Perfect Shape drawing and snapping

Draw an outline and hold the pen in place briefly to turn it into a clean shape. Keep the pen down to adjust it, or lift it and refine the shape with control points. You can also snap endpoints or outlines to nearby recognized shapes.

Available on the handwriting canvas in infinite documents, vertical documents, and paged notes, including PDF annotations. Perfect Shape is available to all users. Text documents do not use these handwriting controls.

This version supports up to fifteen Perfect Shape types: lines, curves, polylines, line arrows, circles, ellipses, rectangles, squares, triangles, pentagons, stars, hearts, speech bubbles, clouds, and outline arrows. Recognition depends on the outline you draw. Complex, intersecting, or unclear strokes may not be recognized.

Fifteen Perfect Shape types

Tap Play to see the fifteen shape types.

Turn on draw-and-hold recognition

1. Tap the small blue pen in the pen box to open Handwriting Settings.
2. Open Perfect Shape and make sure its main switch is on.
3. Choose a writing pen and draw a simple outline, such as a circle or triangle, in one continuous stroke.
4. At the end of the stroke, keep the pen touching the screen briefly until the outline becomes a clean shape.
5. Lift the pen if the size and direction are right. To adjust them, keep the pen down and move its tip.

Perfect Shape is on by default for new users. Existing preferences are preserved. An introduction may appear the first time you open its settings; dismiss it to continue.

To watch the in-app demo again, return to Handwriting Settings and tap the button beside Perfect Shape. Opening or closing the introduction does not change the feature’s switch.

Adjust without lifting your pen

After recognition, keep the pen touching the screen and move it to adjust the result. The behavior depends on the shape:

Shape	What moves while the pen stays down
Line, curve, or line arrow	The end nearest the pen follows its movement; the other end stays fixed. This changes the length and direction.
Polyline	Only the last segment changes length and direction. The start and earlier corners stay fixed.
Closed shape, such as a circle, ellipse, rectangle, or triangle	The whole shape scales proportionally and rotates around its recognized center, preserving its structure.

Closed shapes keep their proportions at this stage. To widen a rectangle, change an ellipse’s axes, or move one triangle vertex, lift the pen and edit the control points.

Edit immediately after drawing

Turn on Select Shapes After Drawing under Handwriting Settings → Perfect Shape → Advanced Options. After a shape is recognized and you lift the pen, supported shapes show editing controls immediately, without switching to the lasso.

Drag the control points to refine the shape:

Shape	Available adjustments
Line or line arrow	Move either endpoint to change length and direction.
Curve	Move endpoints or drag the curvature control to adjust the bend.
Polyline	Move an endpoint or corner independently.
Triangle	Move one vertex while the other two stay fixed.
Rectangle	Change width and height while keeping right angles.
Square or circle	Change size while preserving equal sides or a perfect circle.
Ellipse	Adjust the major and minor axes to change its proportions.
Pentagon, star, or another complex closed outline	Mainly scale proportionally and rotate the whole shape while preserving its structure.

Tap a blank area of the canvas to finish editing. With automatic selection off, you can still draw and hold, adjust before lifting, and edit again later. Control points simply do not appear automatically each time you lift the pen.

Edit an existing hand-drawn shape

You can reopen the controls for Perfect Shapes already saved in your note:

1. Select the lasso and make sure its handwriting filter is enabled.
2. Tap the shape’s outline directly to show control points. You do not need to circle it first.
3. If you have already selected one complete editable shape, choose Edit Shape from the selection menu.
4. Adjust the control points, then finish editing.

Keep images, text boxes, and other shapes out of the selection. Ordinary doodles and shapes within PDFs or screenshots do not gain control points simply because they look like rectangles.

Use Copy or Duplicate in the shape editing menu to preserve the original. Use Undo to reverse a recent edit. To move the whole drawing, move it with the lasso.

Snap to other shapes

Turn on Align with Other Shapes under Handwriting Settings → Perfect Shape → Advanced Options. This helps connect nearby recognized shapes while you adjust with the pen down or drag control points.

1. Draw a Perfect Shape to use as the target.
2. Draw a line and hold for recognition. Keep the pen down and move its active endpoint near a target endpoint, corner, or outline.
3. When it is close enough and the shape’s constraints allow it, the endpoint snaps into place. Lift the pen to finish.
4. To change the connection later, reopen the control points and drag the endpoint elsewhere. Move outside the snapping range to adjust freely again.

For lines, curves, line arrows, and polylines, the start is also checked once for nearby shapes when adjustment begins after recognition. If it snaps, the start stays there while you adjust the other end.

How snapping works

• Connection points take priority over outlines. Endpoints and corners are considered before nearby positions along an outline. Shape constraints, such as proportions and right angles, still apply.
• A polyline can snap to its other control points. Move an endpoint or corner near an existing control point to close or connect the polyline. It does not snap to the point being dragged or to arbitrary positions on its own segments.
• Lines and polylines also have angle correction. They can straighten slightly near horizontal, vertical, or 45°. This assistance remains available when Align with Other Shapes is off.
• Moving a whole shape does not use this snapping. Snapping applies mainly to adjustments made with the pen down and to control-point editing. A curve’s curvature control only changes its bend and does not snap.
• Targets must be usable recognized shapes. Ordinary handwriting, hidden content, and partially erased outlines are not targets. Neither are lines within PDFs or images.

When you drag control points after lifting the pen, a pale blue indicator marks the snap location. Adjusting with the pen still down does not show this indicator. Supported devices may also provide gentle haptic feedback, depending on system settings. Staying snapped does not repeatedly trigger feedback.

Adjust Perfect Shape settings

All options are under Handwriting Settings → Perfect Shape. The three switches under Advanced Options can be set independently:

Option	When enabled	Default for new users
Align with Other Shapes	Snaps adjustments to nearby recognized shapes or a polyline’s other control points.	On
Select Shapes After Drawing	Shows control points immediately after recognition and pen lift.	Off
Auto Fill Color	Adds a light fill matching the ink color to supported closed hand-drawn shapes.	Off

Turning off the main Perfect Shape switch stops automatic recognition of new strokes. Advanced Options become unavailable, but their saved values are not reset. Turning the feature back on restores those choices. Existing Perfect Shapes can still be opened for control-point editing.

Auto Fill Color does not apply to lines or arbitrary doodles. See Fill hand-drawn shapes for manual coloring. Automatic selection is shared with the separate shape tools, so changing it also affects whether those tools select shapes after drawing.

Common questions

Why does holding the pen not create a shape?

Check that Perfect Shape is on. Draw a clear, simple outline in one stroke, then hold the tip in contact with the screen briefly. Normal writing does not need a separate adjustment mode; these controls become available only after successful shape recognition.

Why can I not stretch a circle into an ellipse?

A recognized circle stays circular. For an ellipse, first draw a clearly elongated outline, then adjust its axes after recognition. Squares also keep their proportions; draw a rectangle first when you need unequal width and height.

Why are there no control points or Edit Shape action?

If controls do not appear immediately after lifting the pen, check Select Shapes After Drawing. To edit later, choose the lasso and tap the outline, or select just one complete, supported recognized shape. Mixed selections, ordinary doodles, and shapes within images are not supported.

I only want to move the whole drawing

Move it with the lasso. You do not need to drag each control point.

How do I reverse a change?

Use Undo to restore the previous edit.

I need an exact number of polygon sides or a border style

Use the separate shape tools. Perfect Shape creates editable handwriting; the separate tools let you choose a type before creating an object. Some of those tools require Prodrafts Pro access.

Related guides: Set up and organize the pen box · Fill hand-drawn shapes · Lasso