The canvas
The canvas is where you draw. It shows your design, the hoop outline (the area your machine can stitch), and optional rulers and a grid. For the tool rail, the essentials bar, and the panels around it, see The workspace.
Units
Boldbobbin measures in millimetres (mm): real-world size. The Properties panel shows positions and sizes in mm (for example "Width (mm)"). You can display imperial units instead; see Settings → Unit system ("Metric (mm)" or "Imperial (in)").
For on-screen sizes to match real millimetres at 1:1 zoom, calibrate your display once. See Calibrate your display.
Pan and zoom
- Zoom: hold Ctrl or Cmd and scroll, or pinch on a trackpad. Zoom centers on the pointer.
- Pan: two-finger scroll on a trackpad, the Pan tool (H), or hold Space to pan with any tool.
- Zoom presets (View menu, or shortcuts): Zoom to fit (Ctrl/Cmd+0), 1:1 actual size (Ctrl/Cmd+1), 3× (Ctrl/Cmd+3), 6× (Ctrl/Cmd+6). The zoom controls sit on the bottom bar, under the canvas, and include a field you can type an exact percentage into. See Keyboard shortcuts.
- Center on hoop: next to the zoom controls, a button recenters the view on the hoop without changing zoom. (A different, per-object Center on hoop also exists in the floating action bar: that one moves a selected object, not the view.)
The hoop
The hoop is drawn centered on the canvas origin. Choose the hoop that matches your machine so the stitching area is correct: see Hoops and machines. If a design is bigger than the hoop, Boldbobbin warns you but still lets you work; see Design larger than the hoop.
While stitches are generating
When a batch of shapes needs stitching out at once (importing an SVG, running Auto-Trace, opening a design, or changing the fill on a multi-selection), a Stitching shapes card appears over the top of the canvas with a progress bar and a count, like 37 / 90 · 41%. It counts distinct shapes, and it only shows up for batches big enough to be worth reporting, so quick edits never flash it. You can keep working while it runs.
Grid and snapping
Toggle the grid with Toggle grid (Shift+G).
Snapping aligns objects you draw or drag to the grid, the hoop, and other objects, showing guide lines and × markers at what you lined up with.
Snapping is off until you turn it on. Turn it on with Shift+Y or in Settings → Parameters.
It used to be on, and at most zoom levels it wasn't nudging your points, it was quantizing them: the capture zone covered the whole gap between grid lines, so every point you placed landed on one. Grid capture is now limited to a quarter of the gap on each side, so half of every cell stays free at any zoom, and it behaves like a magnet again. Object and hoop snapping are unchanged.
Hold Ctrl or Cmd during a drag or draw gesture to flip snapping for that one action. In Settings → Parameters, choose which targets snapping aligns to (grid, hoop, other objects, each independently) and whether to show alignment guides at all.
The temporary alignment guides that snapping flashes while you drag are separate from the persistent guide overlays you draw with the Ruler.
The canvas HUD
The top-right corner of the canvas carries the render-mode switch and the three stitch overlays:
See Render modes. Snapping and Guides used to have toggles here too; both were removed in v1.2.2.