Which Overlay Matches Which Main-Page Mode?

The main-page calculator and this tool use the same golden-ratio maths, so each main-page mode has a matching overlay. Open the Overlay menu (the golden-rectangle button in the toolbar) and choose it under Mode.

Quick Mode → Simple Grid (Selected Automatically)

Quick Mode splits each dimension at its two golden-ratio points, ÷φ² (38.2%) and ÷φ (61.8%). The Simple Grid draws exactly that: two vertical lines across the width and two horizontal lines down the height, at 38.2% and 61.8%.

It is turned on automatically for every image you open. Like Quick Mode, it has no levels. To keep it while you add another overlay, tap + Add Overlay Layer; to remove it, choose None.

For the numbers, use Download › .TXT (Overlay Positions). For Inkscape guides, use the Inkscape Guides downloads.

Calculator Mode → Golden Ratio Lines

Calculator Mode builds a table of golden-ratio steps from a value, dividing by φ (decreasing) or multiplying by φ (increasing). Golden Ratio Lines draws those steps on your image.

Calculation Levels X sets the number of vertical lines (steps across the width) and Calculation Levels Y the number of horizontal lines (steps down the height), each 0 to 50. Level n sits at the length × 0.618034ⁿ, measured from the left (top) edge, so each extra level lands closer to that edge. 0 turns that axis off.

Opposite Direction measures from the other edge, like Calculator Mode’s option of the same name, and Mirror shows both directions. The Vertical Lines and Horizontal Lines switches turn each axis on or off.

Why Calculator Mode shows negative numbers: its Opposite Direction (Reverse) option measures each result from the other end (value − result). Decreasing steps are smaller than the value, so they stay inside it and positive. Increasing steps are larger, so they fall past the far end and come out negative. An image has nothing beyond its edges, so this overlay only draws the steps that fall inside it.

Designer Mode → Designer (Recursion)

Designer Mode adds golden-ratio lines level by level in one of two Recursion Modes. The Designer (Recursion) overlay does the same on your image, with the same two buttons just under the overlay buttons: Offset From Last (the default: 2, 6, 12 … lines per direction) or Divide Every Piece (2, 8, 26 …). See Recursion Mode below for diagrams.

Levels X (1–8) sets the levels of the vertical lines across the width; Levels Y (1–8) those of the horizontal lines down the height, just like giving each dimension its own levels on the main page. Vertical and horizontal lines each have an on/off switch (only vertical starts on). The main page’s third dimension (Z) has no equivalent on a flat image.

Recursion Mode (Offset From Last Or Divide Every Piece)

Every tool here that adds golden-ratio lines level by level has a Recursion Mode: two buttons placed directly under the setting that chooses recursion (under Tick Style for a Line, under Recursion / Calculation for a Rectangle, above the grid levels of a Rotated Rectangle, under Ring Style for a Circle, and under the overlay buttons for Designer (Recursion)). They appear in both the Measure menu and the layer’s Edit menu, and offer the same choice as Designer Mode on the main page and in the consoles.

The Two Modes

Offset From Last (the default): level 1 places lines at the length ÷φ and ÷φ² from either end (2 lines, because both ends give the same two points). Each later level uses a step φ times smaller (÷φ³ at level 2, ÷φ⁴ at level 3, and so on), measured left and right of every existing line and in from both ends. Points on an existing line, on an end or past an end are skipped. The lines stay evenly spread: 2, 6, 12, 22 … up to 174 at level 8.
Divide Every Piece: at every level, each piece between two lines is cut into three at ÷φ² and ÷φ of its own length, so every piece becomes a smaller copy of the whole. 2, 8, 26, 80 … up to 6,560 lines at level 8 (about three times as many each level).

Offset From Last

Level 12 lines

Level 26 lines

Level 312 lines

Divide Every Piece

Level 12 lines

Level 28 lines

Level 326 lines

Drawn to scale: each row shows every mark up to that level, with later levels drawn shorter. Level 1 is the same in both modes.

Every Offset From Last line is also a Divide Every Piece line, so Offset From Last is the lighter, evenly spaced choice and Divide Every Piece the dense one.

Where You Find It

Overlay menu: the Designer (Recursion) overlay. Each overlay layer keeps its own mode.
Measure menu: Line (its φ / φ² Division Ticks), Rectangle (Recursion), Rotated Rectangle (its grid) and Circle (Recursion Levels). The mode you choose there applies to the next shape you draw.
Edit Measurement menu: at the top, for a layer drawn with one of those tools, so you can change a shape you have already drawn.

When the setting above it chooses something without recursion (a Line with Golden Ratio Lines (Calculator), a Rectangle with Calculation, a Circle with Ring Levels), the two buttons are hidden until you choose recursion again. Simple Grid, Golden Ratio Lines, the Fibonacci spirals, Recursive Rectangles (which has its own 18 modes), Triangle and Pentagon do not use it.

Positions, Guides And Quick Image

The .TXT (Overlay Positions) file names the mode on its first line. Offset From Last lines are labelled L1-1, L1-2, L2-1 …, left to right within each level; Divide Every Piece keeps the main page’s labels (L1A, L2-1B …). Inkscape guides, downloads and Easy View all follow the mode that is set.

Quick Image uses Offset From Last with 2 levels on X and Y: 12 guides, 4 at level 1 (red) and 8 at level 2 (green).

Getting Started

Opening An Image

Tap Start Here on the start screen. The pop-up lists Quick Image (at the top), Choose An Image, Take Photo, Create Image and Paste Image From Clipboard. You can also drag a JPG, PNG or WebP file onto the page. Once you are working, the folder button in the toolbar opens the File Menu: Undo and Redo, Rotate Image (left and right), Flip Image (horizontal and vertical), Quick Image, Open An Image, Take Photo, Create Image and Paste Image From Clipboard. Your image stays on your device: nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.

Take Photo uses your device’s camera. On a phone or tablet it opens the camera app (allow the camera if asked); take the photo and confirm, and it opens here. On a computer, a pop-up shows the live camera: press Take Photo to capture at the camera’s full size, Switch Camera to use another camera (if you have more than one), or Cancel. If the camera is blocked or missing, the pop-up says so and offers Choose A File Instead. Photos from a phone’s camera app keep their lens details, which Estimate Real Proportions (Crop menu) can use.

Paste Image From Clipboard starts from an image you copied or cut elsewhere. If your browser asks to read the clipboard, allow it; if there is no image, a short message says so. You can also press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac) while the page is open. If an image is already open, you are asked before it is replaced.

Every new image starts with the Simple Grid turned on. Opening or creating a new image clears the previous image’s measurements, overlay layers and undo history.

Quick Image

Quick Image is the fastest way to get an image into Inkscape with golden-ratio guides. Tap Start Here › Quick Image (or File Menu › Quick Image), choose an image, and an Inkscape-ready .svg is saved immediately.

The file contains your image and the guides of a Designer (Recursion) overlay, Offset From Last, 2 levels on X and Y (12 guides): level 1 guides are red and level 2 guides green. In Inkscape, use them to snap to, or drag them from View › Guides. If your browser did not save the file automatically, the Download menu shows a File Ready button.

Your image stays open with the same overlay, so you can keep working. Quick Image replaces the current image and its overlay layers and measurements, and starts the overlay from default settings (no rotation or flips). The file is named after your image, for example photo-guides.svg.

Creating A Blank Image

Tap Start Here › Create Image, or File Menu › Create Image. Enter a Width (X) and Height (Y) in pixels (16 to 20,000 each), choose a background colour (white by default) and tap Create Image.

You get a blank image of exactly that size for golden-ratio overlays and measurements, handy for planning a layout before any artwork exists. It exports like any other image: JPEG and PNG show the background colour, and SVG files hold it as a plain coloured rectangle you can recolour in Inkscape.

