Apple’s Freeform app for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Imaginative and prescient Professional is a digital whiteboard you should use to brainstorm or collect concepts in a single infinitely scrolling canvas.
You should use Freeform to throw collectively concepts with a colleague. You could possibly construct a presentation utilizing Freeform’s scenes, form of like utilizing Prezi. Or, you should use Freeform as a drawing app together with your iPad and Apple Pencil.
Freeform comes with every kind of options for including textual content bins, wealthy hyperlinks, drawings, clip artwork, sticky notes, information, photographs, movies and extra. It’s an effective way to construct a temper board or join huge concepts.
Preserve studying under or watch our video information to learn the way to make use of Freeform.
Methods to use the Freeform app, Apple’s digital whiteboard
Apple’s Freeform app may seem like simply one other digital whiteboard, however it’s really a flexible device for creatives, collaborators and visible thinkers alike. Whether or not you’re sketching with an Apple Pencil, constructing a dynamic temper board, or mapping out a high-stakes presentation, Freeform turns your machine into an infinite canvas able to capturing all of your most formidable concepts.
With help for the whole lot from wealthy media to real-time collaboration, it’s considered one of Apple’s most under-the-radar — however surprisingly highly effective — free apps. Right here’s get essentially the most out of Freeform.
Desk of contents: Methods to use Apple’s Freeform app
- What’s Apple’s Freeform app?
- Open or create a brand new board
- Add textual content bins
- Add photographs, movies or hyperlinks
- Add shapes and clip artwork
- Add sticky notes
- Add a drawing with an iPad and Apple Pencil
- Create a scene
- Share a board
- Extra Apple apps and ideas
What’s Apple’s Freeform app?
Freeform launched in fall 2022 as a free app constructed into iOS and iPadOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1. The collaborative device lets customers jot down notes, share information and insert photographs or movies as they brainstorm. A local Freeform app can be out there for the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional headset.
In the event you don’t have it already, you will discover Freeform on the App Retailer. Not like Pictures, Notes, Mail, Keynote and Invitations (amongst others), the Freeform app will not be out there by means of icloud.com.
Open or create a brand new board within the Freeform app
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
To get began, open the Freeform app. It can launch with a splash display of your current boards. You may browse your boards, organized into sensible classes like Recents, Shared and Favorites.
To create a brand new Freeform board, faucet the New Board button within the toolbar within the higher proper.
Add textual content bins
Faucet Add Textual content Field to begin with some textual content on the board. By default, it’s a single brief line of centered textual content.
For writing longer paragraphs, you possibly can drag the blue markers on both aspect to make the textual content field wider. The inexperienced marker within the backside proper will scale the textual content field and its contents larger, proportionally.
From the floating toolbar, you possibly can change the textual content’s measurement, coloration and font, for making your headline textual content pop. You can also change the textual content’s alignment to jot down out a paragraph, and make a bulleted checklist.
Add photographs, movies or hyperlinks
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Nobody likes watching a wall of textual content, however fortunately, the Freeform app makes it straightforward so as to add photographs, movies, hyperlinks and extra. Faucet the Media button to see loads of choices:
- Insert from… allows you to connect a file. It’ll allow you to browse iCloud Drive and downloads in your iPhone, iPad or Imaginative and prescient Professional. (On the Mac, you will note a separate Insert Doc button within the Freeform toolbar.)
- Hyperlink allows you to paste or sort in a URL to embed as a wealthy hyperlink.
- Scan will carry up your machine’s digicam to scan a doc.
- Stickers reveals your sticker library. You may make stickers out of your photographs or create them utilizing Genmoji. Stickers are additionally out there in apps like Messages and Snapchat.
- Digicam will take an image.
- Picture Playground, on a tool operating Apple Intelligence, will generate an AI picture on-device.
- Pictures or Movies… will allow you to select an merchandise out of your picture library.
Identical to with textual content bins, you possibly can drag the blue markers across the picture to resize it.
You may edit the looks of hooked up media, too. For photos, movies and stickers, you possibly can faucet Take away Background to chop it out as a transparency or Crop it.
