Freeform contains hundreds of shapes in a variety of categories, like animals, food, symbols, and ornaments. After you add shapes to a board, you can customize them in a number of ways, including combining them, splitting them, or changing their size or the way they look.
To change the size or proportions, you drag a blue dot, and green dots adjust the form or curve. You can even change the type of shape after you add it.
Add and format shapes, lines, and arrows
- Go to the Freeform app on your iPad.
- Open a board, or tap the New Board button to start a new one.
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Tap the Add Shape button. Select a shape from the suggestions, or tap Browse Content Hub to see more shapes.
Tip: To clear your recently inserted shapes from the suggestions, tap Browse Content Hub, then tap Reset Suggestions.
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To change your object’s properties, tap to select the object. Then do any of the following:
- Change the size or proportions: Drag a blue dot.
- Adjust the form, curve, number of points, and other aspects particular to your object: Drag any green dot. If it’s part of a diagram, you can also change its connection points.
- Change the type of shape: Tap the More button in the formatting tools, tap Change Shape, and then choose another shape.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
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Change the color of a shape.
Note: The button changes to the shape’s current color. |
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Change the type of border, border thickness, and border color of a shape or line.
Note: The appearance of the button changes to reflect its current state. |
| Change the formatting for all text in a shape including font, color, size, alignment, and list style. See Add text. | |
 |
Add an arrowhead or other endpoint to a line. |
| Change the type of connection line: straight, cornered, or curved. (Available when you add a connection line between two items.) |
You can also add shapes and lines by drawing them on your board, then smoothing or straightening the strokes. See our article, Draw or handwrite on a Freeform board.
Combine or split shapes
Combine one shape with another, remove the overlapping area between two shapes, and more to make a new shape. Multipart shapes on a Freeform board can also be split into their parts, so you can edit each part individually. You could split the map of the United States (in the Places category), for instance, and give each state its own color.
With shapes on your Freeform board, do one of the following:
- Combine shapes: Select multiple items, tap the Arrange button, then below Combine Shapes, tap an option to unite, intersect, subtract, or exclude.
- Split a multipart shape apart: Tap the More button in the formatting tools, then tap Break Apart.
See also
- Draw or handwrite on a Freeform board on iPad
- Position items on a Freeform board on iPad
- Add accessibility descriptions
- Apply consistent styles and formatting in Freeform on iPad