The Toolbar

Home: back to the main calculator. A pop-up asks first, because the image and its layers are not saved (with Cookies on, it tells you they will be kept instead; see Cookies And Unsaved Work under Settings). Home is also in Settings, next to Help. When the toolbar is too narrow, the zoom buttons are hidden first, then Home.
File Menu (folder): Undo and Redo, Quick Image, Open An Image, Take Photo, Create Image and Paste Image From Clipboard, plus Rotate Image and Flip Image.
Overlay: golden-ratio overlays (see Golden Ratio Overlays).
Measure: choose a measuring tool and draw on the image.
Crop (right of Measure; below it when the phone is sideways): cut the image down. See Cropping.
Layers: show or hide groups, and manage every overlay layer and measurement.
Zoom − / +: zoom out or in (hidden on narrow screens; pinch, or use Settings).
Download: save JPEG, PNG, SVG, Inkscape guides and position lists.
Settings: view, project, troubleshooting, privacy and this Help.

Turning The Phone Sideways

Turn a phone sideways and the toolbar moves to the left or right edge (whichever way you turned it), with Home at the top and the other buttons below. Icons stay upright and Crop sits under Measure. Menus open beside the toolbar at full height, and the zoom buttons, then Home, are hidden if there is no room (pinch, or use Settings).

The small tips move to the top corners: Properties and Undo / Redo to the top left, and the measuring bar, layer buttons and crop tip to the top right. Start Here shows every choice at once, with no scrolling.

Phone Mode (in Settings under Desktop Mode, shown on phones only, on by default) is what makes the page change when you turn the phone. Turn it off and the page keeps its upright layout, with the toolbar along the top, however the phone is held; the two toolbar switches below are then hidden. With Cookies And Unsaved Work on, the choice is remembered.

Lock Toolbar Side When Rotated (in Settings, on by default) keeps the toolbar on the edge of the phone it started on, as above. Turn it off and the toolbar always goes to the right edge, with the Precision Zoom box in the top left corner. While it is off, Swap Toolbar Side appears under it: turn that on for the toolbar on the left and Precision Zoom in the top right corner.

Zooming And Moving Around

With no measuring tool on, drag the image to move it. Zoom with the mouse wheel (at the pointer) or pinch with two fingers. Fit To Screen and Reset View (100%) are in Settings.

How The Menus Work

Menus open directly under the toolbar. On a wide screen each menu opens under its own button: menus of buttons on the left line up with the left edge, and those on the right with the right edge. On a narrow screen a menu fills the width; with the phone sideways it opens beside the toolbar. Changes apply immediately; there is no OK or Apply button. Close a menu with ×, by tapping its toolbar button again, by tapping outside it, with Esc or with the Back button. A menu always opens at its top.

While a menu is open the image is dimmed. Turn off Screen Tint While In Menu in Settings to keep it clear; a tap outside the menu still closes it. In Desktop Mode the Overlay, Measure, Crop and Layers menus can also stay open as windows you move and resize (see Desktop Mode under Settings And Troubleshooting).

The Back Button And Swiping Back

Your browser’s Back button, an Android phone’s Back key or gesture, and the iPhone swipe from the left edge first close whatever is open on this page, newest first: a pop-up, the numpad, a menu, Crop mode or a measuring tool. Each press closes one thing and you stay on the page.

When nothing is open and an image is on screen, Back asks Leave This Page? first, because the image, overlays and measurements are not saved (with Cookies on they are kept, so it does not ask). Stay On This Page keeps everything; Leave Page returns to the previous page. Links that leave the page ask the same question. Download anything you want to keep first.

A refresh or a closed tab cannot be caught this way, so they lose the image without asking, unless Cookies: Safeguard Unsaved Work (Settings) is on, which restores everything when the page opens again.

Golden Ratio Overlays

Choosing An Overlay

Under Mode, choose None, Simple Grid, Designer (Recursion), Golden Ratio Lines, Fibonacci Spiral or Recursive Rectangles. The settings below change to suit the mode. With None, all other settings are hidden.

To use several overlays at once, tap + Add Overlay Layer (see Overlay Layers).

Simple Grid

Two vertical and two horizontal lines at 38.2% and 61.8% of the width and height: the classic golden-ratio grid. It has no levels; style it with Rotation, Flip, Colour, Opacity and Line Thickness.

Designer (Recursion)

Adds golden-ratio lines across the width and down the height, level by level. Recursion Mode (the two buttons under the overlay buttons) chooses how: Offset From Last, the default, steps out from every existing line by a step φ times smaller at each level (2, 6, 12 … lines); Divide Every Piece cuts every piece again at its golden points (2, 8, 26 … lines). See Recursion Mode for diagrams. Recursion Levels X and Y (1–8 each) set how deep the vertical and horizontal lines go.

Vertical Lines and Horizontal Lines turn each direction on or off. Colour By Recursion Level gives each level its own colour.

Golden Ratio Lines

Steps of the golden series along the width and height. Calculation Levels X and Y run from 0 to 50 (0 turns that axis off). Level n sits at length × 0.618034ⁿ from the left (top) edge.

Opposite Direction measures from the other edge; Mirror draws both (lines that coincide are drawn once). Colour By Calculation Level colours each level separately.

Fibonacci Spiral

A golden-rectangle spiral fitted to the image. If the image is not exactly golden-ratio shaped, the spiral is sized to fit, and the Horizontal Position and Vertical Position sliders move it along whichever axis has room to spare. Rotate turns it 0° or 90°.

Recursive Rectangles

Levels (1–8) draws a chain of nested golden rectangles closing in on each corner you choose. Recursion Levels (1–8) adds cutting lines that divide every piece again, level by level. Any combination of corners can be turned on.

Recursion Mode is a drop-down list in three groups (Every piece is cut, Only some pieces are cut, One chain of lines). It decides how each new line is drawn:

Split: cuts every piece across its long side; each line stops at the next perpendicular line.
Cross: each new line is perpendicular to the last and stops at the next perpendicular line.
Reach: like Split, but each line runs through the next perpendicular line and stops at the second.
Weave: perpendicular lines that cut in and out: one end stops at the next perpendicular line, the other runs to the second, swapping every level.
Whirl: one chain of lines per corner, each perpendicular to the last, winding in on the corner.
Steps: one chain per corner: two parallel lines, then two perpendicular, each running to the second perpendicular line.
Grid: every cut runs edge to edge and each new line is perpendicular to the last, building a golden lattice.
Beams: like Split, but every cut runs edge to edge across the whole image.
Tails: like Split, but each line starts at its piece and runs on through the next perpendicular line to the second.
Comb: perpendicular lines with one end at the piece edge and the other running out to the image edge, swapping sides each level.
Pairs: lines come in pairs of levels, two parallel then two perpendicular, every piece cut at its golden point.
Swing: like Cross, but the cut point alternates between 61.8% and 38.2% each level.
Frame: like Cross, but only pieces touching the image edge are cut again, so from level 5 the lines gather round the border and leave the middle open.
Focus: only pieces reaching the middle of the image are cut again, so the lines close in on the centre.
Checker: only every other piece is cut at each level, leaving a chequered mix of large and small pieces.
Coil: one chain per corner, each line perpendicular to the last and running through to the second perpendicular line.
Ladder: one chain per corner: two parallel lines, then two perpendicular, each stopping at the next perpendicular line.
Spiral: a golden spiral from each corner: every line cuts off the larger part and the remaining rectangle winds round towards the spiral’s eye.

With all four corners on, every mode except Whirl, Steps, Coil and Ladder is symmetrical (the note under the mode says which). The lines and rectangle edges can be downloaded as Inkscape guides; see Using Inkscape.

