Stop rectangle shapes from automatically resizing

Hi Benton thanks for posting in the Lucidchart Community! To lock down a shape's position size and/or style select the shape and click the lock icon. When locking down the size and position of the shape it won't resize when adding text.

For more information on this and other shape styling topics please take a look at the Modify Format and Style Shapes article in our Help Center. 

@eric r Can you help me resolve a similar issue. I need the boxes to stop resizing everytime I edit text. I do not want to lock the position as I am still in the middle of creating my document. I only want to lock the size to the box stays with a length of 4 and a height of 2 regardless of the text that I enter into it. I am literally wasting hours undoing the auto-resize of by boxes everytime I create one. Here is more detail ono my workflow:

1. Format a shape exactly how I want it
2. Copy the shape
3. Paste the shape
4. Edit the text in the shape
5. Clean up the positioning of all shapes and make the document presentable

#4 is where I am constantly getting stuck fixing the auto-resize lucid is doing. Open to your feedback. I am hoping there is a way to disable auto-resizing across the board as I do not want this enabled.

Thanks

Hi Lee thanks for following up on this thread! Using the 'Match Size' feature could help with this (GIF example below). It will not prevent the box from resizing (unfortunately there is currently no way to only lock the shape size) but it will help you quickly modify the incorrectly sized shapes. 

Still no solution?

Hi @Jason Bourne, thanks for following up on this thread! Shapes will automatically resize to fit all text that is added to the shape. But you can still use the “Match Size” feature above to adjust the size of the shape behind the text, or click + drag the corners to customize the size. You can also select “Auto” as your text size, as some standard shapes will not adjust with this option selected.

We’re very interested in your feedback and committed to continually improving our products. If you’re willing to share, we’d love to hear more details about your use case or what you’d like to see in this experience within this thread. I’ve also converted this post to an idea so that it’s visible to others within the Product Feedback section of the community - from here, they can upvote it and add details of their own.

Finally, for more information on how Lucid manages feedback via this community, take a look at this post:

https://community.lucid.co/welcome-to-the-lucid-community-15/feedback-and-feature-requests-5439

I just tried this. It appears text will auto resize but the shape also changes size. I’m looking for fixed sized shapes. I assumed auto text sizing would prevent the shape from changing size, but that apparently is not the case.

@Jason Bourne, would you mind sending a screenshot of the shape you are using? When using the shapes in Flowchart and Shapes libraries with Auto as my font size, the shape does not resize as I text. I’m happy to take a look at your specific use case to see if I can help.

Thanks for sending that screenshot, @Jason Bourne! Can you please send a temporary Support PIN for this document? This will allow me to take a closer look at the issue you’re experiencing. For more information on generating a Support PIN, check out this Help Center article.

@Jason Bourne, after taking a look at your document and doing some additional testing on my end, it looks like the UML shapes that you are using do not behave the same way as some of our other shapes when you have “Auto” selected as the text size. To keep the size of your shape while using the “Auto” text feature, I would recommend using a shape from our “Shapes” or “Flowchart,” as the text will adjust within the shape, without altering the shape size.

If you’re willing to share, we’d love to hear more details about your use case or what you’d like to see with UML shapes within this thread. We appreciate your feedback!

I took that shape from one of your templates, so I’m surprised it won’t work like every other shape. We needed a rectangle with a title.

Hi @Jason Bourne, the UML shapes are created by Lucid, but have been designed for UML diagrams specifically, so the properties in the code are different from other shape libraries. However, I have raised this issue with our development team, and will keep you updated on this thread as I learn more.

There is a very similar shape in the Value Stream: Information shape library that does appear to retain the size as the text is resized, I would recommend using that shape in the meantime.

I’d like to add another voice in support of the others.  I need the boxes and other shapes in my flowcharts to have the option to not resize either the dimensions of the shape OR the text within.  I want uniformity in the look and feel of my flows while maintaining conformance to a given page size (and the desired font size of my choosing).  If my content doesn’t match my preset constraints, I will edit the text so it fits or edit the box sizes--but I prefer not to wrangle with the shapes and instead use the fixed size parameters as a tool to force editorial brevity.  Using the “match size” still requires additional steps and takes away some of the visual control over object sizing from the creator.  It’s a standard feature in Visio and PowerPoint to not auto resize both the text and the shape, and I hope you can add it to LucidChart as well.  Thanks!

Hi @Vishal, thanks for adding your thoughts here! This is helpful for our product teams as they review feedback from users. Make sure you also upvote this idea at the top of the thread!

I am having the same issue and it is SO frustrating.  Having recently and reluctantly moved over from Visio, this auto sizing nonsense is surprising.  Surely there is a way to choose to switch off shape auto sizing in 2024?

Another vote for this functionality please.  It is super frustrating and time consuming having to constantly adjust box size especially when you have end to end maps with hundreds of boxes / shapes.  Different sizes boxes look unprofessional, the time wasted in trying to maintain uniformity is irritating.  This should not be a massive ask for your Dev team.

Hi @Caroline W102, thanks for adding to this thread! In my recent testing, it looks like with the Auto font size selected, the shape will not resize but text will adjust to fit within the shape. Is there a specific shape you are using where this is not the case? Please note, tables do not currently support the Auto size feature and will be resized as text is added.

One additional thing I realized that is not mentioned in the initial posts, if you select a specific size for your font, the text should continue to extend beyond the shape. This may not have been the case at the time of the first post, but should now be the experience for all users with most shapes. (see GIF below)

+1 for I want neither the shape nor the text to resize.

We have a set of custom shapes that are designed to work/fit together while snapping to a 0.125” grid (because 0.0625” rounds to 0.063” and no longer aligns with page rulers). When the shape auto-expands in height, it no longer aligns with its neighbors (because only edges, not centers, will snap to the grid).

It’s fine if the standard-sized text overflows a bit. We can manually adjust the width to accomodate if needed.

EDIT TO ADD: I may have found my workaround. Instead of using a native Lucid shape, if I import a Visio shape, it will not resize and allows text to overflow!!

Hi @k8siegel,

Thanks for following up in this thread! That’s great to hear that you found a workaround. Although we don’t have a specific update regarding this feature at this time, we’re very interested in your feedback and committed to continually improving our products. 

We encourage anyone else who’s interested in this to upvote this post and share any additional details about your use case or what you’d like to see in this experience. For more information about how we manage feedback in this community, please take a look at this post.