Freehand Shape Support

Freehand shapes are general shapes that can be added to diagram for annotation purposes. We can use pencil or pen shapes for sketching paths, we also can add solid shapes like stars, rectangles and arrow shapes.

In this article, we will demonstrate the use of freehand shapes for sketching a path to surround a critical path in Business Process Diagram.

Example: Annotating Diagram with Freehand Shape

Here is a Business Process Diagram with a dotted line showing the critical path. The dotted line, the red arrow and the text "Critical Path" are all freehand shapes. We will see how to draw them one by one.

Freehand shapes can be selected from diagram toolbar. Let's select Pencil tool.
Move the cursor to where want to start drawing.
Press on it and sketch the path.
Complete the path like this:
We can fine tune the path by adding extra points, and bending the path to make it look better. Move the cursor over the path and wait for a second until the yellow points appear.
The yellow points are for adjusting the curve of the path. Add a point by clicking on the path. Drag on the point the adjust the curve.

This is how the diagram look like after fine tuning the path.
Now, let's add an arrow that point to the pencil path. Select the Arrow tool from diagram toolbar.
Press and drag on the diagram to create an arrow with specific size.
Drag on the tiny yellow circle on top of the arrow to rotate the arrow.
Finally, let's create a text "Critical Path" with Word Art. Select Word Art in diagram toolbar.
Like before, click on the diagram to create the shape.
Enter the text.
Like editing a path, we can change the appearance of Word Art by adjusting the points around the Word Art shape.
We can also format the freehand shapes by applying different line styles and colors. This is the final outcome: