Add Shapes, Silhouette Styles, Lines, and More

Add Shapes, Silhouette Styles, Lines, and More

Shapes such as flow charts, squares, and circles let you visualize ideas and concepts in a clear and effective way. Adding text, pictures, bullets, and numbers to them will make your slides look more interesting. After you've added a shape, you can add text, fill colors, hyperlinks, and a lot more to your shape using the Format Shape options. You can also combine two or more shapes to build group shapes, and manipulate them as one object as you build your slide.

Types of shapes

In Zoho Show, shapes are divided into four major kinds: 
  • Shape categories:  Simple and everyday shapes are put into broad categories such as basic shapes, block arrows, stars, action buttons, callouts, and connectors to help you decorate and highlight main points in your slides. 
  • Silhouettes: Black-and-white graphic shapes are grouped into subcategories like business, athletes, emotions, hand gestures, and currencies to enhance your stories.
  • Draw your own shape: Create your own custom shape (such as a line, curve, freeform shape, or scribble), just as you would draw it with a paper and pencil. 

Add a shape by category

1. Select Shape from Insert pane at the top and then choose again Shape option at the left.
You will see a list of shape categories.



2. Choose the category of shape you want to insert within the window. 
Use the navigation arrows to move between the below categories: 
  • Basic Shapes: Add visual appeal with common two-dimensional shapes, such as ovals, triangles, cubes, and hearts.
  • Block Arrows: Emphasize the direction of content flow or highlight an important piece of data using straight, curved, and bent arrows. 
  • Flow Charts: Represent the relationships between concepts using standard flowchart symbols such as process, decision, and data. 
  • Equation Shapes: Show mathematics and scientific calculations using common equations and symbols.
  • Stars: Add emphasis using a variety of stars with 4 to 32 points, plus explosions, scrolls, and banners.   
  • Callouts:  Pair text with graphic objects using speech and thought bubbles and line callouts.
  • Action buttons: Combine button shapes with hyperlinks to perform an action with a click, such as playing a sound or turning on the speaker.
  • Lines (Connectors): Point to a piece of information or connect two shapes with curved, elbow, and straight connectors. 
      

3. When the shape appears on the slide, you can adjust its size by dragging the pointers at the edges of the shape box. 


Add a silhouette 

1. Select Shape from Insert pane at the top and choose Silhouette at the left.

2. Choose the category of silhouette you want to insert within the window.
 Use the navigation arrows to move between the below categories:
  • Business: Show business strategies and marketing plans using illustrations for a salesperson, a businessperson, an advisor, a presenter, and more. 
  • Athletes: Show sports activities like running, cycling, and kicking a ball. 
  • Emotions:  Illustrate moods and emotions like laughing, crying, excitement, and anger.
  • Hand Gestures: Count off points using the fingers of a hand, and show business gestures like handshakes and closing deals.
  • Currencies: Represent a variety of currencies including the dollar, euro, rupee, and more.
       

3. When the silhouette appears on the slide, you can adjust its size by dragging the pointers at the edges of the shape box.

Draw a custom shape of line, curve, or scribble

1. Select Shape from Insert pane at the top and then choose Shape from the options at the left.

2. Choose one of the Draw with pen options at the bottom of the shape window.


Before you start, enable Continuous Mode to start drawing your lines, curves, and freeform shapes continuously without the need to click and drag your mouse every time you draw,

a. Draw a Line: Create straight lines and give realistic hand-drawn effects.
  • For a straight line, click Line  and drag to draw.
  • For a line connecting two shapes, click the Line   and hover over the first shape to display its connection points in red. Click the connector you want to attach your line to, then drag the line to the other shape's connection point and click on it to finish.
                   
You can format and arrange the line after it's added to the slide using formatting options.

b. Draw a Curve: Create curved lines with either open or closed shapes.
  • Click Curve , drag to draw your line, and then click wherever you want to add curves.
  • To finish an open curve, double-click anywhere.
  • To finish a closed curve, double-click at the starting point.
                 
You can format and arrange the curve after it's added to the slide, similar to formatting a shape.

c. Draw a Freeform Shape: Creates shapes that have both curved and straight segments. 
  • Click Freeform  , drag for a straight line segment, and click wherever you want to add curves.
  • Drag the cursor continuously to draw like you would with a pen. 
  • To finish an open shape, double-click anywhere.
  • To finish a closed shape, click the starting point. 
          

d. Draw a Scribble: Create squiggly lines to form either open or closed shapes.
  • Click Scribble  and drag to start drawing. 
  • To finish an open shape, click anywhere.
  • To finish a closed shape, click its starting point. 
                  
You can format and arrange the freeform shapes and scribbles after they're added to the slide, similar to other slide objects. 

Draw continuous shapes

Select Shape from Insert section at the top, choose Shape category at the left and enable Continuous Draw Mode to start drawing.


















Convert diagrams with shape recognition

Draw professional-looking shapes without needing artistic ability and see that it automatically turns into a polished shape. 

To do this,
1. Select Shape from Insert section at the top and then choose Shape category at the left. Check the Shape Recognition checkbox to start drawing the outline of your desired shape and see your hand drawn shape transform into a polished shape.
        

2. When the shape appears on the slide, you can adjust its size by dragging the pointers at the edges of the shape box. 
Note about closed shapes
By default, a closed shape is filled. To make it transparent instead, click the shape to display the Shape options in the right pane, then click Fill and select None from the dropdown list.

Delete a shape

  • To delete a single shape, click to select it and then press the Delete key. 
  • To delete multiple shapes, click to select the first shape, press and hold the Shift key while you select the other shapes, and then press the Delete key.

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