Shape

A shape is an outline you drop in from a library of eighteen: the everyday marks (circle, triangle, square, trapezoid, skew, arrow), regular polygons, a star, a plus and a clover, a banner, and curved marks including a heart, a moon, a teardrop, a dome and a prohibit sign. Search by name to find one quickly. A Round slider softens the corners of any shape that has them, including the moon's two horns and the ends of the prohibit sign's bar. In the picker, a shape drawn with a faint second outline behind it is one you can reshape after placing it — the faint outline shows another shape the same tool can make.

The star, the plus and the clover are one shape wearing three different tips — pointed, flat and round. A Points slider sets how many each one has, anywhere from three to twelve, so the star also gives you a four-point sparkle or a twelve-point burst, and the plus gives you a Y or a snowflake. Each arrives at the number its name means: five, four and four. The pentagon, hexagon and octagon take the same Points slider for their number of sides. The clover's own ring runs its lobes from a plain circle right in to deep petals that almost meet in the middle, keeping its round tips the whole way, at any number of lobes.

Many shapes show small blue rings when selected, whenever the shape is big enough on screen (pinch to zoom in on a small one). Drag them to change how the shape itself is drawn, without changing the box it sits in: the arrow's head length and shaft thickness, the triangle's peak position, the trapezoid's top and bottom widths, the skew's slant, how deep a star's points cut in, the thickness of the plus, how deep the clover's lobes cut, the moon and the prohibit sign's band, how deep the heart's top notch sits, how far the teardrop's point reaches, and each of the banner's two ends. The dome's ring goes both ways from the plain half circle: drag it one way and the dome lifts onto straight sides into a tall arch, the other way and it rises to a point. Arrow keys nudge a ring, and holding Shift makes each press bigger.

The banner is one shape covering three: each of its ends can be dragged from a V notched inwards, through flat, to a point sticking out — so the same shape gives you a bookmark, a ribbon or a pennant. Its ring marks the notch's own point while the end is notched in, and hops to the end's corners once it points out, which is the part that then moves. Dragging a ring gently settles onto the shape's natural setting as it passes — a symmetrical triangle, a plus sitting square in the middle, a star at its classic proportions — and keeps going if you want something else.

A shape's Shape tab holds its kind, its two colours, its line's width, its corners and its points; everything else it holds — the rest of its outline's settings, its line's style, a colour ramp's tilt, and a brush along its line — stands behind the settings button at the right end of the colour row. There, on a shape whose line is drawn, Brush draws the outline plain (None) or as a brush's stamps along it — Spray, Airbrush or Charcoal — and once one is picked, that brush's own settings follow it, the same Stamps settings a Freeform brush has, while the line's dash settings stand dimmed beneath, because the stamps walk the whole line. A brushed outline still draws on and animates like any other. Hover over one of those settings, or hold a finger still on it, and it shows the sentence this page lists for it, without changing its value.

Where you can use a shape

• Image — Groups
• Video — Groups
• Document — Groups

What you can do with a shape you made

The star at the end of the colour row on the shape's Shape tab, just before the settings button, stars the shape whole, and a starred shape can be put into another picture, video or document:

Star · Copy

A shape's settings, kept on their own

A shape's settings — its outline and its ink, without where it stands or what it wears — can be kept on their own and put on another shape:

Star · Post · Copy

Shape

• Shape — Which shape the item is — a box, a circle, a star, a heart and the rest.
  • Rectangle · Ellipse · Arrow · Triangle · Star · Heart · Pentagon · Hexagon · Plus · Trapezoid · Skew · Octagon · Banner · Clover · Dome · Teardrop · Moon · Prohibit
• Round — How round the shape’s corners are, from sharp to as round as they go.
• Points — How many points or sides the shape has.
• Waist — How far the shape dips in between its points: deep for a spiky star, shallow for a fuller one.
• Tip — What each point ends in: a sharp point, a flat bar or a round lobe.
  • Point · Flat · Round
• Turn — Which way the shape’s points face, turned clockwise from straight up.
• Top width — How wide the shape’s top edge is, as a share of its width.
• Top center — Where the top edge sits across the shape, from its left side to its right.
• Top notch — A V in the middle of the top edge: cut into the shape, or pushed out to a point.
• Base width — How wide the shape’s bottom edge is, as a share of its width.
• Base center — Where the bottom edge sits across the shape, from its left side to its right.
• Base notch — A V in the middle of the bottom edge: cut into the shape, or pushed out to a point.
• Head length — How long the arrow’s head is, up to half the arrow.
• Shaft width — How thick the arrow’s shaft is behind its head.
• Squareness — How square the rounded shape is, from an ellipse toward a box.
• Band width — How thick the sign’s ring and its bar are.
• Thickness — How thick the crescent is, from a thin sliver to almost a whole disc.
• Notch depth — How far apart the heart’s two lobes sit, which sets how deep the dip between them is.
• Height — How the dome rises: lifted on straight sides, a half circle, or narrowing to a point.
• Point length — How far the teardrop’s point reaches past its round head.
• Morph to — How far the shape has turned into the shape it morphs to, from itself to the other shape.
• Fill — The color that fills the item’s inside — a shape’s interior, a text’s letters, a table’s background — or a gradient in its place.
• Stroke color — The color the item’s line is drawn in — a shape’s or a text’s outline, a table’s rules, a tracked mark’s line.
• Width — How thick the item’s line is, in pixels — a shape’s or a text’s outline, a table’s rules; zero draws none.
• Dash offset — How far a dashed line’s dashes have slid along it, in pixels.
• Style — Whether a line is solid, dashed, dotted or dash-dot.
  • Solid · Dashed · Dotted · Dash-dot
• Dash — How long each dash of a dashed line is, as a multiple of the line’s width.
• Gap — How long the gap between a line’s dashes or dots is, as a multiple of its width.
• Ends — Whether a dashed line’s dashes end round or square.
  • Round · Square
• Gradient tilt — Which way a gradient fill runs across the item, turned clockwise.
• Slide — How far a gradient fill has slid across the item, either way.
• Brush — Draws the line plain, or as a brush’s stamps — spray, airbrush or charcoal.
  • None · Spray · Airbrush · Charcoal
• Spacing — How far apart the stamps stand along the line, in brush sizes.
• Density — How many stamps land around each point of the line.
• Scatter — How far each stamp may stray from the line.
• Turn — Whether each stamp turns: not at all, at random, or to follow the line.
  • None · Random · Along the line
• Turn amount — How much of a random turn each stamp takes.
• Fade — How see-through each stamp is.
• Fade range — How much more solid some stamps are than others.
• Pattern — Which random pattern the stamps follow.

A shape's fill and line are its ink, and the same ink settings colour a text's words and bubble, a table's rules and words, and a mask's lines.