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github-actions[bot] edited this page Jul 22, 2026 · 10 revisions

FigureLoom manual

FigureLoom is a browser-based editor for scientific figures, diagrams, posters, presentations, charts, pathways, maps, and other visual research work.

You can use the editor without an account. Local projects are saved in the browser, and complete editable project backups can be downloaded as .figureloom files. Accounts add encrypted cloud projects, sharing, roles, comments, and live collaboration.

New here?

Start with Start here. It walks through creating a project, adding objects, saving a backup, and exporting the result.

Use the Visual interface guide to learn where everything is, or jump to Quick task guides when you need short instructions for one specific action.

The sidebar keeps the full manual organized by editing, scientific tools, files, sharing, tutorials, and troubleshooting.

Current interface notes

  • Open project tabs keep the close control beside each project title. Closing a tab does not silently delete the project.
  • The desktop Pages, Hand, zoom, Format, and Navigation bar can be moved as one complete bar and still uses its existing collapse control.
  • In Phone mode, open More, then choose Help to open the Help center, manual links, visual guide, and passive interface tour.
  • The passive guide has 13 steps covering Projects, Settings, main workspaces, tools, the canvas, pages and layers, the canvas control bar, the inspector, Pro Tools, Loomy, sharing, Help, and export.
  • The guide remains passive. It does not open panels, move objects, change selections, or scroll the project.
  • A project can be connected to a compatible external assistant from Settings → MCP & AI access. Connections are project-specific, revocable, and can be read-only or full access.
  • The VM button opens the hosted FigureLoom Linux desktop for optional browser-based Linux and bioinformatics work.
  • The focused runtime checks cover light and dark desktop and phone layouts, Help opening, project-tab close placement, failed local scripts, page errors, and console errors.

FigureLoom Linux VM tools snapshot

The VM package export currently shows a broad R and bioinformatics environment. Highlights from the captured output include:

  • R 4.3.3 with Bioconductor and genomics packages such as Biostrings, GenomicRanges, GenomicFeatures, VariantAnnotation, Rsamtools, rtracklayer, DESeq2, edgeR, limma, SingleCellExperiment, SummarizedExperiment, phyloseq, WGCNA, GEOquery, biomaRt, GO.db, and KEGGREST
  • Single-cell and omics packages such as Seurat, SeuratObject, scater, scuttle, sctransform, monocle, metagenomeSeq, MutationalPatterns, ASCAT, DNAcopy, qvalue, EBSeq, and Wrench
  • Statistics, plotting, and reports through tidyverse, dplyr, data.table, ggplot2, ggpubr, plotly, caret, randomForest, ranger, glmnet, lme4, brms, rstan, rstanarm, rmarkdown, knitr, bookdown, shiny, openxlsx, readxl, and writexl
  • Spatial and ecology packages such as sf, terra, raster, sp, spdep, spatialreg, stars, lwgeom, maps, mapdata, mapproj, gstat, geosphere, exactextractr, vegan, ape, phangorn, and phytools
  • A partial Python package snapshot that includes unicycler, unifrac, xpore, yanosim, virtualenv, urllib3, watchdog, wxPython, xmltodict, xopen, yamlordereddictloader, zstandard, and support packages

The Python package capture starts mid-list, so treat this as a visible snapshot rather than a complete Python inventory.

Find a topic

Core editing

Scientific tools

Files, accounts, and sharing

Help

A useful rule

For work you care about, keep a downloaded .figureloom backup. Browser autosave is convenient, but a separate file is the safest way to move or archive a project.

Dedicated to Adriana M. K.

FigureLoom is free and open source under AGPL-3.0-only. Open the editor at figureloom.org or return to the repository.

FigureLoom manual

Editor basics

Scientific work

Projects and files

Help and setup

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