Rotation, Resize To Fit Image, Resize To Fit Angle And Flips

Rotation (0–359°) turns the whole overlay about the centre of the image. Two switches resize a turned overlay along its own X and Y (no effect at 0°); only one can be on:

Resize To Fit Image stretches the overlay so the whole image fits inside it: each of its axes is as long as the image is wide along that axis. Its lines then reach past the image edges, so the image is fully covered at any angle. Every overlay has it.
Resize To Fit Angle shrinks the overlay so each axis runs from the image centre to the image edge at that angle, keeping it inside the image.

Flip Horizontal and Flip Vertical mirror the overlay. Golden Ratio Lines and Recursive Rectangles have them under the rotation switches; Fibonacci Spiral has them directly under Rotate (0° / 90°). Simple Grid and Designer (Recursion) have none, because they look the same flipped.

Offset And Scale

Every overlay can be moved and resized. Under Rotation, Scale (10–300%) grows or shrinks the overlay about the image centre, and Offset X and Y move it sideways and up or down in image pixels (positive values move it right or down). Reset returns the offset to 0, 0 and the scale to 100%.

Offset and scale belong to each overlay layer separately and are included in PNG and SVG downloads, Inkscape guides and the position list.

Colour, Opacity And Line Thickness

Colour is the overlay’s main colour (red by default; see Blue Lines On A Red Picture below), Opacity runs from 10% to 100% and Line Thickness from 1 to 20 px (1 px by default). Thicker lines are less precise; use them for appearance only. If thin lines are hard to see on a large image, use Easy View (Settings) instead. Designer (Recursion) offers Colour By Recursion Level, Golden Ratio Lines Colour By Calculation Level, and Recursive Rectangles Colour By Level (the nested rectangles) and Colour By Recursion Level (the cutting lines). Each is a drop-down with one colour circle per level; a level without its own colour uses the main Colour.

Blue Lines On A Red Picture: red lines are hard to see on a picture with a lot of red in it, so each picture is checked when it opens. When about 15% or more of it is strongly red (any shade from orange-red to crimson that is not too dark or greyish), the overlay and the measuring tools start in blue instead of red; the next picture without much red goes back to red. Once you choose a colour yourself it is kept for every picture. A blank picture is checked by its colour.

Overlay Layers

Layers let you keep an overlay and start another, so several overlays can share one image, for example a Simple Grid, a Designer (Recursion) overlay and Golden Ratio Lines together.

Adding A Layer

Set up an overlay, then tap + Add Overlay Layer at the top of the Overlay menu (right of Mode). The overlay is kept exactly as it is as a layer, and the menu returns to None with default settings, ready for the next one. The button is greyed out while the mode is None.

The Current Overlay And Your Layers

The overlay you are working on in the Overlay menu is the current overlay, drawn on top of your layers. In Layers it is the first row under Overlays, named Current Overlay, with its colour circle, a gear (opens the Overlay menu), Clone (keeps a copy as a new layer and leaves the current overlay unchanged) and Show / Hide. It cannot be renamed; + Add Overlay Layer turns it into a layer. The Golden Ratio Overlays switch in Layers shows or hides the current overlay and all layers at once.

The Overlays List In Layers

Open Layers and look under Overlays. Current Overlay comes first, then one row per layer with a colour circle, its name (with its overlay type underneath once renamed) and four buttons: Edit, Clone, Show / Hide and Delete.

Editing A Layer

Tap a layer’s Edit button (or its row). The Overlay menu opens as Edit Overlay Layer with all of that overlay’s options (levels, corners, direction, rotation, flips, colours, opacity, thickness and downloads), and changes apply to that layer only; the current overlay is untouched. None and + Add Overlay Layer are hidden while you edit a layer, and closing the menu returns to the current overlay. Editing a hidden layer shows it again.

The Colour Circle

The circle on the left of a layer recolours the whole layer. If the layer already uses several colours (for example one per recursion level), the circle shows four colours; picking a colour gives the whole layer that one colour. To colour a single level, use Edit › Colour By Recursion Level.

Renaming, Hiding And Deleting

Rename: press and hold the layer’s name (about half a second) to edit it; press Enter or tap elsewhere to save (Esc keeps the old name). With a keyboard, Tab to the name and press F2. A layer must have a name: if you leave it empty, a pop-up says so and the box reopens. Clone (two sheets, left of the eye) adds an exact copy at the top of the list, named “… copy”. Hide (eye) removes the layer from the image and from flattened JPEG / PNG files without deleting it; the layered .ZIP and .SVG files still include it (see Downloading And Exporting). Delete (bin) asks first, then removes the layer; Undo can bring it back.

Layers And Downloads

Flattened downloads include the current overlay and every visible overlay layer. Layered .ZIP and .SVG files include every layer, hidden ones too. See Downloading And Exporting for what each file contains.

What Happens When You Open A New Image

Overlay layers belong to their image, so opening a new image (or Remove Image & Start Over) clears them, along with the measurements. The current overlay keeps its look (type settings, colour, thickness, opacity) but not where it sat on the old image: its Offset, Scale and Rotation go back to 0, 100% and 0°. With Cookies And Unsaved Work on, what was kept for the old image (the image, its overlays, layers and measurements) is deleted at once, and the new image is kept a moment later.

Measuring

Choosing A Tool And Drawing

Tap Measure, choose a tool, close the menu and draw on the image. With the tool set to Off, dragging moves the image. The colour, thickness, opacity and label settings at the bottom of the menu apply to the next measurement you draw. The How To Use drop-down under the tool buttons is a short guide to the chosen tool.

While a tool is on, a small bar at the top of the image reads Snap · Measuring — (tool) · Exit. Snap turns Snap Mode on or off (see Snap Mode); Exit (or Esc) stops measuring and returns to moving the image. With the phone sideways the bar has two rows: Measuring — (tool) above, Snap and Exit below.

Tools with levels have a Colour By … Level drop-down just above Colour. Open it to give each level its own colour; a level without its own colour uses the main Colour.

The Measurement Tools

Line

Drag between two points. Shows the distance and perpendicular ticks at the φ and φ² division points. Recursion Levels (1–8) adds more ticks, placed by the Recursion Mode under Tick Style (Offset From Last or Divide Every Piece; see Recursion Mode). The level-1 tick is the tallest and each deeper level is 0.618 (1/φ) as tall as the one before. Lock X & Y draws only horizontal or vertical lines.

Tick Style has two choices. φ / φ² Division Ticks follows the Recursion Mode: Divide Every Piece splits each part of the line at its φ and φ² points at every level; Offset From Last adds ticks a step φ times smaller on either side of every tick so far. Golden Ratio Lines (Calculator) puts one tick per level at the Calculator’s decreasing steps: level n at the line’s length × 0.618034ⁿ, measured from the first point you drew, so each new level is closer to that point (0.618, 0.382, 0.236, 0.146 …). Reverse (Opposite Direction) measures the same steps from the other end, and Mirror (Both Directions) shows both; a Reverse tick that coincides with a normal one is drawn once. You can change the mode, Reverse and Mirror later in the measurement’s Edit menu. The Calculator’s increasing steps are longer than the line, so they are not drawn.

Rectangle

Drag from one corner to the opposite corner. Two buttons sit under How To Use:

Recursion draws a golden-ratio grid inside, built in the Recursion Mode chosen under the Recursion / Calculation buttons. Recursion Levels X — Vertical Lines and Recursion Levels Y — Horizontal Lines (1–8) set the number of levels each way.
Calculation works like the Golden Ratio Lines overlay and the Calculator: level 1 is a line at 0.618 of the width (and height), level 2 at 0.382, level 3 at 0.236 and so on, each 0.618 times the last, measured from the first corner. Calculation Levels X — Vertical Lines and Calculation Levels Y — Horizontal Lines (0–50, 0 for none) set the number of lines each way. Opposite Direction measures from the other side; Mirror shows both.

Both buttons are also in the rectangle’s Edit menu, so you can switch a drawn rectangle between them. Colour By Recursion Level (or Colour By Calculation Level) is a drop-down just above Colour.

Rotated Rectangle

Drag to draw the first edge and release. A big circle appears in the middle of that edge, with a dashed line through it: drag the circle (or any point on the edge) sideways to set the second edge. The golden-ratio grid follows the tilted rectangle and uses the Recursion Mode above its grid levels.

Circle

Press to set the centre, drag out and release to set the radius (or draw from the edge to the centre; you choose). Ring Levels and Recursion Levels give two styles of concentric rings at radius ÷ φ and beyond. With Recursion Levels the rings follow the Recursion Mode under Ring Style; Ring Levels draws one ring per level, each φ times smaller.

Fibonacci Spiral And Rotated Fibonacci Spiral

Drag from one corner to the opposite corner; the shape is always a golden rectangle with the Fibonacci spiral inside. The rotated version is drawn like Rotated Rectangle. Rotate (0° / 90°) and the flip switches set the spiral’s direction.

Triangle

Drag a line and choose whether it is the triangle’s base or the line from its top down to the middle of its base. The golden triangle is built on it at true scale: 36°–72°–72° or 36°–36°–108°. Recursion Levels divide it into smaller golden triangles, and the Recursion Mode drop-down chooses how.

A 36°–72°–72° triangle is cut by bisecting a base angle into a smaller 36°–72°–72° triangle and a 36°–36°–108° “gnomon”; a gnomon is cut into a smaller gnomon and a golden triangle. Each type has four modes: Whirl (the spiral in the background artwork), Zig-Zag (each new triangle cut inside the last, all sharing one corner; for the gnomon, the 108° corner), a chain of the cut-off pieces (Gnomon Chain for the 36°–72°–72° triangle, Golden Whirl for the gnomon) and Full Tiling, where every piece is cut at every level.

New triangles start in Full Tiling, for both types. You can change the mode before drawing or later in the Edit menu; switching the triangle type keeps the mode number. Mirror Recursion On Both Sides repeats the mode from the other end of the base (on by default; turn it off for one side only), and Flip Side turns the whole triangle over.

Pentagon

Drag a line to draw a regular pentagon and its pentagram (the golden-ratio star). The line runs either from the centre to a point of the star or from the top point down to the middle of the base. Recursion Levels nest smaller pentagrams inside, each 1/φ² the size of the last.

Selecting, Moving, Scaling And Rotating

Tap a measurement to select it, even while a measuring tool is on. Tap near one of its lines (outline, grid lines, ticks, rings or spiral; within about 10 screen pixels with a mouse, 18 with a finger) or on its label. Tapping the empty inside of a large shape does not select it, so it never blocks what is underneath (a drag there moves the image instead). Where two layers’ lines meet, the top layer is selected. Once a layer is being edited, you can press anywhere inside it to drag it.

Three boxes appear on a selected layer: Move just off its middle, and Scale and Rotate beyond a corner (a circle has only Move and Scale). They never cover a red circle: each box keeps at least 30 screen pixels between its edge and every red circle of the layer, so a fingertip can press the circle, and a box that would be off screen is brought back into view. Drag a box: Move slides the layer, Scale resizes it, Rotate turns it about its centre. A drag elsewhere moves the image, and tapping empty space finishes. While a measuring tool is on, the boxes also appear on the layer you just drew. If your pointer or finger passes over a box while you draw or drag a red circle, the box moves aside so you can see behind it.

For exact control, open the layer’s Edit menu (Layers › the gear on its row). Enter Position X / Y in pixels, Scale in per cent, Resize as an exact size in pixels and Rotation in degrees, or tap the symbol beside a value to close the menu and drag the matching box on the image. While you drag a box, separate buttons at the top of the image (styled like Undo, Properties and Redo) offer Snap, Layer Settings (opens the Edit menu), the padlock (locks the layer) and Done; tap Done when finished. With the phone sideways they sit in the top right corner: Layer Settings and the padlock, then Snap, then Done.

Scale resizes the whole layer by a percentage. Resize sets an exact length instead: a rectangle takes its own Width and Height (or Edge 1 and Edge 2 when turned), so it can be stretched; a line its Length; a circle its Radius or Diameter; a triangle its Base or Height; a pentagon its Radius or Side. Shapes whose proportions define them (circles, triangles, pentagons and Fibonacci rectangles) keep them, so the other size follows. The layer stays centred on the same point.

Snap Mode (Snapping)

Snap Mode pulls what you draw onto what is already there. With it on, a new line or a dragged red circle snaps to nearby sides, corners and crossings of other layers and the image edges, with corners and crossings taking priority. A small gold ring shows where it will land.

Turn it on or off with the Snap Mode switch in Settings (under Enable Easy View), or with the Snap button in the bar at the top, both while measuring (Snap · Measuring — Rectangle · Exit) and while editing a layer (Snap · Layer Settings · Done). They always match; the Snap button is filled while Snap Mode is on.

While Snap Mode is on, only the red circles of the selected layer can be dragged; pressing another layer’s red circle starts a new shape from that corner instead.

Precision Zoom

Precision Zoom is a small magnified preview of exactly what is under your mouse or finger, so you can place a point on a single pixel. Your finger hides the spot you touch; the box shows it.

It follows what you are placing: when the point you move is not under your finger, the box shows the point, not your finger. This is the case for the far side of a Rotated Rectangle (measuring or cropping), which slides with your finger wherever your finger is: the box shows that side where it is now. The same goes for a locked Line’s end, a Fibonacci corner, a point Snap Mode pulls onto another layer, the corner a Scale or Rotate box carries (the box sits beyond it), a skewed crop shape’s corner, and a finger slowed down by Finger Precision (see Settings And Troubleshooting).

When it shows: only while you press and drag on the image to draw, move a layer, drag a red circle or draw or change a crop shape (it stays briefly after you lift your finger). Moving the mouse without pressing shows nothing. It stays hidden while you move the image (also while a layer is picked), so it no longer flashes up as you let go, and closes as soon as you open a menu.

What it shows: the image around the point, each pixel drawn as a sharp-edged block of 16 × 16 screen pixels by default (the highest zoom). A cross marks the exact point, a thin outline marks the pixel you are on, and your other layers are drawn on top, without their red circles or the white dashed outline of a selected layer (so the measurement you drew last does not show its outline while you draw the next). The layer you are drawing, dragging or have selected is left out so its line does not cover the pixels you are placing it on, and Easy View is never drawn in the box. Beyond the edges of the image the box shows a navy and yellow checker, one square per image pixel, so you can see exactly where the image ends. The corner shows the point’s X and Y in image pixels and the zoom level.

Where it sits: at the top of the image, under the toolbar (a smaller box in the top corner away from the toolbar when a phone is sideways). Tips that would sit under it move aside while it shows; the crop tip stays behind it. On a screen wider than 1500 px it is a 480 × 480 box in the top left corner. In Desktop Mode it is a window of its own that always follows the mouse, without a click (see Desktop Mode under Settings And Troubleshooting).

Settings: Show Precision Zoom Tool Tip turns it on or off, and the Precision Zoom Level slider (1× to 16×, default 16×) sets the magnification. The level resets to 16× when the page reloads.

Undo And Redo

Undo and Redo sit at the bottom of the image, either side of the Properties button, and in the File Menu. They step back and forward through up to 20 changes to the current overlay, overlay layers and measurements (drawing, moving, editing, renaming, colours, hiding, deleting and adding) and to the image itself (crop, rotate and flip). Zoom, panning, Settings and locks are not part of the history, and Undo and Redo never change a lock. The history belongs to the open image and starts again when you open, create or paste a new one.

