How Napkin Plan works

The complete guide to getting an accurate "will it fit?" answer — from uploading your first floor plan to collaborating with the people you share it with in real time.

1. Uploading a floor plan

Napkin Plan works with any image of a floor plan: a screenshot from an apartment listing, a photo of the plan posted in the leasing office, a scan of architect drawings, or a photo of your own hand-drawn sketch. JPG and PNG both work. If your plan is a PDF, take a screenshot of the page and upload that.

For best results:

• Shoot straight-on. A photo taken at an angle skews proportions — hold the camera parallel to the page.
• Crop to the plan. Trim away surrounding text and margins so the plan fills the frame.
• Higher resolution is better. You'll be clicking precise points on this image during calibration.

2. Calibrating the scale (the important part)

Calibration is what turns your picture into a measurable plan. You tell Napkin Plan one real-world distance, and it derives everything else. The flow:

1. Click Calibrate (it also opens automatically on a new upload).
2. Enter a distance you know, in your own units — feet and inches, or metres and centimetres. Set which you use from the account menu; a plan marked 451 is entered as 0 m 451 cm.
3. Click the two endpoints of that distance on the plan.

Everything depends on the quality of that one reference, so choose it well:

Each floor plan stores its own scale, so a workspace with several plans can mix listing screenshots at different sizes without conflict. New to floor plan notation? Our guide to reading floor plans covers symbols and dimension formats.

3. Placing, rotating, and deleting furniture

Pick a piece from the categorized dropdown — beds, sofas, desks, dining, dressers, chairs, and more, all at standard real-world dimensions — and click Add Furniture. The piece appears on your canvas, sized to your calibrated scale. (Curious what the standard sizes are? See our furniture dimensions cheat sheet.)

• Move: drag anywhere on the piece.
• Rotate freely: drag the ↻ handle for any angle — useful for rooms with diagonal walls.
• Rotate 90°: use the quick-rotate button for the common case.
• Delete: hover and click the × handle.
• Special pieces: L-shaped sofas and corner desks render as true L-shapes; beds with nightstands move as one unit; round tables render as circles.

4. Custom furniture

For pieces not in the catalog — your specific sectional, a vintage armoire, a piano — open the Furniture Catalog Manager and add a custom item: choose a category, name it, and enter its width and depth in your chosen units (check "circular" for round pieces, where width = diameter). Custom items appear in the dropdown with a ★ and sync to your account, so they're available on every plan and device. The free plan includes 3 custom pieces; Pro removes the limit.

5. The measure tool

Toggle Measure, then click any two points — the distance appears in your chosen units, using your calibrated scale. Use it to check walkway widths (aim for 30–36 inches (76–91 cm) on main paths), clearance in front of dressers and closets, and whether the TV-to-sofa distance lands in the comfortable 1.5–2.5× screen-diagonal range. Click again to start the next measurement.

Saving measurements (Pro). After a measurement, tap Save on the measure bar to keep it on the plan. Saved measurements stay on the floor you drew them on, and their lengths follow your calibration, so if you recalibrate they update. Click a saved measurement to delete it, and use Show measurements in Tools to hide or show them on this device.

6. Printing your plan

Choose 🖨️ Print in Tools to get a PDF sized to the page, with your furniture exactly where you put it. Pick how much detail you want: just the plan, or every piece numbered on the plan with a list beside it giving its name — and its width and depth, if you like. Tick Include measurements to print your saved measurements too. Print it, save it, or send it to someone: handy for walking a space with a tape measure, showing a partner what you're thinking, or handing movers a page that says where the sofa goes.

Printing is part of Pro.

7. What is a workspace?

A workspace is where your plans live. Every floor plan you upload belongs to one, and a workspace is also the thing you share: invite someone into it and they see every plan inside it — the same plans, kept in sync, not a copy.

Most people only ever need one. A second workspace is for when a different group of people should see a different set of plans. For example:

• Friends sharing a flat. Everyone moving in joins one workspace and argues about the sofa on the same plan.
• Helping a parent move. An adult child sets up a workspace for Mom's or Dad's new place and invites them — so the two of you can plan it together from different cities, without either of you seeing the other's own plans.
• A second home. Keep the lake cabin in its own workspace, shared with whoever uses it, separate from your everyday home.

You do NOT need a separate workspace for each community or apartment you're comparing. Put them all as plans in one workspace. Comparing places is exactly what multiple plans are for — one plan per candidate, side by side, with your furniture in each (see Multiple plans). Splitting them across workspaces just makes you switch back and forth.

Give a workspace a name that says which home it is, so everyone you invite knows at a glance. Free accounts get 1 workspace; Pro gets up to 4.

8. Workspaces and real-time collaboration

Your plans live inside a workspace — share it with a partner, a roommate, or a parent you're helping move and you both see the same plans, live. When someone drags a piece, everyone else watching the plan sees it move and the piece locks against simultaneous edits. Members can be editors (full layout control) or viewers (look, don't touch). The free plan includes 2 workspace members; Pro raises it to 4.

It's the answer to the eternal "what if the sofa faced the window?" debate — you can both look at the same live plan from different couches (or different cities).

9. Multiple plans and multi-level homes

Each floor plan is independent, with its own image, scale, and furniture. Pro users can keep up to 10 at once — the killer use case is apartment comparison: one plan per candidate apartment, your same furniture arranged in each, decided side by side. Multi-level plans (Pro) add floors within one plan, for townhouses, duplexes, and lofts — switch levels with one click while keeping everything in one place.

10. The iPhone & iPad app

Napkin Plan is a universal app that runs natively on both iPhone and iPad — same plans, same workspace, same real-time sync, with touch-first controls that make dragging furniture feel especially natural. You get the full editing experience on both, and iPhone is especially handy for checking measurements while you are standing in the room. An App Store Pro subscription automatically includes web Pro, so you never pay twice.

11. FAQ — account, billing, and data