Table of Contents
Add and edit shapes
The Shape tool in Pixelmator Pro offers a collection of custom vector shapes — rectangles, speech bubbles, arrows, and other graphics. Some of these shapes also have smart controls that you can use to quickly customize the shape; those shapes are called Smart Shapes. You can also customize the Tools sidebar to add some of the commonly used shapes (rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, polygon, star, or line) as separate tools.
Insert a shape
- Select the Shape tool by doing one of the following:
- In the Tools sidebar, select the Shape tool
. - Press on your keyboard (selects the last used shape).
- In the Tools sidebar, select the Shape tool
Select a shape from the shapes browser at the top of the Tool Options pane. You can also add shapes by clicking
in the
Layers sidebar and then choosing Custom Shape, or do it directly from your toolbar (see
Customize the Pixelmator Pro toolbar to learn how to add the Shape item to your toolbar):
Click or drag on the canvas to add the selected shape. The more you drag, the bigger the shape will be drawn.
Insert a commonly used shape
Commonly used shapes like the rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, polygon, star, or line can be used as separate tools and quickly added to the canvas from the Tools sidebar, Pixelmator Pro toolbar, or the menu at the top of the screen.
To insert a commonly used shape:
- Select the shape in the Tools sidebar. If you can't see the shape, you can customize the customize the Tools sidebar to add it.
- Choose Tools > Draw > Shape (from the Tools menu at the top of your screen) and pick one of the options there.
- Choose Insert > Shape (from the Insert menu at the top of your screen) and pick one of the options there.
Customize the look of a Smart Shape
Smart Shapes have smart handles that let you quickly customize their appearance, for example, by adjusting the number of points in a star, or the shape of an arrowhead.
The Pixelmator Pro Smart Shapes are: rounded rectangle, triangle, polygon, rhombus, star, double-headed arrow, an arrow from point, simple arrow, elliptical speech bubble, and rectangular speech bubble. To customize a Smart Shape, simply drag one of its smart handles.
When customizing rounded rectangles, you can additionally adjust the radius of individual corners by dragging blue smart handles or entering the desired radius into the Radius field.
Note: To adjust the radius of any individual corner, — drag the corner handle.
In the Corner Style pop-up menu, you can also switch from rounded to smooth corner style to create especially smooth rounded rectangles.
Edit a shape
Once you add a shape to the canvas, the options for its customization will appear in the Tool Options pane. Here, you can change the shape size, and color, add shadows or strokes.
There are several other ways you can edit shapes in Pixelmator Pro:
- Use Arrange tool to move, resize, flip, or rotate the shape.
- Use the Transform tool to freely transform the shape, stretch, skew, or change its perspective.
- Make the shape editable and adjust individual anchor points of the shape.
Note: After making Smart Shapes editable, they become no longer customizable and lose their special controls, such as the corner radius for Rounded Rectangle, etc.
