Your first file

A Polyform project is a folder on your own disk. Make one, draw in it, and Polyform saves as you go. Then open it again from the start screen, from File, or from the folder itself.

1. Make a project

On the start screen, click New project, or press Ctrl+N. From inside a project, it’s File → New Project….

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Polyform asks where to put it, in a window titled Create Polyform Project. It suggests your Documents folder and the name Untitled. Type a name, for example Poster, and click Create. The project opens straight away, empty, with one page.

2. Draw something

Pick a tool in the bottom bar, or press its key, then drag on the canvas. The status line at the bottom says what the tool does.

1. Press F and drag to draw a frame: the artboard the rest goes in.
2. Press R and drag inside it for a rectangle. Hold Shift for a square.
3. Press O and drag for an ellipse. Hold Shift for a circle.
4. Press T, click, and type. Press Esc when you’re done.

Each new shape is selected, and the Inspector on the right shows its properties. To change its colour, click the hex value under Fill and type a new one, for example 4F9EFF, then press Enter.

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Ctrl+Z undoes and Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes. View → Version History (Ctrl+Alt+H) lists every step.

3. It saves as you go

There is no need to save. Polyform saves a moment after you stop, and every 15 seconds or so while you keep working. The project’s name at the top of the window shows a dot while there are changes not yet on disk, and says Saved when they are. File → Save (Ctrl+S) saves at once if you’d rather.

Every edit is also written to the project’s history as you make it, so undo and Version History still work after you close Polyform and open the project again.

To keep a copy somewhere else, use File → Save As… (Ctrl+Shift+S). The window then carries on with the copy.

Where it lives on disk

The project is a folder with the name you gave it. For a project called Poster in Documents:

Documents\
  Poster\
    Poster.poly       the project file: double-click it to open the project
    scene\            the drawing, a file per page
    history.sqlite    every edit, for undo and Version History
    assets\           images you've placed
    thumbnail.png     the picture on the start screen

• Move or copy the whole folder, never only Poster.poly: the drawing is in the rest of it.
• While the project is open, the folder also holds a small .polyform.lock file. It stops a second window from writing to the same project, and goes when you close it.
• Your projects are never uploaded: they stay on your PC. Signing in only unlocks editing.

Open it again

The start screen lists your recent projects, with a picture of each. Click one to open it.

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You can also:

• choose File → Open Project… (Ctrl+O) and pick the project’s .poly file;
• choose File → Open Recent and pick it from your last ten projects (Alt+F, then the arrow keys, works too);
• right-click Polyform on the Windows taskbar and pick it under Recent projects;
• double-click the .poly file in File Explorer.

Open the full-size picture