Concepts Android Manual Latest
Concepts Android Manual Latest
Welcome to Concepts!
Few things in life satisfy like creating with your hands. Concepts is a power tool for your
quickest and most intricate ideas. It's natural, flexible and portable, and it helps you to get
things done. This is your instruction manual.
To start learning about Concepts, please choose a category from the sidebar or dropdown
menu. You can also read the full manual as a PDF.
Like any idea, Concepts for Android™ and Chrome OS™ is a work in progress. We update
regularly, adding new features and improvements based largely on your feedback. If you have
suggestions, let us know.
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Help Doesn’t End Here
While this manual has detailed information on specific features, we write and publish how-tos
and interviews with industry experts almost weekly - check out our Help page in-app or
Infinite, Flexible News for the latest. If you’re a visual learner, you might appreciate our video
tutorials and workflow videos on YouTube. If you still can’t find what you’re after, find us on
your favorite social channel, email us at [email protected], or tap Help > Ask Us
Anything in app for some lovely, direct conversation.
Your fans,
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Contents
Welcome to Concepts! 1
Contents 3
The Gallery 8
Concepts Accounts 9
Your Workspace 11
Undo / Redo 15
Layers 16
Using a Stylus 16
Brush Gestures 17
Brushes Menu 18
Pens 18
Wire 19
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Marker 19
Airbrush 19
Filled Stroke 19
Dotted 20
Selection 21
Nudge 21
Slice 22
Pan 23
Text 24
Colors 26
Color Picker 30
Selection 32
Item Picker 35
Lasso 37
Color Picker 39
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Adjusting a Selection 40
Layers 45
Precision Tools 48
Grids 48
Grid Types 49
Snap 54
Shape Guides 57
Measure 58
Scale 59
Import 60
On the Canvas 63
PDF 65
Export 66
JPG 66
PNG 67
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SVG 67
DXF 67
PSD 67
.concepts 68
PDF 70
Importing a PDF 70
Exporting a PDF 72
Settings 75
Workspace 75
Stylus 76
Gestures 77
Presenting 78
Team Features 78
Team Accounts 78
Basic 79
The Essentials 80
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A-la-Carte 80
Brush Market 80
PDF 80
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The Gallery
The first time you open Concepts, after the short onboarding, you’ll start in the Gallery. This is
where all of your drawings are stored. They’re organized into “projects.”
2. Breadcrumbs. You’re now in the Gallery, in the “Welcome to Concepts” project. You can
tap the breadcrumb to open a project side panel, where you can see your projects.
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3. Pro Shop. Show your status, find cool tools and libraries to make your life easier, and
support us!
5. Gallery Sorting. You can change the sorting of your drawings in the project.
9. Drawings. All of your drawings in this project. Swipe left / right to switch between
projects or choose a project in the project side panel. Tap+hold a drawing to drag it
about, duplicate it or delete it. Tap the breadcrumb to open the project side panel,
where you can drop your drawing into another project. Tap a drawing name to rename or
delete it.
Concepts Accounts
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2. Under the Accounts tab, enter your email address and create a password. We won’t share
your email, it’s our way of contacting yours truly in the Concepts universe.
4. Voilà, you’re official! Your subscription purchases will automatically sync between your
devices.
5. While you're on the Accounts tab, would you mind telling us your interests? We'll know to
create awesome content for someone just like you.
6. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter filled with tips, interviews and cool stuff.
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Your Workspace
After tapping the plus button in the gallery, a new drawing will open.
Up at the top, you’ll see the Status Bar. From left to right on the bar, you’ll find:
1. The Gallery. Tap to return to the Gallery from your current drawing.
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2. Drawing Name. You’re working on the “kitchen” drawing.
3. Zoom / Angle. This represents the Zoom / Angle of your canvas or the Scale / Rotation
of your current selection.
4. Pro Shop. Show your status, find cool tools and libraries to make your life easier, and
support us!
6. Export. You can export to JPG, PNG, SVG, DXF, PSD, PDF and .concepts file types.
7. Settings. Tap the Settings gear to find workspace settings, canvas options, gesture
settings and stylus settings.
8. Help. Tap Help to access your account and find resources like our FAQ and our 24/7
support line Ask Us Anything. We like to talk with you and help you out - it helps us
make the app better, too.
Below the status bar is your Tool Wheel, including eight of your
favorite tools (each configurable), and an Undo and Redo
button.
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If you drag the tool wheel to the center of the screen, you’ll see a canvas
layout manager. Drag the weel on the image representing the tool bar and
your tool wheel will become a tool bar. You can also toggle between the wheel
and the bar in the Settings menu. The same abilities are available with the tool
bar as with the tool wheel, with the customizations and color options available
along the inside edge.
Some people prefer their buttons larger or smaller to fit their fingers. You can
scale the tool wheel by pinching or expanding your fingers on it, and find the
size that is most comfortable for you. If you’re on a desktop, hover the mouse
over it and scroll up or down.
Tap a tool on the outer ring to activate it and start drawing. Tap it again to
enter the Brushes menu, where you can choose from many different technical
and artistic tools. More about this in Brushes.
On the inner ring of the tool wheel are three settings you can use to configure
your current brush.
Size. Use the size slider to determine the size of your brush. Choose one of the four presets at
the top, and set those for fast toggling between favorite brush sizes.
Opacity. Use the opacity slider and presets to set the opacity for your brush. 100% is fully
opaque, 0% is fully transparent.
Smoothing. Use the smoothing slider and presets to set how much “smart” smoothing you’d
like your line to have. Smoothing happens after you draw, not during - live smoothing is coming
soon.
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0% smoothing gives you the raw stroke straight from your hand input, 50% smoothing takes
many of the bumps out for a more polished stroke, and 100% smooths the stroke into a
perfectly straight line between start and end points, no matter how wriggly it started.
At the center of the tool wheel, you’ll see the current color and opacity of your brush. Tap this
circle to reveal the COPIC color wheel, Too Corporation’s beautiful design and illustration
spectrum. Tap a color to select it. Read more on Colors below.
Work on the bigger picture or zoom in to focus on the details. With the infinite canvas, there are no boundaries
unless you set them yourself.
Concepts is equipped with an infinite canvas, which is our way of saying you can extend your
paper in any direction you need it, as far as you need it to go. Pan around using two fingers
normally, or one finger while using the Pan tool. If you’re using a stylus, you can set your Finger
Action to pan around as well, which makes navigating while drawing more convenient.
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To zoom in and out, or to rotate the canvas, use a two finger pinch / spread gesture. Lines stay
sharp no matter how far you go - one of the many benefits of a vector-based platform. You'll
notice there are "zoom steps" at certain zoom points (10%, 25%, 50%, 100%) which help you
find standard sizes and rotations by feel.
You can also set your zoom or rotation levels manually by tapping on the zoom value at the top
right corner of the canvas and entering it in.
If you get lost on your canvas (infinite is very big), you can double-tap the zoom value field and
you’ll be brought back to where you started.
Of course, you can add a predefined boundary or artboard to your infinite canvas, too. Just go
to the Settings menu and define your custom size or choose from the popular choices.
Undo / Redo
In case you need to step back and change something, you can always use the undo and redo
buttons on the tool wheel.
With a two-finger tap on the canvas, you can undo your strokes in workflow. It’s popular to the
point we’ve heard our designers wail about not having two-finger undo on a normal piece of
paper.
If you Undo too far, you can always Redo with a three-finger tap or use the button on the tool
wheel.
But you might not use Undo / Redo as much as you think. Concepts is a vector-based app,
which means you can Select and adjust any line or delete it entirely whenever you want. This
is a selective way to alter your sketch (no pun intended) without being limited to the last
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strokes you made. We think you'll prefer it.
Layers
Finally on the main canvas, you’ll see the Layers menu. This is also movable. Just
tap+hold+drag the Layers button to anywhere on the canvas you’d like it. Read more about
Layers below.
Using a Stylus
Concepts is at its best with a stylus, though it works with a mouse on PCs with Android or
Chrome OS installed. Currently Concepts is optimized for working with the Pixelbook Pen and
Samsung S-Pen. We do not have official support for other styli, but you may find that they
work regardless. If you have devices you’d like us to optimize for, please let us know.
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Brushes and Tools
Brush Gestures
To use a tool, tap on it and start sketching. Tilt and pressure are supported with the Pixelbook
Pen, and with many of the brushes (each is a bit different), and will happen naturally as you tilt
or press on the screen. Try them out and see which you like best.
As mentioned in the Tool Wheel section, the middle ring allows you to adjust the active brush’s
size (how big it is), opacity (how transparent it is), and smoothing (how bumpy or smooth you
want your line to appear once it’s drawn. 0% is no smoothing, 100% gives you a perfectly
straight line between your starting and ending points no matter how wriggly you get. Great for
train rides and polishing any hand drawn lines.) Tap on one of these options to bring up your
presets, or for a shortcut, just drag across it with your finger to adjust.
To access the Brushes menu, tap again on an active tool, or double-tap on an inactive tool.
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Brushes Menu
In the Brushes menu, you can select a tool from the basic
set of sketching tools or from the Brush Market.
Below the viewer you can find your basic tools, where you
can select from a variety of organic or engineering
brushes.
Scroll down further and you’ll find the Brush Market, with
different types of artistic brush libraries that you can
unlock a-la-carte, or enjoy open access to if you’ve
subscribed.
Pens
Pens are most widely used in sketching when you want to make a statement or reflect
permanence. Our Pen and Fountain Pen tools react to velocity to vary their line width - draw
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fast to get a thicker stroke. Our Dynamic Pen reacts to pressure. The Fixed Width Pen does
what it says on the tin - it maintains a constant width from cap to cap.
Wire
This tool behaves like a traditional CAD or vector tool would - the line width is maintained at
any zoom level, making it perfect for wireframes, light CAD drawings, perspective layouts, and
more. Export an SVG file using Wire into another vector program and find the same clean line.
Slightly different in texture and feel, these traditional sketching tools are modeled on real
pencils. They react naturally to tilt, pressure and velocity with a supported active stylus like
Pixelbook Pen. For great shading, tilt your stylus like you would a real pencil.
Marker
Have you ever used a COPIC marker? Our markers have the same texture, transparency and
edge that these popular markers have, making them great for highlighting, texturing and
illustration work. Give yourself a wide tip or a narrow one, or increase / decrease the opacity to
your liking.
Airbrush
The airbrush flows onto the screen with subtle texture and soft edges like the real medium.
Popular with sketchnoters, for highlights and for painting, give your design some sheen.
Filled Stroke
Not to be confused with Bucket Fill (which we’re working on - lots of definitional bits to think
about with the interactive parameters of vector strokes), the Filled Stroke tool is a brush
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unique to Concepts. It allows you to draw any type of shape - simple, wriggly, complex - with a
stylus or finger, and fill the positive space inside.
“Positive space” refers to any area inside your drawn line between start and end point that is
original to the stroke - as in, the area hasn’t been drawn over a second time during the same
stroke. This crossing over of filled area causes it to become “negative space” and remain
empty. Of course, if you draw over the area a third time within the same stroke, it becomes
positive again and is filled.
Your resulting fill is a smooth, clean finish, customizable with opacity. Excellent for shadows,
light, and complex figures, we think you’ll appreciate the possibilities this brush offers your
design + art toolkit.
Troubleshooting. Since Fill takes into account the start and end points of your line, make sure
Line Smoothing is set below 100%. Otherwise your shape will disappear into a line or a point as
though the rest of the stroke never happened. Also check that your transparency is above 0%,
or like all strokes it may disappear, only to be found when Selecting in the area.