The Extra (⋯) button gives further choices. On a Mac, you will see that them within the right-click context menu. Entrance or Again will transfer the gadgets in entrance of or behind others on the board, in order for you them to overlap. Shadow and Spherical Corners are two results you possibly can apply. Constrain Proportions, when enabled, makes positive a picture all the time has the identical side ratio whenever you resize it.
Add shapes and clip artwork
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
You may add a wide range of shapes to your board within the Freeform app by tapping the Add Form button within the center. I like to recommend including a bunch of huge colourful rectangles behind totally different areas to make totally different sections straightforward to inform aside.
The primary objects are your fundamentals: a line, arrow, curved line, sq., rounded rectangle and circle. You can also add a wide range of triangles, blocky arrows, speech bubbles and a star.
The opposite classes provide a great deal of clip artwork representing totally different 3D shapes, objects, animals, nature, meals, symbols, schooling, arts, science, folks, locations, actions, transportation, work and ornaments.
You may drag these round, resize them similar to different objects, ship them into the background, select a fill coloration. You may double-tap on an object to sort in it like a textual content field.
On the Mac, when the grid is seen, objects and pins snap to the closest grid level. You may maintain down the Command (⌘) key to tug with out snapping to the grid.
On the Mac, you possibly can draw customized vector shapes utilizing the Pen device, which you’ll be able to choose from the Shapes picker. It really works equally to the pen device in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and different conventional drawing applications.
Add sticky notes
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
A distinct type of textual content field you possibly can add to a Freeform board is a sticky notice. It seems by default within the Stickies app‘s iconic yellow coloration and sq. form with a drop shadow. If you’d like, you possibly can resize the sticky notice or change its coloration to pink, crimson, orange, inexperienced, blue or grey.
You should use sticky notes for calling out vital textual content in your board. Or, you should use them as momentary, placeholder notes to remind you of issues to repair later.
Add a drawing with an iPad and Apple Pencil
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
On an iPhone or iPad, the Freeform app allows you to faucet the Markup button (indicated by a pen icon). This reveals the usual drawing and handwriting instruments. This function actually sings on an iPad with an Apple Pencil, the place you possibly can add fancy calligraphy or correct hand-drawn art work.
I discovered sketching within the Freeform app to be a lot nicer than in Apple’s Notes app, as a result of Freeform allows you to freely scroll and zoom throughout the airplane. The Notes app can scroll down, however is restricted to the width of your display and doesn’t actually allow you to zoom.
Create a scene within the Freeform app
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Lastly, to current your board, you possibly can create scenes. A scene is sort of a bookmark; it reveals a particular place in your board. You may have a set of scenes which you could click on by means of like a slideshow, form of like Prezi, the presentation device that turned standard in colleges within the mid-2010s.
To set a scene, first you set the zoom and place of the board simply the way you need. On an iPhone or iPad, faucet the Extra button (⋯) then faucet Add Scene. On a Mac, click on the Scene Navigator button (with the icon of a star) within the decrease left, click on the Present Scenes button, then click on Add Scene.
Flick through your scenes by tapping (or clicking) the 〈 and 〉 buttons.
Click on or faucet the Extra (⋯) button subsequent to any of the scenes and you’ll rename them one thing descriptive, substitute them, print them or delete them. You may reorder them on a Mac simply by dragging them up and down; on an iPhone, faucet Edit within the higher left nook and reorder them utilizing the grabbers (☰) on the best.
Share a board within the Freeform app
There are two methods to share a Freeform board: You may ship a set copy of it or you possibly can share a collaborative hyperlink. Faucet the Share button within the toolbar and decide both Ship Copy or Collaborate from the menu. You can also select whether or not it’s seen to anybody with the hyperlink or solely the folks you invite, whether or not they can edit the board or solely view it, and whether or not they can invite different folks.
Collaborate works like Google Docs — you possibly can see when another person is enhancing the doc, and their edits will present up dwell in your finish. Utilizing the Ship Copy function will give them their very own model of the doc that they will edit freely with out affecting yours.
You may take a look at the Freeform board I made on this article right here.
Guides on different Apple apps
Take a look at different deep dives on different Apple apps I’ve written:
