Drawing and editing
Drawing and revising often go hand in hand. These tools work on the handwriting canvases in Infinite documents, Vertical documents, and Paged notes, including imported PDFs.
Drawing and Geometry
Shape tool
Select a rectangle, ellipse, rounded rectangle, line, arrow, triangle, star or polygon from Pen Boxes's shape tools and draw on the canvas. Shapes can be used as independent objects to express ideas with text descriptions.
Use mind maps when you need to express content levels, and use tables when you need to organize information in rows and columns. These two types of content belong to information organization and are not included in basic shape tools.
Step-by-step guides:
Perfect Shape: draw and hold
Turn on the main switch in "Handwriting Settings → Perfect Shape". After drawing a shape with a pen, keep the pen tip in contact and pause for a moment, and the system will try to fit the handwriting into a regular shape. This version supports up to fifteen kinds of Perfect Shape and is open to all users.
Without lifting the pen after recognition, you can continue to adjust the ends of the lines, or scale or rotate the closed shape around the center as a whole. After lifting the pen, you can use control points to refine: change the width and height of a rectangle, change a single vertex of a triangle, adjust the major and minor axes of an ellipse, and change an individual corner of a polyline. After turning on "Align with Other Shapes", you can also snap to nearby connection points or outlines of recognized shapes when adjusting.
"Perfect Shape → Advanced Options" provides "Align with Other Shapes", "Select Shapes After Drawing" and "Auto Fill Color" together. To edit again later, you can select Lasso and tap the outline directly, or circle a single complete shape and tap "Edit Shape".
"Fitting" here refers to making the handwriting regular; "Shape Tool" refers to selecting the graphic type first and then drawing. The two methods are suitable for different drawing habits.
Step-by-step guides:
Ruler and compass
A ruler can be added from the Pen Boxes add menu to assist in drawing straight lines.
Compasses are located in the Tools area of the Insert menu and can also be configured into toolbars. After opening it, adjust the circle center, radius and angle to draw a circle or arc. In Paged note, the compass is used for the current page.
Step-by-step guides:
- Use a ruler to draw straight lines
- Draw circles and arcs with the compass
- Use the ruler and reference markers
- Align objects with guides
Erase and select
Eraser
After selecting the eraser and opening the settings, you can switch between partial erasure and entire stroke erasure. Partial erasure also allows for resizing. When you need to return to the previous state, you can use undo.
Step-by-step guides:
Scratch Out to Erase
Scratch Out to Erase lets you erase unwanted handwriting by scribbling back and forth over it with your current pen. Supported iPads show Scratch Out to Erase in eraser settings.
- Immediate: Scribble over the handwriting, then lift the pen to erase it.
- Hold: After scribbling, keep the pen tip touching the screen briefly until erasing finishes.
Hold requires an iPad running iPadOS 26 with support for this system feature. On older systems, the alternative option is Off. If you write in cursive or draw often, choose Hold to reduce accidental erasing.
Step-by-step guides:
Lasso selection and modification
Lasso is suitable for adjusting one group of contents at a time. In the Lasso settings, you can choose freehand selection or rectangular selection, or specify the content to be selected: handwriting, text, attachments, pins or artboards. "Handwriting only" can quickly limit the selection range.
After circling, depending on the selected content, the menu will provide actions such as Copy, Duplicate (make a copy), Cut, Delete, Resize, Change Color, or Capture. The items in the menu will change according to the selection content.
Step-by-step guides:
- Select and edit handwriting and objects
- Export selections and save reusable assets
- Select, move, and transform objects
- Copy, cut, drag and drop objects
- Adjust object hierarchy and lock status
- Adjust object appearance and preview
- Add and edit links to objects
Recognize handwriting and copy text
After handwriting recognition is enabled, you can circle the handwriting and use Copy as text from the selection menu. When you need to put the recognition results back on the canvas, you can use the provided "Replace Selection" entry. Recognition results are suitable for inspection before continuing to edit or share.
For pen type, Pen Boxes and Apple Pencil shortcut operations, see Handwriting and Pen Boxes.
Step-by-step guides:
Perfect Shape description updated: October 29, 2026; the remaining tool descriptions follow the original verification records.