Editing Maps in the Map Editor

The Map Editor lets you create and update your office’s floor plan directly in Robin — draw walls and rooms, fix imported geometry, and keep your map matched to the real space. This article explains the different ways to get a map into Robin and walks through everything you need to use the Map Editor effectively.

Opening the Map Editor

1. In the Robin dashboard, go to Manage and open your office’s Map view.
2. Select the floor you want to work on.
3. Open the Edit floor dropdown and choose Layout.

The Map Editor opens with that floor’s map loaded.

Ways to create and update your map

There are four ways to get a floor plan into Robin. Pick the one that matches your starting point.

1. Upload a CAD file

If you have a CAD drawing of your floor (a .dxf file), upload it and Robin converts it into an editable map.

1. Choose Add a map and upload your .dxf file (click or drag the file into the upload area).
2. Select layers — Robin shows the layers found in your CAD file. Keep layers with structural elements like walls toggled on, and leave layers with desks and furniture off; you’ll add bookable resources like desks later, in a separate step.
3. Edit the floor plan — the Map Editor opens so you can draw any walls the import missed and remove details that shouldn’t appear.
4. Review and save your map.

Note: Keep desk and furniture layers off during layer selection. The map you’re building is the background for your floor — interactive resources like desks are placed on top of it afterward.

2. Draw a custom map from scratch

No CAD file? Start with a blank canvas and draw the floor yourself using the drawing tools — interior and exterior walls plus rectangular areas are usually all it takes to block out a floor. Everything in the sections below applies.

3. Edit an existing map

If your floor already has a map, the Map Editor opens it with all of its elements — walls, furniture, labels, decor, and accessibility symbols — so you can keep it up to date as the space changes. Editing an existing map adds a few extra concepts (like the floor boundary); see Map elements and the floor boundary below.

4. Have Robin’s map team build it

Prefer to have it done for you? Robin’s map team can build your map from a floor plan you provide.

1. Contact your Customer Success Manager or Robin Support and share your floor plan file.
2. The map team converts it into a Robin map and adds it to your office.
3. Once it’s delivered, you can fine-tune it yourself at any time using the Map Editor (see Edit an existing map above).

Editor basics and navigation

Learn your way around before drawing anything: the tools in the side panel, how to move around the canvas and zoom, and how to undo mistakes.

1. The side panel on the left holds the editor’s tools: Select (V) for choosing and moving map elements, Pan (H) for moving around the canvas, Draw interior wall (D), Draw exterior wall (Shift+D), and Draw area (R) for rectangles. Click a tool or press its key to switch — the active tool stays highlighted.
2. The editor opens with the Pan tool active. Drag anywhere on the canvas to move around the map.
3. While using any other tool, hold Space to pan temporarily: drag the canvas with Space held, then release Space to return to the tool you were using.
4. You can also pan at any time by scrolling with your trackpad or mouse wheel — no tool switch needed.
5. Zoom with the + and − buttons in the top-right corner, or hold Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) while scrolling to zoom in on the exact spot under your cursor.
6. If you lose your place, click the fit-to-content button below the zoom buttons to bring the entire map back into view.
7. Any change can be undone: press Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on Mac) to undo and Ctrl+Shift+Z to redo, or use the two arrow buttons in the top-left corner. The trash button next to them deletes whatever is selected.
8. When you need a reminder, open the Help panel in the bottom-right corner — it holds answers about the current workflow, video tutorials, and the full keyboard shortcuts list.

Tip: The Help panel’s Tutorials section contains short video walkthroughs of everything covered in this article.

Drawing walls and areas

Add missing structure to your map: draw interior and exterior walls one straight segment at a time, or outline rectangular rooms with the Area tool in a single gesture. Snapping keeps new walls connected and straight as you draw.

