Editor
Shapes & pen
Drawing rectangles, ellipses, polygons, stars and lines, editing vector paths with the pen, and combining shapes with boolean operations.
Basic shapes#
Pick a shape from the tool dock or press its key, then drag on the canvas. Hold ⇧Shift while dragging for a square, circle or regular shape, and ⌥Alt to draw from the center. Click without dragging to place a 100 × 100 shape.
| Shape | Key | Shape-specific settings |
|---|---|---|
| Rectangle | R | Corner radius (one value or per corner), corner smoothing for soft "squircle" corners |
| Ellipse | O | Arc start and end angle, inner radius for rings and donuts |
| Polygon | from the shapes menu | Number of sides |
| Star | from the shapes menu | Number of points, inner radius ratio |
| Line | L | Stroke, start and end caps |
| Arrow | ⇧ShiftL | A line with an arrow cap |
Line caps can be none, arrow, triangle, circle, square, diamond or bar, chosen separately for each end.
The Elements panel adds ready-made shapes, frames, icons (Lucide, Phosphor and Tabler sets), illustrations and stickers. Icons are inserted as SVG layers you can recolor.
The pen tool#
Press P to draw vector paths:
- Click to add a corner point; click and drag to add a smooth point with curve handles.
- Click the first point to close the path, or press ↩Enter or Esc to finish an open path.
- Hold ⇧Shift to constrain segments to 45° angles.
Pen and boolean operations are part of Pro and the self-hosted edition.
Editing paths#
Double-click a path (or any shape) to enter point editing. Drag points and handles to reshape; double-click a point to toggle it between corner and smooth; hold ⌥Alt while dragging a handle to break the symmetry between its two sides. Click a segment to insert a point there; select points and press ⌦Del to remove them.
Converting a rectangle, ellipse, polygon or star into a path (Flatten in the context menu) gives you full point control at the cost of its shape settings.
Paths support both nonzero and even-odd fill rules, so cut-outs in compound shapes behave like they do in other vector tools.
Boolean operations#
Select two or more shapes and choose an operation in the context toolbar:
| Operation | Result |
|---|---|
| Union | Everything covered by any shape |
| Subtract | The bottom shape minus the shapes above it |
| Intersect | Only where all shapes overlap |
| Exclude | Where an odd number of shapes overlap |
The result is a boolean layer whose children stay editable: move or reshape a child and the result updates. Flatten it to bake the outcome into a single path.
From bitmap to vector#
To turn a logo, sketch or photo into editable vector paths, select an image and choose Trace to vector in the AI panel. See asset tools.