Web Development: 4 Ways to Resize Elements in Figma

Friday, July 17, 2020

4 Ways to Resize Elements in Figma

In this quick tip I’ll show you 4 ways you can resize elements in Figma, in case the default method doesn’t behave as you expect it to. Let’s begin!

Resizing Elements in Figma

Here’s a complete video version of the tutorial. Follow along with us over on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel:

1. Default: Click and Drag

By default in Figma, to resize an element you need to select it, then grab one of the transformation controls and drag the object as you need. Its dimensions will be displayed on a tool tip as you do so.

Press SHIFT whilst you’re doing this and you’ll constrain the proportions.

When Clicking and Dragging Doesn’t Work

You’ll find that sometimes this approach doesn’t work as you might expect; like on objects with strokes for example. For example, this icon, when scaled using the same technique, gets completely distorted because the stroke stays the same width:

To prevent this you need to do things differently..

2. Figma’s Scale Tool

The scale tool in Figma can be found here (or keyboard shortcut K):

The cursor will change slightly, and now you can click and drag the controls in the same way, but retain the stroke width proportion as you resize the object.

3. The Properties Inspector

If you want to change the size of an object extremely precisely, reach for the width and height fields in the inspector:

Either drag the values with your mouse cursor, or enter the values with the keyboard.

Math Bonus

As a nice extra you can even perform math operations in the inspector fields. Entering 300+150 will resolve to 450 (for example) and all other common operations will work just fine.

4. Keyboard Shortcuts

Finally, the last way you can resize objects in Figma is with the keyboard shortcuts. Select an object, then press down CTRL on Windows, or COMMAND on Mac, then use the arrow keys to increase the width or height of the object 1px at a time. Pressing SHIFT at the same time will increase the increment to 10px to speed things up.

That’s a Wrap!

And those are the 4 ways you can resize objects in Figma! I hope you enjoyed this quick guide, and don’t forget to check out our other Figma resources listed below.