1. Pick a wall type in the side panel: Draw interior wall (D) for walls inside the space, or Draw exterior wall (Shift+D) for the boundary of the floor. Exterior walls draw thicker and darker, so the outline of the space stands out.
2. Press the mouse button where the wall should start, drag, and release where it should end — each press-drag-release adds one straight wall segment. A dashed preview shows the segment while you drag.
3. Start or end a segment near existing geometry and it snaps into place before you release. A snap indicator shows the exact connection point — a small blue circle for wall endpoints, a triangle for midpoints, and a three-ray star for wall edges — so walls join cleanly without manual alignment.
4. Hold Shift while dragging to lock the segment to fixed angles in 15° steps — including perfectly horizontal, vertical, and diagonal walls. Release Shift mid-drag to return to free-form drawing.
5. Changed your mind mid-segment? Press Esc while dragging to discard the segment before it commits.
6. Switch to the Draw area tool (R) to outline a rectangular room in one gesture: press at one corner, drag to the opposite corner, and release. The rectangle’s edges snap into alignment with nearby walls as you size it.
7. Hold Shift while sizing an area to keep it a perfect square — or just click without dragging to drop a ready-made square area centered on that spot.
8. When you release, the new area is drawn as interior walls, selected, and the editor switches back to Select — so you can move or reshape what you just drew right away.

Selecting, moving, and duplicating

Everything in the editor starts with a selection. Pick single elements or sweep up many at once, move them together with snap guides, nudge them into exact position, and duplicate repeated structures with copy and paste.

1. Activate the Select tool (V) and click any element to select it. Click empty canvas or press Esc to clear the selection.
2. Hold Shift and click to add an element to the selection — or to remove one that is already selected.
3. To grab many elements at once, press on empty canvas and drag a selection box: everything the box touches is selected when you release. Hold Shift while dragging to add to the existing selection. A counter at the bottom of the canvas shows how many elements are selected.
4. Drag any selected element to move the whole selection together — alignment guides appear as it snaps into line with nearby geometry. Dragging an unselected element moves just that one and leaves it selected.
5. For fine positioning, tap the arrow keys to nudge the selection a pixel at a time, or hold Shift with an arrow key for larger steps. A whole run of nudges undoes in one step.
6. Copy the selection with Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on Mac) and paste with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on Mac). The copy lands slightly offset and already selected — and each further paste steps a little further, so repeated pastes never pile up.
7. The floating bar above the selection gives you one-click Duplicate and Delete. Copy, Paste, and Delete are also on the right-click menu — right-clicking an element selects it first.

8. Delete removes everything selected: press Delete or Backspace, or use the trash button in the top-left toolbar.

   Note: Very large selections have a safety limit — copying or dragging more than 500 elements at once is refused with a warning. Work in smaller batches instead.

Reshaping walls and shapes

Fix geometry without redrawing it: drag wall endpoints and shape corners with precision snapping, add or remove corners, cut edges, close or open outlines, and correct a wall’s type after it’s drawn.

[GIF: dragging a wall endpoint onto another wall with the snap indicator visible]

1. Select a wall with the Select tool (V) and handles appear at both endpoints. Drag a handle to reshape the wall — it snaps to nearby geometry, with the indicator showing what it caught, and holding Shift locks the drag to fixed angles.
2. Hold Alt while dragging an endpoint to snap it onto the body of another wall — the indicator marks the exact landing point. Hold Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) instead to bypass all snapping and place the endpoint freely.
3. Multi-corner shapes, like areas, open in resize mode when selected. Click Edit in the floating bar above the selection to switch to corner editing — a handle appears on every corner.
4. Drag a corner handle to move it. It aligns automatically with its neighboring corners — guides appear when a segment turns exactly horizontal or vertical — and holding Shift snaps the corner’s angle to 45°, 90°, 135°, or straight.
5. To add detail, press the small ghost handle at a segment’s midpoint: a new corner is inserted and follows your pointer in the same motion. A quick click inserts it without dragging.
6. Right-click a corner handle and choose Remove vertex to simplify the shape — the option only appears when the shape stays valid without that corner.
7. Right-click a segment’s ghost handle and choose Delete edge to cut that segment out: a closed outline opens there, an end segment is trimmed off, and a middle segment splits the line in two.
8. To seal an outline, drag its two ends close together, right-click an end corner, and choose Close shape. Right-click any corner of a closed shape and choose Open shape to unseal it at that corner.
9. Drew a wall with the wrong type? Select it and use the wall type dropdown that appears on the Select tool row in the side panel to switch between interior and exterior — a mixed selection shows “Mixed” until you pick one type for all.