Keyboard: Ctrl+Z to undo and Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z to redo on Windows and Linux; Cmd+Z and Cmd+Shift+Z (or Cmd+Y) on a Mac. Inside a text or number box these keys undo your typing instead, as usual. Show Undo / Redo Tool Tip in Settings hides the buttons on the image; the keys and File Menu buttons still work.

Colour, Thickness, Levels And Labels

The Edit menu also holds each measurement’s Colour (red by default, or blue on a picture with a lot of red: see Colour, Opacity And Line Thickness under Golden Ratio Overlays), Thickness (1 px by default; thicker lines are less precise, so use them for appearance only), Opacity, Show Label and levels, with a Colour By Recursion Level drop-down just above Colour where the tool has levels (Colour By Calculation Level for a Rectangle in Calculation mode).

Reading The Numbers

Distances are plain pixel values from your image. The φ× and φ÷ figures next to each measurement come from the site’s full-precision engine. They are not physical sizes: an image’s real-world proportions are never known that precisely.

Cropping

Starting A Crop

Press Crop in the toolbar (right of Measure) and choose a mode: Rectangle, Rotated Rectangle, Symmetrical Skewed Rectangle, Asymmetrical Skewed Rectangle or Perspective (Quadrilateral). A tip at the top of the image names the mode (Crop — Rectangle), with Reset (start the shape again) and Exit (leave Crop mode; Esc and Back do the same). Each mode’s steps are below, and under How Cropping Works in the Crop menu. If a shape cannot be cut (it folds in or is too thin), the tip says so until you redraw it.

The tip and buttons are centred at the top; with the phone sideways they sit in the top right corner (the tip above Reset and Exit). The Precision Zoom box covers the tip while it shows. Pinch and the mouse wheel still zoom while you crop. Drawing works like the measuring tools (press, drag, release), and Precision Zoom shows the point you are placing (for the second side of a Rotated Rectangle, that side where it is now, however far your finger is from it).

Changing The Shape: Red Circles, Move, Scale And Rotate

As soon as a shape is complete you can change it; you do not need to draw it again. Its corners are red circles: press one and drag. A press anywhere else on the image still starts a new shape.

Rectangle and Rotated Rectangle: the corner goes where you drag it and the opposite corner stays where it is. The shape stays a rectangle at the same angle (a Rectangle stays upright).
Symmetrical Skewed Rectangle: the two big red circles skew the shape as before. The other two corners move an end of your first line, and the shape keeps its proportions.
Asymmetrical Skewed Rectangle: the big red circles as before. The other two corners move on their own, and the fourth corner keeps the shape a parallelogram.
Perspective (Quadrilateral): each corner moves on its own. If a corner would fold the shape in, the last good shape is kept and the tip says why.

Like a measurement layer, the shape also has three gold boxes: Move (just off its middle, joined to it by a dashed line) moves the whole shape, Scale (beyond one corner) makes it bigger or smaller about its middle, and Rotate (beyond another corner) turns it about its middle. The boxes keep at least 30 screen pixels clear of every red corner circle, so a fingertip can still press the circle, and stay on screen (inside the shape when it fills the screen). Turning a Rectangle makes it a Rotated Rectangle (the Crop menu shows the new mode). With a mouse the pointer changes over a red circle or a box. Nothing is cut until you press Crop, and the Crop button moves aside so it never covers a box. A second finger (pinch to zoom) puts the shape back as it was before that press.

Rectangle And Rotated Rectangle

Rectangle: press on one corner and drag to the opposite corner.

Rotated Rectangle: drag along one side of the area you want, in any direction. A big red circle appears in the middle of that side; drag it (or any point on the side) outwards to set the other side. The area inside is cut out and turned upright, at its real size.

Symmetrical Skewed Rectangle (Stretch Warning)

Drag from one corner to the opposite corner and release. The other two corners appear, with all four sides equal (a square standing on your line), and a Crop button shows. To skew the shape, drag either of those corners (the big red circles): it moves across the middle of your line and the opposite corner moves with it, so all sides stay equal. A shape that becomes too thin is refused and the last good one kept.

The four corners are pulled out to a rectangle, so the image is stretched: straight lines stay straight, but shapes, angles and proportions inside it change. The orange i next to the mode says so.

Asymmetrical Skewed Rectangle (Stretch Warning)

Drag from one corner to the opposite corner and release, then click where the third corner goes (or drag to place it exactly). The fourth corner appears opposite it, mirrored through the middle of your first line, so the shape is a parallelogram: opposite sides are equal, but neighbouring sides need not be. Drag either of those corners (the big red circles) to adjust; the other moves the opposite way. A third corner on or very near the first line makes the shape too thin, and the tip asks for another point.

As with the Symmetrical mode, the shape is pulled out to a rectangle, so the image is stretched. The orange i next to the mode says so.

Perspective (Quadrilateral) (Skew Warning)

Draw the four sides one after another, each like a line: drag the first side and release. A big red circle appears at its end; drag from it to draw the second side, then the third. The fourth side closes the shape automatically. Every corner must point outwards (the shape cannot fold in); if one does not, the tip says so and you redraw the last side.

Lock Vertical and Lock Horizontal (under the Perspective button, Lock Vertical first) lock the first and third sides you draw: Lock Vertical keeps them upright, Lock Horizontal keeps them level. The second side is free. Only one lock can be on at a time. They help straighten an image taken at an angle, such as a building front, a painting or a page: lock the top and bottom edges level (or the sides upright), then place the remaining corners.

Estimate Real Proportions (under the locks) crops to the shape the flat surface really has. A wall, painting or page photographed from the side looks squashed and narrower at the far end. Normally the crop uses the shape’s size in the image; with this switch on, the page works out the surface’s true width and height, as if seen straight on, and crops to that shape (never smaller than drawn, only longer in the other direction). The Crop pop-up shows the estimate, for example 3.000 : 1, and how it was found.

The estimate needs to know the camera lens. The page uses the lens you enter in the Crop menu (Camera Lens, 35 mm equivalent; 26 suits most phone main cameras), otherwise the lens stored in the photo, otherwise the shape itself, otherwise a typical phone lens. Entering the right lens matters most when two sides of the shape are parallel (as with Lock Vertical). It works best on photos that have not been cropped before.

The shape is stretched to a rectangle, so its contents are skewed. The orange i next to the mode says so.

The Crop Button: Overlays And Measurements

When the shape is complete it is outlined in red, everything outside it is dimmed, and a Crop button appears beside it. Change it with its red circles and boxes, or redraw it (or press Reset), as often as you like. Crop opens a pop-up with up to two questions, shown only when relevant:

Current and other overlays: Fit redraws every overlay for the new image size, so it covers the cropped image; Keep keeps each overlay on the same part of the picture: it is moved, turned and resized with the picture, exactly as the measurements are with Fit, so after a Rotated Rectangle crop the overlay turns with the picture. An overlay set to Resize To Fit Angle or Resize To Fit Image keeps the frame it had (the switch turns off, as the picture it was fitted to has changed). On a skewed or perspective crop, which stretches the picture, the overlay follows the middle of the shape as closely as a straight overlay can (see the warning below).
Measurements: Fit moves, turns and resizes every measurement with the image, so it stays on the same part of what you measured (a rectangle in a turned crop becomes a turned rectangle); Leave keeps them at the same pixel positions.

Stretched shapes (Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Skewed Rectangle, Perspective): these crops pull the picture out into a rectangle, so its horizontal and vertical directions change, and by different amounts in different places. Nothing drawn on the old picture can be carried across exactly, so while overlays are set to Keep, or measurements to Fit, an orange note in the pop-up says that they are a best fit only: an overlay is matched at the middle of the shape and a measurement at its own middle, and they drift further off the further they reach from that point. Choose Fit for the overlays to draw them again, correctly, on the new picture. A Rectangle or Rotated Rectangle crop only moves and turns the picture, so there everything is carried across exactly.

Fit is selected by default. Crop makes the new image; Cancel returns to the shape.

After The Crop

The cropped image replaces the one on screen (its name gets -cropped added) and Crop mode ends. The whole crop is one Undo step: Undo restores the earlier image with its overlays and measurements, and Redo crops again. A JPEG stays a JPEG when the shape lies inside the image; otherwise the result is a PNG, and parts of a skewed or perspective shape outside the image are transparent. A blank image stays blank at its new size, very large results are reduced to fit the device, and all downloads use the cropped image.

Rotate And Flip The Picture (File Menu)

The File Menu has four buttons directly under Undo and Redo: Rotate Image with the Undo arrow turns the image 90° left, Rotate Image with the Redo arrow turns it 90° right, Flip Image with the left-right arrows mirrors it horizontally, and Flip Image with the up-down arrows mirrors it vertically.

Each asks first, in a pop-up with a Cancel button. If there are overlays or measurements, it asks what should happen to them:

Rotate Them With The Image / Flip Them With The Image: they turn or mirror with the image and stay on exactly the same spots. Each overlay keeps its settings, with Rotation, Offset and Flip adjusted to match (an overlay turned a quarter turn shows a Rotation 90° more or less).
Rescale Them To The New Image (Rotate): overlays are redrawn for the new shape of the image, and measurements keep their direction and are scaled together to fit inside the new image, centred.
Keep Them Where They Are (Flip): the image keeps its size, so nothing drawn moves; only the image underneath is mirrored.

With nothing drawn, the pop-up just asks to Rotate or Flip. Each change is one Undo step. Turning a JPEG many times loses no more quality than turning it once, and turning it back gives the identical image. A JPEG stays a JPEG, other images become PNGs, and the file name gets -rotated or -flipped added. Very large images are reduced to fit the device.

The Layers Menu

The Four Switches

Original Image, Golden Ratio Overlays, Measurements and All Labels show or hide each group on the image. Downloads follow them: with Original Image off, JPEG / PNG files leave out the image; with overlays off, PNG and SVG files leave them out.

Overlays

The Overlays section sits under Measurements. It has the Current Overlay row, then one row per overlay layer: colour circle, name (hold it to rename), Edit, Clone, Show / Hide and Delete. See Overlay Layers. Overlays are always drawn under measurements unless you combine the lists (see Reordering And Combining Layers).

Measurements

This section comes first, with one row per measurement, newest at the top. The circle changes its colour, A turns its label on or off, the gear opens its Edit menu, the two sheets clone it (an exact copy, 20 px down and right, at the top of the list), the eye hides it (hidden measurements are left out of flattened files but kept in layered .ZIP and .SVG files), the padlock locks it (see Lock A Layer) and the bin deletes it after you confirm. Tap a row (or its gear) to open its Edit menu; press and hold its name to rename it.

Reordering And Combining Layers

Press the up-and-down arrows button to the right of Measurements (or of Overlays And Measurements when the lists are combined). The other row buttons disappear and each row gets Move Up and Move Down. The top of the list is drawn on top. Press the button again to finish.

Tick Combine Overlays And Measurements to merge the two lists into one, Overlays And Measurements, so overlays and measurements can be moved past each other (for example, an overlay above a measurement). Untick it to return to two lists, with every overlay under every measurement again. The order is kept in image downloads and layered files.

Lock A Layer

Each measurement row has a padlock between the eye and the bin. Tap it to lock that layer so it cannot be changed by accident: it cannot be selected, moved, scaled, rotated, dragged by its red circles, edited, renamed, recoloured, have its label switched or be deleted, on the image or in the menus, until you tap the padlock again (or press Unlock in its Edit menu). Showing and hiding still work, you can still draw over it, and Snap Mode can still snap to it. Delete Many and Delete All leave locked layers alone.

You can also lock the selected layer from the layer bar at the top of the image (the padlock button). It asks first, because a locked layer can no longer be selected or changed on the image; unlock it in Layers or its Edit menu. Locking and unlocking are not Undo steps, and Undo and Redo never change a lock.

Delete Many And Delete All

The button with a bin and three lines, beside the up-and-down arrows, turns on Delete Many: the other row buttons disappear and each row gets a tick box on the right (tap the row or the box). Press the bin button again to delete the ticked layers (a pop-up asks first). With nothing ticked, it just leaves Delete Many.

While Delete Many is on, a Delete All button appears under the bin button. It deletes every overlay layer and measurement and sets the current overlay to None, after a pop-up. Locked layers cannot be ticked and are kept. Undo brings everything back.

Downloading And Exporting

What Every Download Includes

Flattened downloads (.JPG, .PNG and the transparent .PNG) include the current overlay, every visible overlay layer and your measurements, and leave out hidden layers and anything switched off in Layers (Original Image, Golden Ratio Overlays, Measurements, Labels). Layered downloads (.ZIP and .SVG) keep every layer, hidden ones too, so you decide what to show in your own editor. A closed drop-down under each group of buttons (for example About The .SVG Files or About The Inkscape Guides) describes each download.

.JPG (Flattened) And .PNG (Flattened)

The image with all visible overlays and measurements drawn on it, at full size (very large images may be reduced to what your device can handle).

.PNG (Overlays + Measurements Only, Transparent)

Only the drawings, on a transparent background (every visible overlay and measurement, no image), to place over the image in any editor.

.ZIP (PNG Layers Including Original Image)

PNG files cannot hold layers, so this is a .zip of same-size PNG files that line up exactly: the original image at the bottom (numbered 01), then one transparent PNG per overlay, then one per measurement. A small layers.txt lists them bottom to top.

Hidden layers are included (hidden with the eye, switched off in Layers, or a hidden Original Image) as normal visible layers, so you choose what to show in your editor; layers.txt marks them “was hidden in the app”.

Open them as layers in Photoshop, GIMP, Krita, Affinity or Photopea (in Photoshop: File › Scripts › Load Files into Stack), in that order. For one editable file, the SVG downloads keep the same layers as vectors. With Easy View included, the files are arranged in folders; see Easy View In Layered Downloads.

.SVG Files (All With Inkscape Guides)

Every .SVG download is an Inkscape file with the golden-ratio guides stored inside: .SVG (Image + Guides Only) and .SVG (Image + Overlays + Measurements + Guides). Other programs (Illustrator, Figma, Affinity, web browsers and so on) ignore the guides and open the file as a normal layered image. The plain .SVG downloads (Image + Overlays, and Overlays Only) are no longer offered; for overlays and measurements without the image, use the transparent .PNG. If there is nothing to turn into guides, Image + Guides Only is disabled, and the layered version still saves the image, overlays and measurements without guides.

The geometry is kept as separate, editable layers: one for the image, one per overlay (named after it, with the current overlay above your layers) and one per measurement, grouped under Measurements. They open in Inkscape, Illustrator, Figma and similar programs. Hidden layers are included but switched off (display: none), ready to turn on in your editor’s layer list.

So that Inkscape can open the file, a PNG, JPEG or GIF goes in unchanged, while other formats, phone photos that rely on a rotation flag and very large images are converted (and reduced slightly if needed) first. A note in the Download menu says when this happens.

Easy View In Layered Downloads

When Include Easy View In Downloads is ticked (and Easy View is on), the Download menu also asks how layers are arranged in the .SVG and .ZIP files:

Layers And Easy View In Separate Folders: a Layers folder holds every layer and an Easy View folder holds one copy per layer (named Layer – Easy View), below all of them. In the .ZIP these are two folders of PNG files.
Each Layer Next To Its Easy View Copy: one folder per layer, holding the layer with its own Easy View copy beneath it. A later layer’s copy sits above earlier layers, so it can cover their lines. In the .ZIP each layer is a folder of two PNG files (01 = Easy View copy, 02 = the layer).

