Choosing Autolayout Parameters

Click Tools > Auto Layout.

Note: If you have existing annotations associated with any parts of your workspace, you should attach them to their source; otherwise, they will move to a different area of the canvas.

Layout Type

These are preset layout configurations that can be useful if you have a very large workspace. You might have to experiment to see which one works best for your particular workspace. You can choose one of these selections and leave the default values in the fields below, or adjust the values below to fine-tune the layout.

Simple: Chooses a basic layout and disables horizontal and vertical layout options.
Compact: Compacts the workspace.
Spaced-Out: Spreads out the workspace.
Left-Aligned:

Right-Aligned:

Horizontal Layout

If you choose Squeeze Left or Squeeze right, it will squeeze objects to either side if there is extra blank space in the view. Choosing Neither means that the objects will be spread out.

Vertical Layout

If you choose Squeeze Up or Squeeze Down, it will squeeze objects to the top or bottom if there is extra blank space in the view. Choosing Neither means that the objects will be spread out.

Squeeze Down:

Squeeze Up:

Horizontal and Vertical Spacing

The spacing is the minimum space between adjacent objects, so even if you have Squeezing enabled, you can specify a lot of space between objects. The squeeze parameters are really to specify where to place objects if there is extra blank space in the workspace.

Line up reader feature types on left; Line up writer feature types on right: These checkboxes determine whether the reader and writer feature types should be lined up, on their own, at the left or right of the diagram. If they aren't set, the feature types may be moved into the center of the diagram with the transformers.

Layout selected items only: Choose to auto-layout only what you have selected in the workspace.
Insert extra connector vertices: Allows you to route connectors and place objects around attached comments using the Insert Vertex on Link command.