The ModelBuilder toolbar has the most commonly used tools. Of these tools, you'll find that you use the Navigation tools the most, since model diagrams tend to become cluttered and need occasional rearranging.
There are many ways to navigate in the model, including zooming and panning, using an overview window, and navigating through the model using the Navigate tool.
Auto Layout tool
The Auto Layout tool will re-arrange the elements in your model according to your layout settings.
Learn more about model appearance
Zoom tools
- The Full Extent tool zooms to the boundaries of the model.
- The Fixed Zoom In and Fixed Zoom Out tools zoom the view by constant increments.
- The Zoom In tool zooms to the area of a rectangle you draw.
- The Pan tool lets you scroll in the direction you want to view. Click the tool then click and drag the mouse in the model diagram. It's essentially the same as using the vertical or horizontal scroll bars or clicking the arrows.
- The Continuous Zoom tool lets you zoom both in and out. Simply click and hold the mouse button on the display window, and scroll down to zoom and scroll up to zoom out.
- The Navigate tool allows you to navigate through the flow of a model, from one element to the next, either forward or backward. To move forward, click the beginning of a connector line. To move backward, click the arrowhead of a connector line.
Also, on the View menu (not shown):
- The Custom Zoom option lets you zoom by a custom percentage.
- The preset zoom levels on the View menu (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, 200%, 400%) zoom to fixed percentages of the actual size.
Overview window
To avoid losing track of where you are in a large model, you can open the Overview window from the Window menu. The Overview window displays the entire model at all times. Your current location in the model window is marked by a rectangle in the Overview window. When you navigate in the ModelBuilder window, this rectangle moves correspondingly.
To use the Overview window as a zoom tool, click and drag a rectangle in the Overview window. The model window zooms in to the area covered by the rectangle. You can click and drag to create a new zoom rectangle at any time. You can also resize a rectangle by clicking and dragging its black selection handles.
To use the Overview window as a pan tool, click inside the existing rectangle in the Overview window and drag it to a new location.
You can resize the Overview window and move it outside the ModelBuilder window.