Clip-Path Shape Generator

Visually build a clip-path shape by dragging points on a live preview, and copy the resulting CSS once the shape looks right — polygons, angled cuts, custom non-rectangular crops — instead of hand-writing coordinate values for a property that’s genuinely hard to picture from raw numbers alone.

Why clip-path needs a visual tool

clip-path is one of the more powerful and least intuitive properties in CSS. A polygon clip-path is defined as a list of x/y coordinate pairs marking each point of the shape, in order — which is precise and flexible but nearly impossible to write correctly by guessing numbers, since there’s no way to picture what a list of coordinates actually looks like as a shape without rendering it. A small error in one coordinate can produce a shape that looks nothing like what you intended, and there’s no way to know without checking in a browser. A visual, drag-to-adjust interface removes that translation step entirely — you shape what you see, and the coordinates get generated for you.

How to use it

1. Start with a shape preset (triangle, polygon, angled cut) or build one from scratch.
2. Drag the points on the live preview to adjust the shape until it looks right.
3. The tool generates the corresponding clip-path CSS value as you adjust.
4. Copy the finished CSS into your stylesheet.

Common situations this solves

• Creating angled section dividers or diagonal cuts on a webpage without hand-writing polygon coordinates
• Building non-rectangular image crops or card shapes
• Prototyping a custom shape visually before committing to the CSS
• Understanding what a specific clip-path value actually produces, by reverse-engineering it visually

FAQ

How is this different from the Border-Radius Playground?

Border-radius rounds the corners of a fundamentally rectangular box; clip-path can cut a completely different shape out of an element — triangles, angled cuts, arbitrary polygons — that border-radius simply can’t produce. Use border-radius for rounded corners, clip-path for genuinely non-rectangular shapes.

Does clip-path affect things like box-shadow or click targets on the element?

Yes, worth knowing before you use it — clip-path visually clips the element to the shape you define, which means anything outside that shape (including a box-shadow that would otherwise extend past the edges) gets clipped away too, and click/hover interactions generally only register within the visible clipped shape, not the original rectangular box.

Is clip-path well-supported across browsers?

Modern browser support for clip-path with polygon values is strong, though it’s worth checking current support if you need to support notably old browser versions, since clip-path support lagged behind some other CSS features historically.

Can I animate a clip-path shape, or is it static once set?

Clip-path values can be animated with CSS transitions or keyframes, though animating between two different polygon shapes generally requires both shapes to have the same number of points for the animation to interpolate cleanly — worth keeping in mind if animation is the end goal.