Dotted
Great for annotations, partial boundaries or a bit of variety, the dotted line is a single stroke,
not thousands of dots. Treat it as a textured stroke susceptible to color, opacity and
smoothing.
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Selection
The Selection tool can be added to any of your tool slots and has two modes: a single-select
Item Picker and a multi-select Lasso. Toggle between these two options using the popup at
the bottom of your canvas, or put a second finger down anywhere to temporarily toggle the
mode.
The Selection tool can also be activated via tap+hold anywhere on the canvas - helpful for
when you’re in sketching flow and don’t want to change tools. It can also be assigned as your
finger gesture in Stylus Settings. To learn more more about this tool, see Selection.
Nudge
The Nudge tool allows you to push and pull your lines about like a piece of string. Touch your
stylus directly onto a stroke and drag it to pull it. To push a line, touch your stylus away from a
line and watch the circular nib appear, then nudge at your line. You can adjust the size of the
tool using the size preset in the tool wheel. Use a smaller size and zoom in to nudge tight
corners, use a larger size and zoom out to nudge gentler curves.
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Slice
The Slice tool is about as close to a real eraser as you’ll get in the vector world. It’s not exactly
a pixel eraser... you can’t rub away edges of strokes, but you can cut strokes into pieces -
redefining them into separate, independent strokes - and erase aka destroy your vector data
by sliding the puck across them.
The Slice puck is adjustable for size. Make it bigger to “erase” a scribble with a swipe, or make
it smaller for more precise incisions, then select and delete the remaining line.
You can also set the size to zero and divide your strokes without chopping away at their
length. It might not appear that anything happened when you ran your puck through the line,
but try selecting one end of the stroke and you’ll see that it was cut in two.
When slicing shapes made with the Filled Stroke tool, you can cut from an outer edge into the
shape and carve out full areas.
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If you want to remove strokes completely, try selecting them with a tap+hold and then use
Delete, or use the Slice tool to incise and delete sections or destroy them from the canvas.
Double-tap the mask button to open a Quick Clear menu. Here you can choose to delete
everything on the current layer, or clear everything in the image.
The mask stays the same size regardless of your zoom level. This means the further you zoom
inward, the smaller its effects will be - very useful for working with the details. You can also
change the size of the mask using the Size slider, and its effects will scale the same way.
The Hard Mask gives you crisp, clean edges; the Soft Mask works beautifully with the pencils
(and any other tool) to soften edges in a true-to-life, artistic manner.
Pan
Whether you want to showcase your work to your client or just pan through your infinite
canvas, you can use the Pan tool. It allows you to pan and zoom without accidentally selecting
or changing anything in your drawing.
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Text
Text labels are an easy, clean way to add annotations to your drawing. You can manipulate text
the same way you manipulate other strokes and images.
1. Set the active tool to Text. It might already be on your toolbar, or you may need to select
it from the Brushes menu.
2. Tap anywhere on screen to add a new text label. The keyboard will appear; type or
paste text, then dismiss the keyboard by tapping on canvas to solidify the label.
To edit a text label, Select it, then tap the text edit icon in the popup. It will take you back to
the keyboard.
You can select and modify the appearance of your text label just like you’d select any other
stroke. Select the text, then change its color or opacity via the tool wheel, use the Selection
popups to rotate, flip, scale, group, lock, delete it (etc), or use the control points to stretch
your text into Star Wars-like perspectives and align it with your drawing.
Concepts has full support for any language your device can input, including emojis :). We are
currently limited to a single font, but we plan to allow font selection in a future update.
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Brush Market Brushes
Memphis Patterns - These brushes let you add a variety of playful patterns to your work just
by coloring in.
Exterior Walls - Apply natural, realistic faces to your designs. Try the different types of stone,
paneling, concrete, plaster and steel.
Pastels - Captured from their actual physical counterparts, the dry pastel, oil pastel, chalk,
pastel pencil and charcoal look and feel very much like the real thing.
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Pencils - These pencils complement the basic hard and soft pencils to give you a full set of
traditional sketching pencils, including a 4B Solid Graphite, 2H Solid Graphite, Knife-Sharpened
Pencil, Carpenter’s Pencil, round and square Graphite Sticks and a Mechanical Pencil.
Pens - These pens round out your ink drawing set, including a Ballpoint Pen, a Gel Pen, firm,
medium and soft Brush Pens, a Felt Tip Pen and a Felt Tip Marker.
Spray Paints - Add some beautiful spatters and sprays to your art with these graphitic paint
tools. They come in fine, medium, fat, flat, side and spatter sprays.
Airbrushes - Our airbrushes are soft, smooth and even for coating any design. They come in
hard, medium, soft, dynamic and flat brushes.
Halftones - These vintage halftone brushes stem from printing techniques from the 1890s
onward and add some classic style to your comics and illustrations.
Colors
Tap the circle to bring up your current color wheel. Concepts has three color wheels to choose
from: Copic, HSL, and RGB. Each of these uses its own approach to color selection.
Regardless of which wheel you have open, the innermost ring of your wheel has some
important tools for you to take note of:
● Buttons for the Copic, HSL and RGB color wheels. Tap these to switch between them.
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● Eyedropper button. This will activate the Color Picker.
On to choosing colors.
This wheel is a spectrum of colors hand-picked by Too Corporation to help artists and
designers add consistency and beauty to their work while simplifying the matching process.
These colors are mathematically sorted by pigment and saturation, and are represented on the
wheel by a letter+number code. Visit here to learn more about Copic color theory. The values
in Concepts are as similar as they can get to their real-life marker complements.
The color wheel is spinnable. Drag your finger up or down to turn the wheel.
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At the center (beyond the tool wheel), you’ll find an eyedropper activating the Color Picker.
Next you’ll see a tonal value spectrum, true black and white. Next is a ring of your cool, warm,
neutral and tonal grays. Then the colors in their particular blending gradients, in all their glory.
The Hue Slider is the inner slider on the wheel, and it allows you to change the base shade of
your color.
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The Saturation Slider is the slider closest to the top of your screen, regardless of your tool
wheel’s placement on your canvas. It appears as a slider with grey on one end and your pure
hue on the other. This allows you to change how much pigment is in your color.
The Lightness Slider is the third slider, located underneath the Saturation Slider. This allows
you to change how light or dark your color is, with the lightest being white and the darkest
being black.
To adjust any of these sliders, slide the little circle markers back and forth.
Like the HSL wheel, the RGB wheel consists of three sliders. However, rather than picking a
hue and then controlling the saturation and lightness, this wheel allows you to combine
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different amounts of red, green and blue to create the hue you want. Red and green make
yellow, blue and green make cyan, and red and blue make magenta. Set your sliders to 0 if you
want pure black, or set them all to 255 if you want bright white.
Color Picker
The Concepts color picker is certainly a traditional color-picking tool, but it also has some neat
properties as part of a vector-based application.
1. Tap the color circle in the center of the tool wheel to bring up the color wheel and find
the eyedropper.
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2. Tap+hold anywhere on the canvas to bring up the Selection menu. With another finger,
you can tap the left button to toggle from Lasso to Item Picker to Color Picker. This is a
great shortcut for selecting colors and brush properties without having to break your
drawing flow.
Notice that in the bottom of your screen is a popup where you can toggle between ‘Alpha On’
and ‘Alpha Off’. With alpha on, the color picker will ignore the background and also detect the
opacity of the color. With alpha off, you will always get a color with 100% opacity that includes
the background color in the mix (like traditional pixel apps).
4. While the ring analyzes the color and opacity of the stroke, the tag floating above the circle
shows the vector details — its brush type and size etc. These are the characteristics of the
brush you used when initially drawing the stroke. If you tap the tag instead of letting go of the
ring, it will assign the exact brush you used to your tool slot.
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Selection
Concepts is a vector-based app, which gives you the powerful freedom to pick up and move,
tweak or change any stroke at any time after it’s drawn. It allows you to make changes to your
designs with minimal effort - instead of redrawing an entire project, you can just select what
needs to be adjusted and change it. Perfect for design iterations, reorganizing mind-maps, or
preparing materials for clients after feedback, Selection frees you to accomplish more.
There are four ways to Select (aka pick up) a stroke or multiple strokes in your sketch.
1. Use the Selection tool. In the Brushes menu, you can choose the Selection tool (the
arrow) and set it as a separate tool on your tool wheel or bar. Touch the screen to use it
like you use any tool.
2. Tap+hold anywhere on canvas to activate Selection. This is a really nice shortcut so you
don’t have to interrupt your drawing flow by changing tools.
3. If you’re using a stylus, configure your Finger Action to Select (Settings → Stylus). Your
finger will work as the Selection tool while your stylus follows your selected preset in the
tool wheel.
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4. If you want to select all strokes on a single layer, you can tap on the active layer to open
the Layer Selection pop-up. Tapping the cursor icon will select everything on that layer.
Once you’ve activated selection by any of the above options, you’ll find a popup at the bottom
of the screen. This is your Selection menu. The Selection menu helps you to filter the strokes
you’d like to select from, so whenever you select something, this menu will hang around.
● When using the Selection tool from your tool wheel, the menu will remain on screen as
long as the brush is active.
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● When Selecting via the tap+hold, the menu will remain for as long as your finger rests on
screen. With a second finger, you can toggle the menu buttons to set your filters (we’ll
talk about those below).
In the Selection menu, depending on which toggle you have active, you’ll find from left to right:
1. A Selection Type toggle, for which selection method you’d like active. Tap it to toggle
between Item Picker (single item selection, with the ability to add or subtract strokes
individually), and Lasso (multi-select using drag to lasso your strokes).
2. A Stroke Type toggle, allowing you to choose whether you’d like to select Partial or
Complete strokes inside your selection.
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3. A Lock toggle, which includes or ignores any strokes you may have locked while
drawing.
4. A Layers toggle, so you can choose whether to select inside your Active layer only, or
inside All layers at once.
Item Picker
On the left-hand of the selection toggle is your Item Picker. This is a single item selection
mechanism, which allows you to add and subtract individual strokes to your selection.
Drag the crosshairs over a stroke. For a single selection, let go. To multi-select, tap the screen with another finger
to select the stroke, then move to another stroke and repeat.
To use Item Picker, set your finger or stylus on the screen. A small crosshairs or plus (+) will
appear above your finger, or at the tip of your stylus.
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When you touch the crosshairs to a stroke, a circle will appear, telling you it has located a
stroke. Tap the screen to validate the stroke, and let go of the screen. The stroke will be
selected.
To add strokes to your selection, just drag the crosshairs to your next stroke and tap the
screen to select it. It doesn’t matter whether you have lifted your finger from the screen or not,
you can select as many strokes as you’d like.
To subtract a stroke from your selection, drag the crosshairs to an already selected stroke.
You’ll see the plus turn to a minus. Tap the screen to accept it.
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Lasso
If you tap the Selection Type toggle again, you’ll find the Lasso. This allows you to select
multiple items by dragging your finger across or around your strokes. Whatever the blue lasso
touches will be part of your selection. Lasso again to subtract from the selection.
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If you lasso a selection and decide you want to add further individual strokes, toggle the
button back to Item Picker via the Filters toggle, and continue making your selections.
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Color Picker
The third Selection toggle is the Color Picker. This is a vector color picker with a few more
capabilities than standard color pickers in other apps. It allows you to select and remember
color, brush and stroke properties, and set them to your tools.
In addition to the Selection toggle, you can activate the color picker from the Color Wheel.
Open the wheel, find the eyedropper, and tap it to use it.
When Color Picker is active, drag the circle with crosshairs across the screen. You’ll see the
top half of the picker changes colors and transparency according to the character of the color
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beneath it, while the bottom half of the picker displays your active tool’s current color. When
you let go of the color picker, the new color will be assigned to the tool.
In the selection menu at the bottom of the screen, you’ll see an option for “Alpha On”. This
means the color reflected will be calculated as if the color were against a transparent
background. It grabs the actual flat color without applying opacity to the brush.
Finally, you’ll see a tool tag floating above the color picker. This tag recalls the exact tool you
used to draw each stroke in your drawing. If you’re having trouble remembering which tool you
used in what color, tap the tag and the tool will be applied to your tool slot.
You can find an illustrated tutorial about the Color Picker here.
Adjusting a Selection
Once you’ve selected a stroke or group of strokes, you’ll notice the Selection menu at the
bottom of the screen has shifted to give you a few more helpful toggles.
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● Rotate. Allows you to rotate your selection. Tap it on or tap it off.
● Scale / Stretch / Off. Toggle between these to scale strokes (grow the whole selection
bigger or smaller, with a locked aspect ratio), stretch strokes (stretch strokes longer or
shorter, keeps the same tool size), or lock your strokes from scaling or stretching.
You can also do an exact angle rotation of your selection using the angle field below the
status bar at the top of the canvas. Tap+hold the angle field to bring up a keyboard, and type
in your custom degrees value. Objects will rotate clock-wise. It helps to lock your rotation
toggle on the selection menu first to avoid turning it again when moving the object.
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You can also use the four corner handles around a selection to adjust the selection. These
handles are your Control Points. You can tap, then drag a single point to scale/stretch the
selection. Or you can tap a corner point or two and distort, skew and warp your selection just
by pulling with one or two fingers. These are excellent for tweaking size and shape to make
your drawing proportions right. They’re also helpful for aligning strokes, text or other images
into your sketch’s perspective.
● Scale/stretch. Drag one of the corner points to resize the selection. Put another finger
on screen to lock the aspect ratio while resizing.
● Distort. Tap one corner and drag anywhere on screen to pull it around.
● Skew. Tap two corners at once, and use one finger to pull the entire side about.
● Warp. Tap two corners at once, and use two fingers to either pinch or expand your
selection. This makes your drawing act like the Star Wars credits.
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The Selection Popup
Above the selection box is a Selection popup. This has many useful features you might use to
work with your strokes.
Copy to Clipboard. You can use the Import menu in the Gallery or on canvas to paste strokes
you’ve copied to the clipboard.
Lock. The Lock button locks your selection from all other selections and adjustments you
might make in the future. You can access it again by selecting and unlocking it, or by changing
the Lock filter on the Selection menu.
Duplicate. Anything you select, you can also copy, as many times as you’d like. Just touch
Duplicate and it will create an exact match for fast iterations. Drag the duplicate to a new layer
to keep or hide your old selection, and iterate on the new.
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Delete. The best way to erase a vector stroke is to delete it, so if you truly dislike a stroke and
want to banish it to the far nethers, just delete it from your life and drawing. You can also use
the Slice tool that acts like an eraser. Of course, you can Undo.
Flip and Mirror. The final two buttons allow you to flip your selection from side to side, or to
mirror it vertically. Great for creating reflections and shadows, as well.
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Layers
Concepts comes equipped with a fully adjustable set of layers to help you design as flexibly as
you need. Enjoy five layers if you’re a free user or infinite layers as a Pro. Some of our
architects have over a hundred layers in a drawing as they create iterations for clients, and
many of our illustrators are a close match.
Layering comes in two modes - Automatic and Manual. Switching between them is as easy as
a tap on the appropriate “Automatic” or “Manual” button at the top of the Layers menu.
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● Automatic layering is the default and sorts your layers by tool type. Any time you switch
to a different tool, it will draw on its namesake layer. (Note that fountain pen and pen
share a layer, as do soft and hard pencils.) This is great for sketchnotes, presentations,
and any time you want retain control over your strokes but not think about them - it’s
built in.
● Manual layering allows you to draw with any tool on any layer, with as many layers as
you’d like for each tool. Infinite layers allow for infinite sorting, stacking, and control of
your textures, lines, colors, shapes and subject matter. As you use them, you’ll
appreciate just how much control you have to adjust and make changes.
These modes will generally take care of themselves as you draw, depending on which / how
many layer types you have, or you can switch between them with a tap. If you’ve broken the
Automatic layering rules by having more than one layer for a tool or by having more than one
tool-type in a layer, it will always remain in Manual.
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● Tap + New Layer to create a new layer. It will always appear directly above your current
layer. You can also select strokes from the canvas and drag them to this button, where
they will create a new layer just for themselves.
● Likewise, you can make a selection from your drawing and drag it to any layer, where
they will nestle into their new home.
● Tap the eye to the left to switch on / off the layer’s visibility. It’s still there, it just doesn’t
show up when off.
● Tapping an active layer brings up the layer’s command menu. From here you can select
everything on the layer, lock the layer, duplicate it, delete it, merge it down into the layer
beneath it, and rename it. You can also adjust the full layer’s opacity level by dragging
your finger along the slider.
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Precision Tools
Our Precision Tools are coming to Android. We have a roadmap of our expected release dates
for these tools here.
If you tap the Precision button on the canvas, you’ll see a couple of options expand beneath
the menu - Grid, Snap and Guide.
Grids
The grid is a smart underlayment to your canvas that allows you to not only visually reference
the grid, but interact with it via Snap and Align, our grid drawing guides. Tap Grid under
Precision to turn the grid on or off. Touch the label with the grid name next to the Grid button
to bring up the Workspace menu and select a new grid.
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Grid Types
Concepts has five regular grids and three perspective grids: Dot Grid, Graph Paper, Lined
Paper, Isometric Grid, Triangle Grid, and 1, 2 and 3 Point Perspectives. Select the grid from the
list in the Workspace menu. Scroll the list sideways to access all the options. To edit the grid or
choose from pre-made grid presets, tap on the active grid or tap the “Edit Grid” button.
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● Color – Select the automatic color that adapts to your canvas or choose a custom color.
● Opacity – Set the opacity of the grid. This option is available when using a custom color.
● Orientation – Set the orientation of the grid to landscape or portrait. This is useful if, for
example, you want to use vertical lines for lined paper. Available for Lined Paper,
Isometric Grid and Triangle Grid.
● Confine to Artboard – Check the box to only show grid lines within an artboard. This
only applies if there is an artboard on canvas.
Note that the grid units are determined by the drawing units you've selected in the Workspace
menu.
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The settings are slightly different for the perspective grids:
● Vanishing Points - Tapping this button takes you to the canvas, where you can move
the vanishing points and adjust the grid to your liking. You can also edit the grid on
canvas at any time by tap+holding on the vanishing points or by activating the grid layer.
● Density - Choose the number of vanishing lines that appear in the grid.
● Color - Select the automatic color that adapts to your canvas, or choose a custom color.
Tapping on the Custom color option selects the current color, tap it again to bring up the
color wheel and choose a new color.
● Opacity - Set the opacity of the grid. This option is available when using a custom color.
● Orientation - Use this setting to match the orientation of the grid to the screen. By
default, the grid is created in the same orientation the device was in when the drawing
was created.
● Confine to Artboard - Check the box to only show grid lines inside the artboard if there
is one configured on canvas. This is a universal setting that applies across all grid types.
The grids can be also edited on canvas. To enter the grid edit mode, activate the grid layer in
the Layers menu. With perspective grids, tap+holding on a vanishing point also activates grid
editing. While the grid layer is active, zooming and panning the canvas works normally, but it is
also possible to edit the grid.
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All grids have a rotation handle that can be used to set the grid to a specific angle. When
dragging the handle, a snap target line is shown every 45°. Let go of the handle while the snap
target line is showing to snap to that angle, or keep the handle still and wait for the snap target
line to disappear to set a specific angle close to the snap targets. When rotating the grid, the
angle is shown in the status bar. Tap+hold on the value to edit it directly.
To move the grid, drag the grid from the crosshairs at the centre of the horizon line, or drag
the line itself.
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With the perspective grids, all of the vanishing points can be moved by dragging them. The
vanishing points can also be activated by tapping on them. It is possible to activate more than
one point at a time. When the points are active, you can pan them with one finger or move
them around with two fingers just like when adjusting a selection. To scale the grid, select all
vanishing points and use two fingers to scale.
To exit the grid editing mode, tap anywhere away from the editing controls on canvas, activate
another layer, or tap “Done” in the notification.
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Snap
There are two ways to use Snap in Concepts: live snapping while drawing, and snapping while
editing. You can customize these options in the Precision menu - tap Snap to turn it on/off, tap
Options to change the snap settings.
There are three types of Snap guides for drawing: Snap to Grid, Align to Grid and
Autocomplete. There is also an Active Layer Only option. These Snap guides can help you to
draw straight lines according to a grid's directional set, create precise floor plans or style
patterns.
Snap to Grid
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With this option enabled, all strokes are drawn on top of the closest grid line available. All of
the brushes will maintain their dynamics, so you can use tilt, velocity and pressure to add
variance to your strokes.
The Wire and Fixed Width brushes can be used to draw clean strokes with fewer points. Try
these tools if you want to export clean SVG or DXF.
Align to Grid
This option aligns strokes directionally with the grid lines, yet does not snap them to the grid.
Use this for quick, accurate sketching guided by the grid's directional constraints.
Allow Turns
Enable this option to allow making turns when drawing with Snap to Grid or Align to Grid.
Sometimes it’s easier to just draw with straight lines without lifting your stylus, and this option
makes this possible. When Allow Turns is on, it is still possible to go back and forth on the
same line.
Autocomplete
Connects start and end points of your strokes. You may see small circles appear showing you
possible points to connect to - tap one if it’s useful, or ignore them if not. Autocomplete can be
used together with Snap to Grid and Align to Grid. In that case the strokes can snap to any
strokes intersecting with the trajectory of the stroke.
This option only applies to autocomplete. Activate this option to only snap to lines on the
currently active layer.
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Snap While Editing
When you Select a previously drawn stroke, you can adjust it using Snap. The Snap points are:
● With single-stroke selections, Snap points are the beginning and end points of any given
line and to the four corners and the center point.
● If the stroke is drawn with Snap to Grid, the apexes work as Snap targets as well.
● With multi-stroke selections, Snap applies to the four corners and the center point.
● When used with Shape Guides, Snap applies to the handles and the center point.
If you select the Snap to Grid option, you can also snap the key points of your selection to the
grid. Active Layer Only allows you to snap to strokes on the current layer only.
When drawing with Snap, each grid has its own guide settings that correspond with the grid's
directional constraints.
Dot Grid - Snap: draw horizontal and vertical lines only. Align: draw horizontal, vertical and 45°
diagonal lines.
Graph Paper - Snap: draw horizontal and vertical lines only. Align: draw horizontal, vertical and
45° diagonal lines.
Lined Paper - Snap: draw horizontal and vertical lines only. Align: draw horizontal, vertical and
45° diagonal lines.
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Triangle Grid - Snap + Align: draw 60° diagonal lines only.
1 Point Perspective - Align: draw horizontal and vertical lines, and perspective lines directing
toward the single vanishing point on the horizon line.
2 Point Perspective - Align: draw vertical lines, and perspective lines directing to each of the
two vanishing points on the horizon line.
3 Point Perspective - Align: draw perspective lines only that direct toward any of the three
vanishing points on the canvas.
Shape Guides
The Shape Guides are your design-sketching friend. The Shape Guides give you precision
control over every edge and radius you draw. Use them to sketch partial or complete perfect
shapes, and adjust them to any size, shape or angle.
When you activate a Shape Guide, you’ll see a number of features appear.
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1. The shape of the guide itself. The gray boundary is a reflection of the brush you’re using
- narrow or fat - and is the area that will fill when you trace the shape. Trace anywhere
on screen to draw the shape.
2. The circles or handles of the guide. Touch a handle and pull it, and watch the shape
stretch or shrink accordingly.
3. The crosshairs. Located at the center of the guide, tap+drag the crosshairs to move the
entire guide without altering it. If you double-tap the crosshairs, each guide will respond
with a special function:
○ The Line guide will limit your drawn stroke to between the handles.
To rotate a shape guide or any selection to an angle, tap the angle field in the status bar at the
top of the canvas and a keyboard will appear. Type in a custom value and confirm your choice.
Measure
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Scale
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Import
You can import images and selections into Concepts in many ways, from both the Gallery and
directly onto the canvas.
You can have one or many images on the canvas at a time, and as with all elements in
Concepts, each image can be selected, moved across the canvas or between layers, adjusted
for opacity, size or rotation, drawn on, masked or duplicated.
Importing selections allows you to draw elements in one drawing, copy them to the clipboard,
and paste them into another drawing for quicker work.
You can only import native .concepts files into Concepts at this time. This includes .concepts
files from Windows. (Please note that iOS uses a different ".concept" file type, you can't import
from iOS yet.)
Tap the Plus (+) button in the top left corner, or tap+hold the Plus (+) button in the bottom
right corner, and find Import.
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1. Import - You can import a JPG and PNG as well as a .concepts file. The image will open
inside a new Concepts drawing.
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This file is a .concepts file imported from Concepts for Windows 10.
2. Clipboard - “Paste from Clipboard” will create a new drawing of any content currently on
your device clipboard that we support. This includes selections you make in-app that you’ve
copied to the clipboard, or images copied in a web browser.
3. Camera - “Take a Photo” uses the device’s camera and creates a new drawing with the
photo in it.
4. Drag & Drop - You can also drag and drop files into the Gallery from a supported browser or
app, one file at a time. If it’s a Concepts file, it is simply added to the Gallery and opened. For a
JPG or PNG, a new drawing is created and opened with the image.
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On the Canvas
From the canvas, the Import menu is accessed through the Import button up in the status bar.
Tap the image icon to display your import options.
1. Photos - “Photos” allows you to choose multiple images at once when importing.
2. Files - Files allows you to import JPG, PNG, PSD or PDF onto the canvas from your device’s
file manager. (Note that you can't import a Concepts file in an open drawing).
3. Paste from Clipboard - This imports any supported selection or image currently copied onto
your device’s clipboard. The content will paste to the active layer. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V work
when copy/pasting a selection, as well.
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4. Take a Picture - This will use your device’s camera. It will add your image to the drawing
following the Automatic / Manual layering modes explained above in number one.
When you import images, they will appear Selected. This allows you to move the image about,
resize it etc. When you have it where you want it, tap to set it to the screen.
Images are assigned a layer when imported. If your layers are set to “Automatic”, the app will
create an “Image” layer just for the image at the bottom of the stack. If your layers are set to
“Manual”, the image will import to your active layer.
When you have strokes or an image Selected, the Selection menu shows a paperclip icon. Tap
this icon to copy your Selected items onto your device’s clipboard. A note will appear saying
“Copied to Clipboard.”
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You can access your selection from another drawing via the Import menu on the canvas, or in the
Gallery.
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Export
JPG
Standard, low-resolution export that’s best for quick emails or low-res screenshots. You can
choose between 72, 150 and 300 dpi resolutions.
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PNG
Standard, higher-resolution export for pixel-perfect images that are viewable on nearly any
device. You can choose between 72, 150 and 300 dpi resolutions.
SVG
A standard format for simplifed vector paths that include point data and colors, but is limited to
a single line-weight per stroke and very rough texture support. Please be aware that not all
SVG formats are equal between apps. In fact, they’re all different and proprietary, and you can
expect to see inconsistencies between vector stroke appearances in Concepts versus other
vector apps. Soft Mask marks will display as white lines. If exporting for Adobe Illustrator,
make sure to uncheck ‘Filters’ in the options.
DXF
DXF is a CAD format from Autodesk (R14) that includes vector paths and basic color
representation, useful for organic CAD models and laser / waterjet cutting. Eraser marks will
display as white lines.
PSD
Adobe’s Photoshop format supports multiple layers in a raster (high-res PNG) format.
Adobe’s PDF is an industry standard for cross-device workflows. This is the raster version that
maintains look and feel but loses vector path data. Files can be quite large as they’re exported
at high resolutions.
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PDF (ADOBE PDF, VECTOR PATHS)
Adobe’s PDF is an industry standard for cross-device workflows. This is the vector version that
supports basic paths but loses the textured feel of your brushes.
.concepts
Our native Concepts file. You can save this file type or share it with other Concepts users for
later in-app work, though it will only work on other Android / Chrome OS / Windows devices for
now.
Exporting a PDF
Concepts supports Android’s Drag & Drop capability. You can drag & drop selections and
images both into and out of Concepts with supported apps. Images are exported in a
transparent PNG file format.
1. This feature has to be enabled in the settings first. Open Concepts -> Open drawing ->
Settings -> Tap Gestures tab. Check "Enable Android drag+drop active selections".
2. Set your device in Split Screen view with both Concepts and supported app.
3. Using the Item Picker or Lasso, select what you’d like to bring to another app.
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4. Tap+hold your selection. It will pop out from the screen.
