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Table of Contents

Every page of this manual exists because someone stared at a Properties Panel and thought, "What does that slider do?" This map gets you to the answer.

Quick Paths

Front Matter

# Article What You'll Learn
001 Table of Contents You are here.
002 The One-Page Manual The entire Vexy Lines workflow compressed into a single page with reference tables.
003 What Is Vexy Lines? The core concept, how it differs from auto-tracers, the history, and what this manual covers.

Part 1: Getting Started

# Article What You'll Learn
101 Getting Started in Five Minutes Download to exported SVG in five numbered steps.
102 Download, Install, Activate Where to get Vexy Lines, how to install it, system requirements, and license activation.
103 The Workspace The canvas, toolbar, Properties Panel, Layers Panel, and how they fit together.
104 Zoom, Pan, and Navigate Keyboard shortcuts, trackpad gestures, and View menu options for moving around your canvas.
105 Creating a New Document Photo path vs. blank presets, supported formats, resolution, and the source image concept.
106 Your First Fill Open a photo, add a Linear fill, drag two sliders, and experience the transformation.
107 Tuning Your Artwork Interval, Angle, Image Threshold, Stroke Thickness, Smoothing, Randomization, and layering fills.
108 Hiding and Revealing Paint masks with the Brush, draw geometric masks, and auto-detect shapes.
109 Organising Your Work Layers as transparent sheets, groups as folders, per-group source images, and inheritance.
110 Getting Your Art Out SVG, PDF, EPS, PNG, JPEG export, clipboard copy, and screen-print separation.
111 Save, Backup, Recover The .lines format, Auto Save, backup files, and versioning tips.
112 Controlling When Vexy Recalculates Auto Refresh, Refresh Fill, Refresh All, rendering quality, and preventing density bombs.

Part 2: The Twelve Fills

# Article What You'll Learn
201 Twelve Ways to See Overview of all twelve fills, comparison table, decision flowchart, shared parameters.
202 Linear: The Engraver's Line Parallel lines that evoke copperplate engraving, banknote illustration, and crosshatch.
203 Wave: Rivers of Line Flowing sinusoidal curves for Art Nouveau, landscapes, fabric, and moiré effects.
204 Circular: Concentric Rings Concentric rings radiating from a center point, mapping brightness to ring spacing.
205 Spiral: The Continuous Wind A single continuous winding path from center outward, ideal for plotters and vinyl aesthetics.
206 Radial: Exploding Rays Rays emanating from a center point like a sunburst, modulated by tone.
207 Halftone: Dots and Shapes Dots, squares, stars, or custom SVG shapes arranged in a grid or scattered randomly.
208 Trace: Finding Edges Edge-detection contour lines that follow the boundaries in your source image.
209 Wireframe: Dimensional Lattice A 3D lattice mesh draped over your image, creating an elevation-map effect.
210 Scribble: Controlled Chaos Chaotic, energetic strokes that cluster in dark regions and scatter in light ones.
211 Fractal: Space-Filling Curves Peano curves that weave through your image with mathematical precision.
212 Text: Painting with Letters Characters forming images, from typographic portraits to ASCII art in vector.
213 Handmade: Your Strokes, Your Rules Draw or import your own strokes, then let Vexy Lines distribute them across the image.
214 Combining Fills: The Art of the Stack Layering multiple fills with crosshatching, mixed media, tonal stacking, and overlap control.

Part 3: Tools and Interaction

# Article What You'll Learn
301 The Editor Tool (V) Selecting, moving, and transforming fill regions.
302 The Pencil Tool (P) Drawing precise vector paths for custom masks and shapes.
303 The Knife Tool (K) Splitting fills and cutting paths.
304 The Brush Tool (B) Painting masks freehand with pressure sensitivity.
305 Rectangle and Ellipse Masks (I, O) Quick geometric masking.
306 The Freeform Mask Tool (S) Drawing irregular mask boundaries point by point.

Part 4: Advanced Techniques

# Article What You'll Learn
401 Dynamic Color Sampling source image colors into your vector strokes.
402 Mesh Warping Six warp templates (Rectangle, Donut, Rising, Falling, Ribbon, and more) for 3D deformation.
403 Hidden Strokes Removal Simulating 3D occlusion so back-facing strokes disappear behind front-facing ones.
404 Multi-Fill Compositions Stacking and blending multiple fill types for rich, layered artwork.
405 Working with Groups Per-group source images, nesting groups, and managing complex documents.
406 Image Threshold Deep Dive The histogram, shadow/midtone/highlight handles, and tone mapping strategies.

Part 5: Output and Workflow

# Article What You'll Learn
501 Exporting for Print Resolution, bleed, and PDF/EPS settings for professional printing.
502 Exporting for Web SVG optimization, PNG transparency, and JPEG quality trade-offs.
503 Working with Illustrator and Affinity Clipboard workflow, layer preservation, and compatibility notes.
504 Batch Processing Exporting multiple documents or variations efficiently.
505 Screen-Print Separation Color separation workflows for screen printing and risograph.
511 Export for Print (Quick Reference) Cheat sheet for print-ready output settings.

Part 6: Reference

# Article What You'll Learn
601 Keyboard Shortcuts Complete shortcut reference for macOS and Windows.
602 Fill Parameter Reference Every parameter for every fill type, with value ranges and descriptions.
603 Supported File Formats Import and export format details.
604 System Requirements Hardware, OS, and performance recommendations.
605 Troubleshooting Common problems and solutions.
606 Glossary Definitions of every term used in this manual.

Vexy Lines is developed by FontLab Ltd. and available at vexy.art.