Without Easy View, the layers are listed side by side as before.

.TXT (Overlay Positions)

A text file listing where every X and Y division line of every visible Simple Grid, Designer (Recursion) and Golden Ratio Lines overlay sits, level by level, in pixels and as a percentage, with the image name and size. With several overlays, the file has one section per overlay, in drawing order. Fibonacci Spiral and Recursive Rectangles have no division-line positions, so they are only named at the end (Recursive Rectangles do have Inkscape guides).

The same button is at the bottom of the Overlay menu when a Simple Grid, Designer (Recursion) or Golden Ratio Lines overlay is selected.

If A Download Does Not Start

A File Ready — Tap To Save button appears in the menu; tap it. On phones there may also be Share / Save To Device and Copy Image buttons. Some pages that embed this tool block downloads; open the tool on its own page instead. The positions text can also be copied straight from the Overlay menu. Settings › Test Image Export On This Device checks what your browser allows.

Using Inkscape

What The Guides Are

Inkscape calls these lines guides: draggable lines that objects can snap to. The guide downloads place a guide on every division line of every visible Simple Grid, Designer (Recursion), Golden Ratio Lines and Recursive Rectangles overlay (current overlay and layers), already in position. Rotated, flipped and resized overlays give correctly angled guides.

Fibonacci Spiral has no guides. Every guide in the downloaded .svg files is red, whatever the overlay’s colours.

Recursive Rectangles As Guides

Every recursion line and nested-rectangle edge of a Recursive Rectangles overlay becomes one guide (duplicates are listed once, and the image’s own edges are left out). Guides are named after their source, for example Recursion Split L2 X 988.9 or Nested Rectangle L3 Y 618.0.

Inkscape guides always run the full width or height of the page, so they cannot show where a rectangle line starts and stops, and the composition is lost. Download .SVG (Image + Overlays + Measurements + Guides) to keep it: the drawn lines stay in the file with the guides on top. A small i next to the Inkscape downloads (Download menu and Overlay menu) explains this whenever a Recursive Rectangles overlay is showing. The orange i beside the Inkscape title adds advice on telling the guides apart (see Seeing The Guides Easily).

Which Download To Use

.SVG (Image + Guides Only) gives your image with the guides. .SVG (Image + Overlays + Measurements + Guides) adds the drawn overlays and measurements as layers. Both are in the Download menu and at the bottom of the Overlay menu.

Guides For Measurements

In the Inkscape part of the Download menu, tick Include Guides For Measurements (off by default) to turn the straight lines of your visible measurements into guides too: lines, the sides and grid lines of rectangles, rotated rectangles, triangles and pentagons, and the straight divisions of the other tools. Circles, arcs and spiral curves have no straight lines, so they give none. Guides on the same line are listed once, and each is named after its measurement (for example Rectangle 1: Guide 3). Both guide downloads then include them, with or without an overlay.

Because a guide always runs edge to edge, you need layers and guides together to read measurement guides easily: download .SVG (Image + Overlays + Measurements + Guides), where your measurements stay as layers with the guides on top. A small i beside the tick box explains this and opens automatically when you tick it.

Seeing The Guides Easily

Lines start 1 px wide, which is thin on a large image, on a Recursive Rectangles overlay and when measurements are included as guides, so individual guides are hard to tell apart. Two ways to help: turn on Easy View (Settings) and tick Include Easy View In Downloads (always at the top of the Download menu), so every line gets a thick bright copy behind it in the file; or increase the Line Thickness of the overlay and measurements (thicker lines are for appearance only and are less precise).

The orange i to the right of the Inkscape title (Download menu and Overlay menu) opens this advice. It is also in the About The Inkscape Guides drop-down, and the drop-down under Include Easy View In Downloads recommends Easy View for these cases.

Opening The File In Inkscape

In Inkscape choose File › Open and select the .svg. Guides are switched on in the file, so they appear immediately; if not, look for the guides option in Inkscape’s View menu (its position depends on your version). Double-click a guide to see its position, angle and name.

With several overlays, each guide’s name starts with its overlay’s name (for example My Grid: X L1A), and each overlay is its own layer in Inkscape, so you can hide or lock them one at a time.

Getting Inkscape

Inkscape is a free vector editor, available from inkscape.org.

Settings And Troubleshooting

Fullscreen

Fullscreen (off by default) is the first switch in Settings. It makes the page fill the whole screen, hiding the browser’s bars, on desktop browsers, Android phones and tablets, and iPads. Turn it off, press Esc or use your device’s own gesture to leave. The switch follows the browser, so it turns off if you leave fullscreen another way. Where a page cannot go fullscreen (Safari on iPhone, or a page shown inside another page), the switch is hidden. It is not remembered after a reload.

Easy View

Lines start 1 px wide so measurements stay exact, which is thin on a large image. Easy View draws a thick, bright copy of every overlay and measurement behind all your layers, so the thin lines stay on top, exactly where they are, and are easy to see. When you open a large image, a message at the top offers to turn it on.

Turn it on or off with Enable Easy View in Settings, where you can also set its line width (1 to 50 px) and colour, or turn on Multi-Colour. It appears on screen only: it is not a layer, cannot be selected or edited, and changes no measurement. Downloads leave it out unless you tick Include Easy View In Downloads at the top of the Download menu (recommended for Recursive Rectangles, measurement guides and large images). JPEG and PNG files then show it behind the lines, and layered .ZIP and .SVG files carry one Easy View copy per layer (see Easy View In Layered Downloads).

Multi-Colour gives each new overlay and measurement its own vivid Easy View colour, chosen to stand out from the red lines and from the previous colour. A layer keeps its colour when moved, undone or added as a layer. The single colour setting is hidden while Multi-Colour is on.

Pop-Up Numpad

Tap or click any number box in a menu (levels, sizes, positions, offsets and so on; not the box for renaming a layer) and a compact numpad opens: 0–9, ., ± (changes the sign; greyed out where the value cannot be negative), ⌫ (delete), × (close) and ENTER (keep the value and close). Keys type at the cursor like a keyboard (when you pressed the box with a finger or pen, at the end of the value), and the setting updates as you type. The numpad closes as soon as you leave the box: ENTER, ×, a tap elsewhere, Esc or the Back button.

Where it opens: upright (or on a computer), beside the menu, level with the box, when there is room for both; otherwise directly under the box, over the menu. If that would run off the bottom of the screen, the menu moves up while the numpad is open so the box stays visible just above it. With a phone sideways it always opens under the box, over the menu, moving the menu up as needed.

It is on by default. While it is on, your device’s own keyboard never appears for number boxes: a box you press with a finger or pen is typed into with the numpad only, and becomes an ordinary number box again when you leave it (a half-typed value such as 1. is tidied to 1). With a mouse, a computer keyboard still works as usual. Turn it off with Pop-Up Numpad in Settings, or in the small pop-up above the box the first time the numpad opens (not on a sideways phone). That pop-up’s × hides it for this visit, or for good when Cookies And Unsaved Work is on, which then also remembers your numpad setting.

Tool Tips: Measurement & Layer, Properties, Undo / Redo And Precision Zoom

Show Measurement & Layer Tool Tip (on by default) shows the measuring bar at the top (with Snap and Exit). Turn it off for a clean view; the Snap, Layer Settings, padlock and Done buttons used while editing a layer stay. The Easy View question for large images is separate: tick its Don’t Ask Again and it stays away until the page reloads.

Show Properties Tool Tip (on by default) shows a small Properties button at the bottom of the image. Press it to open the tip in its place with the X, Y, rotation and length of the layer you are drawing or have selected (X and Y are its centre, matching Position X and Y in its Edit menu), plus a live readout while you draw. Values a layer does not have (a circle has no rotation) are left out. With no layer selected it shows the image itself: its size in pixels and how far it is turned by Rotate Image (and whether Flip Image mirrored it). Press the open tip to fold it back. Turn the option off to hide both.

