The Glowforge App Workspace

The Glowforge App Workspace is a place to make magical things happen! Let’s get familiar with your tools.

For this article, we are dividing the app into four main sections, labeled below for desktop and mobile displays:

1. App Navigation bar
2. Main Menu
3. Context Menu
4. Print Steps

Desktop:

Mobile:

App Navigation Bar

At the top level, you have a navigation bar that houses access to settings and menus.

This navigation bar, from left to right, contains:

1. Navigation menu (shown below)
2. Glowforge logo links back to the app dashboard
3. Print Steps entry point (on mobile browsers)
4. Materials selector button (on desktop browsers)
  - Read more about the material sector tool in the Print Steps section below.
5. Name of your open project
  - You can click here to edit the project name from the navigation bar.
6. Account settings and machine selector
  - Opening this tab enables you to see and access your account settings, including switching between Glowforge machines if you have multiple connected to your account.

App Main Menu

At the top of your workspace is the main menu, which is always shown.

On mobile, use your finger to scroll across all the main menu options:

The tools in the Main Menu, from left to right, are:

	Preview Mode	Note: this tool is only available for HD and Craft Series lasers.
	Zoom
	Select and Pan toggle tool
	Undo / Redo
	Scan from lid camera	Here’s a quick introduction to turning a drawing into a print. For a detailed tutorial, see here.
	Upload from file	Learn to upload and engrave a photo here.
	Magic Canvas Premium Tool	Have an amazing idea, but not entirely sure how to make it come to life? Learn to embellish your designs with Magic Canvas AI creations here.
	Add Artwork Premium Tool	Includes shapes + thousands of artwork designs. Learn more about shapes here, and artwork here.
	Insert Text Premium Tool	Learn more about adding text here, and about saving custom fonts here.
	Menu: More	See past prints, keyboard shortcuts, preferences, and other settings.
	Set Focus	Your Glowforge measures the height of your material at the center of your design to determine where to focus the laser. Learn about Focus here.
	Glowforge machine status and Print Button

Context Menu

The context menu appears whenever any object(s) are selected, and shows tools available to use on the object. On a desktop sized browser, it opens on the right-hand side, and on a mobile browser, it opens on the bottom of the app.

On mobile, use your finger to scroll on the context menu for more tools:

The icons on the Context Menu are:

	Reposition and resize selected artwork	Use the Reposition and resize tool to scale your designs. Learn more here.
	Align and Distribute selected groups	Align objects like artwork and text to the top, middle or bottom of one object to the top, middle or bottom of another object. You can do the same with lefts, centers, and rights! Learn more here. Select two or more objects for this tool to appear.
	Create outline	With the Create Outline tool, you can create a custom shape that matches the outline of your selected artwork. You can use this outline to cut out your designs, create framing effects, engrave a silhouette, create a continuous text effect, and much more! Learn more here.
	Rotate/flip
	Cut	Learn more and see examples here.
	Copy	Copy-and-paste makes it even easier for you to create great Glowforge designs, without having to keep creating the same shape. Learn more here.
	Paste	Copy-and-paste makes it even easier for you to create great Glowforge designs, without having to keep creating the same shape. Learn more here.
	Paste as a new step	Once you’ve copied your selected objects or artwork, you can set up different print settings for each copy you paste. Maybe you want one shape to be a cut, for example, while the other is a score. Learn more here.
	Templates	Open Templates to access: Patterned Line Puzzle maker Stamp maker
	Smartfit	Smartfit organizes the pieces of your design to help you maximize material usage and save time. Learn more here. Select two or more objects for this tool to appear.
	Join	Join is a tool that connects vector shapes together. This feature can be used when you have two or more vector shapes that you want to combine into a single shape for cutting. Learn more here. Select two or more vectors for this tool to appear.
	Group	Use grouping to easily move and resize a collection of objects without altering their relationship to one another. Learn more here. Select two or more objects for this tool to appear.
	Ungroup	Remove the group designation from a group you created to edit parts independently. Learn more here.
	Edit in Group	When you're working within a group, you can make fine adjustments to just one of the items without having to ungroup everything. Learn more here.