group's attention during a live session, triggered by clicking that user's avatar rather than a keyboard shortcut. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do so many FigJam shortcuts match Figma's exactly?
FigJam is built on the same underlying rendering and collaboration engine as Figma, sharing core interaction patterns for basic tool-switching (shapes, text, connectors) since both applications solve overlapping 'place and manipulate objects on an infinite canvas' problems — the divergence happens specifically around each tool's distinctive purpose-built features, like FigJam's sticky notes and workshop facilitation tools versus Figma's component and auto-layout systems for interface design.
Do workshop features like the Timer and Voting widgets require a paid FigJam plan?
Availability of specific widgets and features can depend on your organization's specific Figma/FigJam plan tier, and Figma has adjusted free-tier limitations for these tools over time, so checking your current plan's feature list directly against Figma's own pricing page is the most reliable way to confirm exactly what's available without assuming free-tier parity with a paid plan.
Does Cursor Chat save as a permanent record, or is it ephemeral?
Cursor Chat messages are generally treated as lightweight, transient communication during a live collaborative session rather than a permanently saved comment thread the way FigJam's separate comment feature is — it's built for quick in-the-moment coordination rather than a persistent discussion record, so anything requiring a lasting written trail is better suited to the dedicated comment tool instead.
What's the difference between an emoji reaction and a Stamp?
An emoji reaction draws from the full standard emoji set, offering broad expressive range for quick reactions during a live session, while Stamps are a smaller, more purpose-built set of icons (checkmarks, stars, flags) specifically designed for structured feedback like marking an item as approved or flagged, which some facilitators prefer for consistency when running a formal review or voting exercise rather than open-ended reactions.
Can I use the Pen tool for anything beyond casual annotation, like precise diagrams?
The Pen tool is built for freehand sketching rather than precise vector drawing, so strokes follow your actual mouse or stylus movement without snapping to guides or exact angles the way the shape and connector tools do — for anything requiring precision, like an aligned flowchart, the shape and connector tools remain the better choice, with the Pen tool best reserved for quick, informal annotations or rough sketches where exactness isn't the priority.
Is there a shortcut for converting a sticky note into a text-only comment in FigJam?
No — FigJam treats sticky notes and comments as fundamentally different object types with different purposes (a sticky note is a persistent canvas element, a comment is a threaded discussion attached to a point), so there's no direct keyboard conversion between them; recreating the content as the other type is a manual copy-and-recreate step.