Show Undo / Redo Tool Tip (on by default) shows Undo on the left of the Properties button and Redo on the right, when the screen is wide enough for all three (also with the Properties tip open). On narrower screens they stack above the Properties button or tip. With the phone sideways they sit in the top left corner, Redo under Undo.

Show Precision Zoom Tool Tip (on by default) shows the Precision Zoom box (see Precision Zoom under Measuring). The Precision Zoom Level slider under it sets the zoom, and is hidden while the switch is off. Finger Precision follows it (see Finger Precision below).

Finger Precision

A fingertip is too broad to place a point on one exact pixel. With Finger Precision on (in Settings, under the Precision Zoom settings; on by default), a finger that moves slowly moves the point more slowly than itself, so you can ease it onto the exact pixel while Precision Zoom shows it, and your finger no longer covers the point. A quick movement still goes almost as far as your finger, so long lines can be drawn in one go. Two fingers (pinch), a mouse and a pen are never slowed.

Finger Sensitivity (10% to 90%, 50% to start; shown while Finger Precision is on) is how far the point moves for a slow finger: at 50% it moves half as far as your finger, at 25% a quarter. Lower is finer.

Only When Measuring Or Cropping (under Finger Sensitivity, off by default): normally the slowing works for everything you drag on the image with one finger, including moving the image itself. Turn this on to slow only drawing and changing measurements (red circles, the move, scale and rotate boxes, dragging a layer) and drawing and changing crop shapes; moving the image then follows your finger exactly.

Show Finger Sensitivity Tool Tip (under Only When Measuring Or Cropping; on by default on a phone or tablet, off on a computer, and available in Desktop Mode too) puts the sensitivity slider on the image itself while Finger Precision is on, so you can change it while you work: Sensitivity 50% and a slider, as wide as the measuring bar, centred at the top. The measuring bar, the crop tip, the layer buttons and the Easy View question move down under it. With a phone sideways it sits in the top right corner, with those tips under it.

With Cookies And Unsaved Work on, these settings are remembered.

Desktop Mode

Desktop Mode (in Settings, off by default) is made for a computer with a mouse.

The Precision Zoom window: Precision Zoom stays on and always shows the image under the mouse, without a click. It has a navy header with its name and an × that closes it (the same as turning off Show Precision Zoom Tool Tip; turn that on again to bring it back). Drag the header to move it and any edge or corner to resize it; it starts as a 480 × 480 box in the top left corner. While the mouse is over a menu it shows only the navy and yellow checker, and the image comes back as soon as the mouse leaves the menu.

Menus that stay open: the Overlay, Measure, Crop and Layers menus get a navy header. Click it to keep the menu open, or drag it to move the menu (which keeps it open too). A kept-open menu stays on screen while you work on the image and while other menus open and close, does not dim the image, and can be resized from any edge or corner. The pin button in its header turns it back into an ordinary menu; × or its toolbar button closes it.

Snapping: while you move or resize a window it snaps to the sides and corners of the screen (from further away) and to the sides of the other windows, so menus and Precision Zoom line up side by side or stack neatly, for example two menus down the left side.

On a phone or tablet (with Phone Mode on or off) the windows are easier to handle with a finger: their headers are taller (40 px for Precision Zoom), the pin and × buttons bigger, and the edges and corners that resize them wider, with gold grips on the bottom corners and short gold bars on the sides and bottom so you can see where to press. A finger has to move a little before a press turns into a drag, windows keep 8 px from the screen’s edges (where a swipe would be taken by the phone itself), they pull to the edges and to each other from a shorter distance, Precision Zoom starts at half the screen’s width in the top left corner, and a menu you keep open starts inside those margins at no more than 85% of the height.

With Cookies And Unsaved Work on, Desktop Mode and the Precision Zoom window’s place and size are remembered; kept-open menus are not.

Screen Tint And Toolbar Side

Screen Tint While In Menu (on by default) dims the image while a menu is open. Turn it off to keep the image clear; a tap outside the menu still closes it.

Lock Toolbar Side When Rotated (on by default) and Swap Toolbar Side choose where the toolbar goes when a phone is turned sideways: see Turning The Phone Sideways under Getting Started. With Cookies And Unsaved Work on, these switches are remembered.

View

Shows the current zoom level, with Fit To Screen and Reset View (100%).

Cookies And Unsaved Work

Cookies: Safeguard Unsaved Work (in Settings, under Privacy near the bottom) is off by default. While it is off, a small pop-up in the bottom right corner asks “Turn on cookies to safeguard unsaved work?” each time the page opens, with a switch, a close button and a reminder that Settings has the same switch; it closes by itself once you open an image. Tick Don’t Ask Again and no page of this site asks again (only that one choice is remembered while saving is off).

While it is on, your image and everything on it (current overlay, overlay layers, measurements, layer order, locks and Combine Overlays And Measurements) is stored in this browser on this device a moment after every change, and returns after a refresh, when you reopen the tab or when you come back later (a short note says so). Crops, turns and flips are kept too; undo history, zoom and view settings start fresh. Leaving the page no longer asks first, because nothing is lost.

It is the same switch as Cookies And Unsaved Work on the main page and the Cookies button in the consoles: turning it on or off anywhere applies everywhere, and turning it off deletes everything kept on every page. Remove Image & Start Over forgets the stored image. Nothing is sent anywhere, and the work stays in this browser only (other browsers and devices do not see it, and clearing the browser’s site data deletes it). A real cookie holds only about 4 KB, too little for an image, so the browser’s own site storage is used.

Remove Image & Start Over

Asks you to confirm, then clears the image, its measurements and its overlay layers and returns to the start screen.

Test Image Export On This Device

Runs a quick check of everything a JPEG or PNG download needs on your device and reports anything blocked.

Privacy

Your image is processed entirely on this device. It is never uploaded, stored on a server or tied to an account. Closing or reloading the page clears everything unless Cookies: Safeguard Unsaved Work is on, which keeps it in this browser on this device only.

Worked Examples

Layer Two Overlays And Export Guides For Inkscape

Open an image. The Simple Grid appears automatically.
Tap Overlay, then + Add Overlay Layer to keep the grid as a layer.
Choose Designer (Recursion), set Recursion Levels X and Y to 2, turn Horizontal Lines on and pick a colour. Tap + Add Overlay Layer again.
Choose Golden Ratio Lines for the current overlay and set its levels and direction.
Open Layers. Rename layers (press and hold a name), recolour one with its circle, or hide one you do not want in the downloads.
Tap Download and choose .SVG (Image + Overlays + Measurements + Guides). In Inkscape, every overlay is its own layer and every division line is a guide.
Use .TXT (Overlay Positions) if you want the numbers as a list.

Measure Part Of A Picture And Save It

Open an image, tap Measure, choose Rectangle and close the menu.
Drag across the part you want to measure. A golden-ratio grid appears inside, with its size shown.
Tap the rectangle to select it, then drag it into place. Open Layers › its gear to enter an exact position, scale or rotation.
In Layers, hide overlay layers you do not need, or turn Golden Ratio Overlays off.
Tap Download and choose .PNG (Flattened) to save the image with your measurement drawn on it.

Golden Ratio
Image Analyzer & Measurement Tool

Golden Ratio Overlays

Layers

Crop The Picture?

Are You Sure?

Take Photo

Rotate The Picture?

Crop

Measurement Tool

Edit Measurement

Download / Export

Settings

File Menu

Create Image

Start Here

Help — Image Analyzer

Golden RatioImage Analyzer & Measurement Tool

Golden Ratio
Image Analyzer & Measurement Tool