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PDF
PDF or Portable Document Format is the universal language for document shares. It’s a file
type that allows graphic data like fonts, images and layouts to be flattened as-is and shared
independently of all software and hardware brands, so that your important work can’t get
mucked up during the export / import process.
It also means your work can’t be edited, which means design iterations are difficult and require
lengthy re-drawing. Concepts allows you to create, import, mark up, rearrange, substitute and
export crystal clear PDF pages. Available in the Pro Shop either a-la-carte or as part of
subscription, it has a lot of power but is simple to use.
Importing a PDF
To import a PDF, download it via your email or other preferred method to your device, and
import it in Concepts using the Import button in the status bar or in the Gallery.
With a single-page PDF, it will import just like an image onto the canvas.
With a multi-page PDF, you’ll see a scrollable selection of pages appear at the side of the
screen. You can drag these pages onto your canvas and position them exactly as you would an
image or other selection.
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Interacting with Your PDF
When working with a PDF, the standard gestures and selection abilities apply, plus a few
extras.
● Tap+hold the page to select it, move it about, and perform all the useful abilities
selection offers, plus one just for PDF - apply transparency when exported (below).
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● With a multi-page PDF, swipe the PDF menu off the edge of the screen to hide it while
you work.
● To bring it back, select a PDF page and touch the left-most button on the popup with
the rectangle+dots - another PDF-only button - and it will reappear.
Go ahead and mark up or make edits to your PDF how you’d like.
Concepts reads your pages from top to bottom, and from left to right. If you’re looking to
rearrange pages in your PDF, drag your pages onto the screen into the order you’d like them to
appear, then export your PDF.
Don’t worry about crooked pages, Concepts will export anything within a page’s selection
rectangle and true it up to the page, assessing the furthest left / right and top / bottom points.
If it’s more horizontal, it will export to your true horizontal page; if it’s more vertical, it will
export to your true vertical page.
For substituting in pages without having to recreate the entire document, read Option 4b
below in Exporting a PDF.
Exporting a PDF
When your document is how you want it and you’re ready to export it as a new PDF, tap the
Export button in status bar. It will take you to this screen:
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Notice there are two PDF options. The first is PDF
(Adobe PDF, Flattened). This option is the
standard PDF export that flattens your work into
an untouchable, high-resolution document.
2. If you choose Entire Drawing, everything you’ve drawn, including what you don’t see in
the visible screen boundaries, will save into a single PDF page.
3. If you have an artboard on canvas, you’ll see this represented in your Region. Choosing
this option exports your configured size to a single PDF page.
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4a. If you choose PDF Bounds, you will create a multiple-page PDF. As many PDF pages
you have within your drawing, read from left-to-right and top-to-bottom, will export into a
full PDF document.
4b. If you select PDF Bounds and include Original Pages, any page(s) you dragged from the
PDF and adjusted will automatically substitute in for the original pages, giving you an
updated version of your original PDF. This is great for signing the last page of a legal
document, for example, without having to recreate the entire spread.
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Settings
In the Settings menu, you’ll see three different tabs, allowing you to configure your Workspace,
your Stylus, and your Gestures.
Workspace
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more presets if you tap the “Presets”. You can find common paper sizes, screen sizes and even
business card sizes.
Pro Tip: On canvas, tap+hold a corner of the artboard to move it about - handy for framing
your drawing just so, cropping images into an exact size, and getting a reference for how big /
small your drawing is based on real-world scale. When you Export, you can choose to capture
the image according to the artboard’s sizing.
Lastly, select the overall Units you prefer to apply them to your workspace.
Stylus
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Gestures
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Presenting
This feature is not yet supported on Android. You can see our current progress on the Features
page.
Team Features
Team Accounts
You can Sign In with your Teams account by clicking on the Profile icon in the top right corner
of the Gallery. Pro features will be automatically unlocked depending on your team's active
license.
If you have questions about Concepts for Teams, please reach out to [email protected]
and we'll be happy to help you.
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The Pro Shop
Basic
Concepts comes as a free, solid sketching app when you download it from the Play Store. You
can enjoy it this way for as long as you’d like. We feel like everyone deserves a solid sketching
app whether they can buy one or not, so enjoy our basic tools, responsive feel, colors,
customizable layout, infinite canvas and JPG export with this free package.
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The Essentials
Upgrade to the Essentials and become a Pro user. A one-time only purchase, it gives you the
powerful ability to select, move and adjust your vectors. It also gives you unlimited layers,
unlimited imports and high-resolution PNG and SVG export. Other features like brush editing,
object libraries and further export types will be added to this package soon.
A-la-Carte
Brush Market
In the Brush Market, we’ve crafted some beautiful brushes that add artistic elements to your
drawings - brushes like pastels, chalk, paint and other dynamic pens and pencils. Purchase
these brush packs straight from the Brush Market in the Brushes menu.
Our PDF editor is a deep feature requested by our professional users. Find tons of functionality
including crystal clear readability no matter how far you zoom, the ability to make markups,
and create transparent or standard exports high-res.
Subscription gives you everything at once, going forward. This includes every feature, brush
and export, including every ability that will be added as we develop Concepts for Android over
the next year and beyond. Subscribing opens up the ultimate in design capabilities both for
you and for us — you get great tools, and we get to keep building them.
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Thanks for all the support. You make a world of difference to us - in fact, you are our entire
world. We appreciate you.
Happy creating,
While this manual has detailed information on specific features, we write and publish how-tos
and interviews with industry experts almost weekly - check out our Help page in-app or
Infinite, Flexible News for the latest. If you’re a visual learner, you might appreciate our video
tutorials and workflow videos on YouTube. If you still can’t find what you’re after, find us on
your favorite social channel, email us at [email protected], or tap Help > Ask Us
Anything in app for some lovely, direct conversation.
Legal Stuff
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