Gestures

Procreate Dreams is designed for touch on iPad. Basic gestures work the same way throughout the entire app, while the Timeline and Stage also have some of their own unique gestures.

Basic Gestures

Use these gestures to navigate your way around the Stage and Timeline while speeding up your workflow.

Pan

Use a two-finger slide to pan in any direction across the Timeline, Stage, or Canvas. Touch and slide with two fingers in the direction you wish to move.

Pinch to zoom

A two-finger pinch zooms in and out on the Timeline, Stage, or Canvas. Zoom in to focus on the fine detail and zoom out to see the bigger picture.

1. Place two fingers on the Timeline, Stage, or Canvas.

2. Pinch your fingers together to zoom out.

3. Move your fingers apart to zoom in.

4. Rotate your hand to rotate the Stage or Canvas as you zoom.

Quick-pinch to fit-to-screen

Use a fast pinching motion to fit all of the content on the Timeline, Stage, or Canvas to the screen.

Two-finger tap to undo

Quickly undo the previous action.

1. Two-finger tap the Timeline, Stage, or Canvas to undo the previous action. A notification will appear at the top of the interface letting you know your previous action was undone.

2. Two-finger tap and hold the interface to sequentially undo a series of actions. Procreate Dreams will rapidly step back through your most recent changes. To stop, lift your fingers off the screen.

Undo history is retained even if you close the app.

Three-finger tap to redo

Quickly redo as many actions as you need with three fingers.

1. Three-finger tap the interface to redo the last action that was undone.

2. Three-finger tap and hold to rapidly redo a series of actions. To stop, lift your fingers off the screen.

Timeline gestures

Some gestures are unique to the Timeline. Master these to boost your workflow and give yourself more time to create.

Instant playback

Playing your Movie from the beginning is as quick as a flick. Quickly flick the Playhead towards the left of the Timeline to play your movie from the start.

Free Trim

Trim content by dragging its edge left or right along the Timeline. While trimming, place another finger on the screen to enable Free Trim. This allows you to trim your content while keeping adjacent content on the same track in the same relative position.

Double-tap to focus

Double-tap anywhere on the Timeline to zoom in closer on that area. You can double-tap again to zoom in further.

Three-finger time scale adjust

Use three fingers and slide horizontally to adjust how much time the Timeline shows on screen.

1. Place three fingers on the Timeline.

2. Slide to the right to decrease the amount of visible time, useful for seeing more details and making finer adjustments.

3. Slide to the left to compact your content and show more time, useful for seeing the bigger picture.

Three-finger content scale adjust

Use three fingers and slide vertically to adjust the vertical scale of your content and keyframes on the Timeline.

1. Place three fingers on the Timeline.

2. Slide up to increase the visible scale of your content.

3. Slide down to decrease the visible scale of your content and fit more on screen.

Stage gestures

The Stage comes with its own set of unique gestures. Use these to enable snapping and preview your content in full-screen.

Enable snapping

Snap your content while moving, transforming, or rotating in Perform or Keyframe mode. When moving or transforming, your content snaps to the edges and center of the Stage. When rotating, content snaps in 30º increments around your content’s anchor point .

To enable snapping, place another finger on the screen when you are in Perform or Keyframe mode and adding a Move & Scale keyframe for content.

Four-finger tap for full-screen preview

Quickly preview your movie in full-screen mode by tapping anywhere on the Stage or Canvas with four fingers. Use the on-screen video controls to play your movie or pan with a single finger to quickly scrub through

1. Four–finger tap on the Stage to invoke full-screen preview.

2. Four–finger tap again to exit full-screen preview.

Apple Pencil Pro users can squeeze to play and pause the movie while in full-screen preview. You can toggle this in Movie settings → Prefs → Gestures → Squeeze Apple Pencil Pro to Play.