Resizing and rotating

Scale, spin, and reposition whole shapes without touching individual corners. Multi-corner shapes open in resize mode — anchors resize them, a handle rotates them with snap-to-angle precision, and the floating bar’s Edit and Done buttons switch between this mode and corner editing.

1. Select a multi-corner shape, like an area — it opens in resize mode, framed by anchors. Two-point walls don’t have this mode; their endpoints are always edited directly.
2. Drag a corner anchor to resize the shape freely, or hold Shift while dragging to keep its proportions. The anchors on the sides stretch one direction at a time.
3. While you resize, the moving edges snap into alignment with nearby geometry and guide lines mark the match. Hold Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) to bypass the snapping and size the shape freely.
4. Drag the rotate handle above the shape to spin it around its center — the rotation clicks into place every 15°, so square and diagonal orientations come out exact.
5. To move the shape without leaving resize mode, drag the four-arrows handle next to it — or the shape itself — with the same alignment guides as normal moving.
6. Need to adjust a single corner instead? Click Edit in the floating bar to switch to corner editing, then Done to come back to resize mode.
7. Every resize or rotation is one undo step — Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on Mac) puts the shape right back.

Map elements and the floor boundary

When you edit an existing map, it includes more than walls: furniture, labels, decor regions, and accessibility symbols — plus the floor boundary that keeps every change inside the space.

1. When you edit an existing map, its non-wall elements appear too: furniture, street and room labels, decor regions like pathways and terraces, and accessibility symbols. All of them select, move, and delete exactly like walls — click, marquee, drag, nudge, copy and paste.
2. Furniture, labels, and decor regions move as fixed objects: they have no corner handles and no resize mode. Labels can be repositioned or deleted, but their text can’t be edited here.
3. Accessibility symbols work like shapes in resize mode: drag the anchors to resize (hold Shift to keep proportions), spin the rotate handle — it clicks every 15° — and move the symbol as one unit. Its individual parts can’t be edited.
4. Right-click an accessibility symbol to show or hide its background — the white plate behind the symbol that keeps it readable on a busy floor plan.
5. The dimmed area around the map lies outside the floor’s boundary, and the editor keeps your work inside it: with a drawing tool, the cursor shows not-allowed out there and no wall or area can start on it.
6. Moves are contained the same way — drag, nudge, resize, or paste something toward the edge and it stops flush at the boundary and slides along it instead of escaping.
7. Elements that were already outside the floor when the map was imported stay visible but dimmed. Move one and leave it outside, and a red outline reminds you it still needs to come home — it clears the moment the element lands inside the floor, or when you undo.
8. The boundary itself comes from the map’s floor outline. It can’t be selected or moved — it’s the fixed reference everything else stays inside.

Keyboard shortcuts

FAQ

Should I draw desks on the map? No. The map is the background image for your floor. After saving it, you’ll add interactive resources like desks and spaces in a separate step, where they can be booked and managed.

What file types can I upload? CAD files in .dxf format.

Can I edit a map the Robin map team built for me? Yes — open it in the Map Editor like any existing map and adjust it whenever the space changes.

Why can’t I draw outside the dimmed edge of my map? That’s the floor boundary. The editor keeps all elements inside the floor’s outline so your map stays valid — see Map elements and the floor boundary above.