Penpot Keyboard Shortcuts
Penpot's shortcuts will feel broadly familiar to anyone arriving from another design tool, because the single-letter tool keys follow a convention most of them share: V for move, R for rectangle, E for ellipse, T for text. Where Penpot differs is mostly in naming rather than in keys, and one of those naming differences is worth stating first because it affects everything else you do. Penpot calls its frame primitive a **board**, and it lives on B. Figma calls the same thing a frame and puts it on F; Sketch calls it an artboard and uses A. All three are the same idea — a container that defines a screen or an artboard and clips what falls outside it — and all three use a different letter. That is the mapping to fix first if you are switching, because boards are the structural element everything else sits inside, and reaching for F in Penpot does nothing. The second thing worth knowing before memorising anything is that Penpot runs in a browser, which puts a constraint on its keymap that native applications do not have. Some combinations belong to the browser and cannot be intercepted, so Penpot works around them. Where a shortcut here differs from what a native tool would use, browser reservation is usually the reason. Running Penpot as an installed progressive web app frees up a few of these, which is a reasonable argument for doing so if you use it daily. Penpot is open source and self-hostable, which matters in a way that touches this page: the version you are using may not be the current one. Self-hosted instances lag behind the hosted service by however long it has been since the administrator updated, and shortcuts have been added over time. Pressing ? opens the shortcuts panel for whichever build you are actually running, and that is the answer that cannot be out of date.
Tools Drawing
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Board tool | B | B | Draws a board, Penpot's container for a screen or artboard. The letter to relearn if you are coming from Figma, where the same primitive is a frame on F, or Sketch, where it is an artboard on A. |
| Move tool | V | V | Returns to selection and moving from whichever drawing tool you were in. The universal escape hatch across design software, and the one binding that transfers unchanged between every tool in this category. |
| Rectangle tool | R | R | Draws a rectangle. Holding Shift while dragging constrains it to a square, which is the same modifier convention Penpot applies to every proportional constraint. |
| Ellipse tool | E | E | Draws an ellipse, or a circle with Shift held. Paired with R in the same way most design tools pair their two primitive shapes, so this one transfers cleanly from elsewhere. |
| Text tool | T | T | Creates a text layer — click for auto-width, drag for a fixed box. The distinction matters for anything that will hold variable content, since auto-width text grows rather than wrapping. |
| Colour picker | I | I | Samples a colour from anywhere on the canvas. Being browser-based, Penpot's picker is limited to the canvas rather than the whole screen, which is a genuine constraint compared with a native tool. |
Layers Components
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duplicate the selection | Ctrl+D | Cmd+D | Copies the selected layers in place. Moving the duplicate and pressing the shortcut again repeats the offset, which is the fast route to an evenly spaced row without laying out each item. |
| Group / ungroup layers | Ctrl+G / Shift+G | Cmd+G / Shift+G | Groups the selection, and ungroups with Shift+G rather than the Ctrl+Shift+G most tools use. That asymmetry is a small but persistent annoyance for anyone switching between applications. |
| Wrap the selection in a board | Ctrl+Alt+G | Cmd+Option+G | Creates a board sized to fit the selected layers, rather than drawing one and moving things into it. The right move when a group has grown into something that should clip and behave as a screen. |
| Create a component | Ctrl+K | Cmd+K | Turns the selection into a reusable component whose copies update with the original. Ctrl+K is unusual for this action — Figma uses Ctrl+Alt+K — and it collides with the browser's search bar focus in some configurations. |
| Flip horizontally / vertically | Shift+H / Shift+V | Shift+H / Shift+V | Mirrors the selection in place about its own centre. Unlike a canvas mirror in a painting application, this genuinely transforms the layers and appears in the history. |
| Bring forward / send backward | Ctrl+Up / Ctrl+Down | Cmd+Up / Cmd+Down | Moves the selection one step through the stacking order. Adding Shift jumps to the front or the back outright, which is usually what you want when an element has ended up buried. |
View Alignment
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pan the canvas | Hold Space and drag | Hold Space and drag | Temporarily switches to panning while Space is held, returning to the previous tool on release. The standard across every design application, and one of the few conventions that never varies. |
| Align centre horizontally / vertically | Alt+H / Alt+V | Option+H / Option+V | Centres the selection within its board, or centres multiple selected objects relative to each other. Which of the two happens depends on how many layers are selected, and it is not always obvious which you are about to get. |
| Zoom to fit | Shift+1 | Shift+1 | Fits everything on the page into the viewport. Shift+2 zooms to the selection instead, which is the more frequently useful of the two once a file has grown past a handful of boards. |
| Reset zoom to 100% | Shift+0 | Shift+0 | Returns to actual size. Worth pressing before judging type sizes or fine spacing, since any other zoom level is showing a scaled approximation of what will render. |
| Toggle the grid | Ctrl+' | Cmd+' | Shows and hides the layout grid on the current board. The apostrophe is a common location for this across design tools, though whether it needs Shift varies by keyboard layout. |
| Show the shortcuts panel | ? | ? | Opens a searchable list of every binding in your build. Worth more in Penpot than in most applications, because self-hosted instances vary in version and any published list may describe a different one. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the board tool B and not F?
