Shapes overview
What a shape is, the kinds there are, and how their pages are organized.
Everything you put on a board is a shape: a word, a drawing, a photo, a table, a frame around other shapes, even a camera. Every shape can be selected, moved, styled, animated, and combined with the others in the same way, and each kind adds its own tool, properties, and actions on top.
How the shape pages are organized
Every page in this section follows the same order, so you know where to look:
- Creating it: the tool or the import that produces the shape, then editing and sizing it.
- Its attributes: every section the shape shows in the Attributes panel, in full, with what is particular to the shape.
- Its actions: the commands the shape adds to the Actions panel, in full.
- Playback, animation, and limits, when the shape has them.
What every shape shares
What every shape shares is described once, under Creation:
- Transforming: moving, resizing, rotating, flipping, and the pivot.
- Grouping: treating several shapes as one.
- Arranging: ordering, aligning, distributing, stacking, and stretching.
- Duplicating: making copies, with or without their arrows.
- Attributes: every section of the Attributes panel, and which shapes show it.
- Masks: hiding part of a shape with another shape.
- Filters: changing how a shape is drawn with SVG filters.
- Conversions: turning one kind of shape into another.
- Boolean operations: combining vector shapes into new outlines.
- Icon library, Image editor, Media optimization, and Audio editor: the tools that add and rework pictures, videos, and sounds.
The kinds of shapes
| Shape | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Text | A word or a line of text, also usable as a graphic element. |
| Rich text | A text block with headings, lists, links, tables, images, and code. |
| Text on path | A line of text that runs along the outline of a vector shape. |
| Code text | A box of code with highlighting, line numbers, and folding. |
| Geometry shapes | Rectangles, ellipses, triangles, and rhombuses, with an optional label. |
| Paths | Shapes drawn with the pen, point by point, with curves. |
| Freehand shapes | Shapes drawn with the pencil, kept as the points of the stroke. |
| Polylines | Shapes that join clicked points with straight segments. |
| Vector styles | The stroke and fill controls the four vector shapes share. |
| Arrows | Connections between shapes that follow them, and measurements. |
| Images | Pictures on the board: cropping, warping, pixel editing, and SVG conversion. |
| Videos | Video files with playback controls, a playable range, and a cover. |
| Documents | PDFs, e-books, and comic books, read page by page on the board, with ink and text on PDFs. |
| File cards | Any file kept on the board as a card you can download. |
| Tables | Spreadsheet-style grids with formulas. |
| Frames | Named containers that move their content with them. |
| Cameras | Named views of the board for animations and presentations. |
| Web embeds | Live web pages inside a shape. |
| HTML shapes | Small web pages written in HTML that run on the board. |
| Audio | Audio files as a player card with a waveform, a clip, and their own animation blocks. |