Frequently asked questions

TextShape is a free, browser-based text art generator that fills any shape with your words. Instead of the unpredictable output of AI image generators, it uses a deterministic algorithm — the same settings always produce the same result. Upload an image or pick a template, type your text, and export your design.

No — and that's the point. TextShape places your words with a deterministic algorithm, so the same text and settings always produce the same result. There's no AI guessing, no random variation between runs, and nothing is generated on a server — you stay in full control of the layout.

Yes. TextShape is completely free — no account, no watermarks, and no usage limits. You can export high-resolution designs without signing up or paying.

Yes. Your designs are yours — free to use however you like, including for commercial projects, with no attribution required. TextShape is completely free, so if it helped you, a shout-out or a coffee is always appreciated — but never required.

Start from the built-in template gallery — hearts, stars, skulls, speech bubbles, and more — or upload any image and TextShape will detect its shape. Any clear silhouette works, so you can fill logos, letters, animals, or your own artwork with words.

Yes. TextShape works in modern mobile browsers and the editor adapts to small screens. A larger screen and a mouse make fine adjustments easier, so many people prefer desktop for detailed work, but mobile is great for quick designs and previewing templates.

A typical word cloud scatters words across a rectangle, sized by frequency. TextShape fills a specific shape — a heart, a country map, your own logo — placing real letterforms with glyph-level collision so the words interlock edge to edge along the silhouette. It is also deterministic: the same text and settings always produce the same layout, so you fine-tune a design instead of re-rolling until you get lucky.

Flow lays your words out in readable lines that follow the shape's contours — best when you want the text to stay legible. Packed arranges them like a word cloud: the biggest words land first and smaller ones interlock to fill every gap, edge to edge — best for a dense, artistic look. You can switch between them anytime in the Text tab.

It usually comes down to the silhouette and the words. Make sure your shape has a transparent background (use the background remover or the erase tool) and is a solid, contrasting form rather than a faint or busy photo. Then give the algorithm more to work with: add more — and shorter — words, since small words slot into tight corners. In Packed mode, "Mixed" orientation lets words rotate to fill awkward gaps, and "Shuffle layout" generates a fresh arrangement so you can keep the fullest one. In Flow mode, the "Keep text inside shape" toggle trades a little edge coverage for staying neatly within curves.

Yes. In Packed mode, turn on frequency sizing and each word is scaled by how often it occurs in your text — common filler words like "the" are skipped, one runaway word won't flatten everything else, and small repeats fill the gaps so the silhouette still reads. Flow mode has a word-cloud toggle that uses the same smarter scaling.

In Packed mode, put an asterisk before a word (for example, *Mom) to feature it — every instance is then sized from a larger band, so it lands big throughout the fill. In Flow mode, add the word in the Special Words panel and give it its own size boost, color, weight, or rotation. Either mode can also use a multi-color palette or color words from the underlying image.

Yes. There is a curated set of display fonts — script, comic, pixel, typewriter, slab serif, bold display, and more — each chosen to stay crisp when words pack tightly together. A live sample shows you each font before you apply it.

Yes. You can type any text, including accented Latin characters, and your words render exactly as typed. Non-Latin scripts (Cyrillic, Greek, CJK, and others) work in fonts that include those glyphs — a few of the bolder display fonts are Latin-only and fall back to a system font for those characters. Many templates also ship with native-language word ideas, diacritics and all.

You can upload PNG, JPG, WebP, and SVG images. PNGs with a transparent background work best, because the shape is detected from the image's transparency. If your image has a solid background, use the built-in background removal first so the shape is detected cleanly.

The editor has a one-click background remover that isolates your shape from a solid backdrop, plus an erase brush for cleaning up stray areas by hand. A clean, transparent silhouette is what lets the words fill the shape precisely, so it's worth tidying the image before you fill it.

Click the export button (or press Ctrl+S / Cmd+S) and pick a size — up to 4K (3840×2160), or set a custom width up to 8000px. You can export a transparent PNG, a solid-color background, or your original image behind the text, and there are one-click presets for common social media sizes.

Yes. Export a high-resolution PNG — up to 4K (3840×2160) — which suits posters, cards, invitations, stickers, and framed prints. For the sharpest result, export at the largest size your printer or print shop accepts.

Yes. The Animation tab exports the build-up as a short clip — words can pop, rise, or (in Flow mode) appear line by line in reading order. It renders an MP4 right in your browser, sized to a 1080px long edge (so a vertical clip is 1080 tall — ideal for Reels, TikTok, and Shorts), with an animated GIF option where in-browser video encoding isn't available.

Yes. Export your design as a vector SVG and turn on Cut mode for a craft-cutter-ready file: a single ink color, overlapping letters welded into clean shapes, and tiny unweedable words removed automatically. Every word becomes a true glyph outline, so you can also open and edit it in Illustrator or Inkscape.

Yes. On phones and browsers that support it, a Share button hands the exported PNG to your device's share sheet so you can send it to any app; everywhere else you can download the PNG. Your design's settings are also encoded in the page URL, so copying the address-bar link lets someone reopen your design ready to edit. Everything happens in your browser — nothing is uploaded to our servers.

When you use the editor, your images are processed entirely in your browser and are never uploaded to our servers — shape detection, text placement, and export all happen locally on your device. No account or personal information is required to create and export a design.

Yes. Tap "Share to gallery" in the editor to submit your finished design, and browse the community gallery for inspiration. Submissions are reviewed before they appear, and only the rendered image is shared — never your source photo. Sharing is entirely optional; the editor itself stays fully private.