Because Penpot calls the primitive a board where Figma calls it a frame, and each tool took the first letter of its own name. Sketch calls the same thing an artboard and uses A. All three are the same concept — a container defining a screen, clipping what falls outside it — with three different names and three different keys. If you are moving from Figma this is the single most disruptive mapping to relearn, because boards are the structure everything else sits inside, so you reach for the key constantly.
Does Penpot import Figma files?
Penpot has an importer for Figma files and it handles a good deal — layers, text, basic components — but it is a translation between two applications with different internal models, not a lossless transfer. Complex prototypes, plugin-generated content and advanced auto-layout configurations are where fidelity drops. Anyone evaluating a migration should test with a representative file rather than a simple one, because the simple case gives a misleadingly good impression.
Do browser shortcuts conflict with Penpot's?
Yes, and this is the main constraint on a browser-based design tool's keymap. Some combinations are reserved by the browser and cannot be intercepted by a web application at all, so Penpot has to route around them. Installing Penpot as a progressive web app releases several of these, since an installed PWA runs without the browser's own chrome and its associated bindings — which is a practical argument for installing it if you use Penpot daily rather than occasionally.
Why is ungroup Shift+G rather than Ctrl+Shift+G?
That is simply how Penpot binds it, and it is genuinely inconsistent with the Ctrl+G used for grouping. Most design tools pair group and ungroup as a modifier apart. The asymmetry catches people out repeatedly, particularly when switching between applications in the same session, and it is one of the more commonly remarked-upon rough edges in Penpot's keymap. There is no deeper reason to learn — it just has to be memorised.
Where can I see the shortcuts for my version?
Press ? to open the shortcuts panel, or find it in the main menu under help. This matters more for Penpot than for hosted-only tools, because Penpot is open source and self-hostable — the instance you are using may be months behind the current release, and shortcuts have been added over time. The panel reflects whatever build you are actually running, which no published list can guarantee.
How do components differ from groups?
A group is an organisational container: moving one copy has no effect on another. A component is a reusable definition, so copies stay linked to the original and update when it changes. Ctrl+G makes a group, Ctrl+K makes a component. The distinction matters for anything appearing more than once — a button, a card, a nav bar — because grouping means updating every copy by hand later. Penpot also supports overriding specific properties on an individual copy without breaking the link.
Can I customise Penpot's keyboard shortcuts?
Not in the way a native application usually allows — Penpot has no keymap editor for reassigning bindings. Your options are limited to operating-system-level or browser-level remapping, which is a blunt instrument and affects everything rather than just Penpot. This is a real difference from tools that ship a full keymap editor, and worth factoring in if you have strong muscle memory you had hoped to bring across.
Does Penpot work offline?
Not meaningfully. It is a web application, and even installed as a progressive web app it needs to reach its server to load and save files. Self-hosting changes where that server is rather than removing the requirement — a self-hosted instance on your own machine works without internet access, but not without the server running. For genuinely offline design work, a native application remains the answer.