 <p>Rapheal doesn't have setters for <code>width</code> and <code>height</code> on the Paper object, so calling them is not affecting the DOM, but just setting some properties on the Paper object. </p> <p>Passing in the <code>width</code> and <code>height</code> params in the constructor will affect the SVG tag in the DOM.</p> <p>If you want to change the paper's width and height after constrcution, you can set the style properties of the SVG tag like so:</p> <pre><code>var paper = Raphael(domid); paper.canvas.style.width = '200px'; paper.canvas.style.height = '100px'; </code></pre> <p>As Kevin mentioned, it's probably better to use the <code>setSize</code> method to handle runtime resizing.</p> <p>eg)</p> <p><code>paper.setSize(200,100)</code></p> <p>Hope that helps.</p>