A Clip-Path Generator is a free visual tool for creating complex shapes in CSS. Instead of writing code manually, you can choose a preset shape, adjust its points and properties with interactive controls, and see the result in real-time. The tool then generates the final `clip-path` CSS for you to copy and paste.
Online Clip-Path Generator
Choose a Shape
Customize
What is a Clip-Path Generator?
A Clip-Path Generator is an interactive, visual tool that simplifies the process of creating complex shapes for the web using the CSS `clip-path` property. Traditionally, web elements are confined to rectangular boxes. The `clip-path` property allows developers and designers to break free from this constraint, defining a specific region of an element to be visible while hiding, or “clipping,” everything outside of that region. Manually writing the code for these clipping paths, especially for intricate polygons, can be a complex and time-consuming process involving precise coordinate calculations.
This generator abstracts away the complexity of the code. It provides a user-friendly interface with preset shapes like circles, triangles, and stars, along with sliders and interactive handles to customize them. As the user visually manipulates the shape in a live preview, the tool automatically writes the corresponding CSS `clip-path` value in real-time. This “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) approach empowers creators to experiment with creative, non-rectangular layouts and designs quickly and intuitively, making advanced CSS shaping accessible to everyone, regardless of their coding expertise.
Key Features & Benefits
Visual & Interactive Editing
Go beyond code. Drag and drop points for polygon shapes directly on the live preview image for precise, intuitive control over your custom designs.
Rich Shape Library
Start your design with a single click. Choose from a wide variety of preset shapes, including polygons, circles, stars, and more, to kickstart your creative process.
Instant CSS Output
As you adjust the shape, the tool generates clean, cross-browser compatible CSS code in real-time, complete with the `-webkit-` prefix for maximum support.
How to Generate a Clip-Path: A Step-by-Step Guide
Creating a unique CSS shape for your website is easy with our interactive generator. Follow these four steps to visually design your shape and get the code.
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Select a Base Shape
Begin by browsing the shape library on the left. Click on a preset shape like a star, triangle, or circle. This will immediately apply the shape to the demo image and load its specific controls.
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Customize the Shape’s Properties
Use the sliders that appear in the “Customize” panel to adjust the shape. For a circle, you can change its size and position. For a polygon, you can drag its points directly on the preview image to create a completely custom form.
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Observe the Live Preview
As you move the sliders or drag the points, the clipping effect on the demo image and the CSS code in the output box will update instantly. This allows you to fine-tune your design with immediate visual feedback.
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Copy the Generated CSS Code
Once your shape is perfect, click the “Copy Code” button next to the code output box. This action copies the complete and final `clip-path` rule to your clipboard, ready for you to paste into your website’s stylesheet.
Breaking the Rectangle: The Creative Revolution of the CSS Clip-Path Property
For most of its history, the web has been defined by the rectangle. Every image, every container, every button has existed within the confines of a right-angled box. While this rigid grid system provides order and predictability, it can also lead to visually monotonous layouts. The CSS `clip-path` property is a revolutionary feature that shatters this limitation, handing designers and developers a pair of virtual scissors to carve their elements into any shape imaginable. A Clip-Path Generator is the tool that makes this powerful capability accessible, transforming a complex coding task into an intuitive act of visual design.
The `clip-path` property works by defining a clipping region. Essentially, you are creating a mask; everything inside the mask’s boundary is visible, and everything outside is rendered invisible. This simple concept opens up a universe of design possibilities. Suddenly, images can be circles, headers can be slanted parallelograms, and call-to-action sections can be shaped like arrows. These non-rectangular shapes break the monotony of the grid, guide the user’s eye, and create dynamic, memorable user experiences. The challenge, however, has always been in defining these shapes. Manually writing a `polygon()` with a dozen coordinate pairs is tedious and non-intuitive. This is precisely where a visual Clip-Path Generator becomes an indispensable part of the modern web design toolkit.
From Static Images to Dynamic, Performant Shapes
Before `clip-path`, achieving non-rectangular shapes on the web was a hack. The primary method was to create a PNG image with a transparent background in a program like Photoshop. While this worked, it came with significant downsides:
- Large File Sizes: A high-resolution transparent PNG is a heavy asset. Using multiple such images on a page can drastically slow down load times, harming both user experience and SEO.
- Not Responsive: A raster image does not scale cleanly. It can become pixelated on high-resolution screens or when its container is resized. Creating different image sizes for different breakpoints is a cumbersome workaround.
- Static and Un-interactive: The content of a PNG is fixed. You cannot easily change its color, add a border, or have its text content be selectable or searchable by Google.
The CSS `clip-path` property, especially when harnessed by a Clip-Path Generator, elegantly solves all these issues:
- Incredibly Lightweight: The “shape” is just a few lines of CSS code. It adds virtually no weight to the page, resulting in much faster performance.
- Inherently Responsive: Because the clipping path values are typically defined in percentages, the shape automatically scales and adapts to the size of the element it is applied to. It looks perfect on any screen. – Fully Dynamic: The element remains a standard HTML element. Its text is still selectable and SEO-friendly, you can change its background color with CSS, and you can even animate the `clip-path` property itself for stunning hover effects and page transitions.
Unlocking New Layout and UI Design Paradigms
A Clip-Path Generator doesn’t just make existing tasks easier; it opens the door to entirely new design patterns that were previously impractical. The ability to quickly prototype and implement custom shapes allows for more creative and effective visual storytelling.
- Diagonal Layouts: Create slanted section dividers to produce a sense of motion and direction, guiding users down the page more effectively than a simple horizontal line.
- Shaped Image Galleries: Instead of a boring grid of squares, display images in a honeycomb of hexagons or a mosaic of overlapping circles for a more artistic and engaging presentation.
- Interactive UI Elements: Animate the `clip-path` on hover to reveal more of an image or to transform a button’s shape, providing delightful and informative feedback to the user.
- Text Wrapping Around Shapes: By floating a clipped element, you can make your page content wrap around a custom shape, a feature previously only seen in professional print design software. This creates a much more integrated and organic relationship between text and imagery.
By making these advanced techniques trivial to implement, a Clip-Path Generator encourages experimentation. It allows designers to think outside the box—literally—and to build websites that are not only functional but also visually distinctive and memorable. It represents a shift from a purely structural web to a more expressive and artistic medium, all while adhering to the best practices of performance and responsiveness.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Clip-Path Generator is an interactive online tool that helps you create values for the CSS `clip-path` property. It provides a visual interface to select and modify shapes, and then it generates the corresponding CSS code that you can use to ‘clip’ your HTML elements into those non-rectangular shapes.
The `clip-path` CSS property creates a clipping region that defines which parts of an element are visible. Any part of the element that is inside the clipping region is shown, while any part outside is hidden. This allows you to create shapes like circles, ellipses, and complex polygons instead of being limited to the default rectangular shape of an element.
Yes, this Clip-Path Generator is 100% free to use for any purpose, with no restrictions or limitations. All generated code is yours to use in personal and commercial projects.
The `-webkit-` prefix is included for better cross-browser compatibility. Some older versions of WebKit-based browsers (like Safari) still require this vendor prefix for the `clip-path` property to work correctly. Including both ensures your shapes will be visible to the widest possible audience.
This version of the tool uses a built-in demo image to provide a consistent and fast user experience. It is designed to show you how the `clip-path` property works on a standard element. You can then take the generated code and apply it to any element, including your own images, on your website.
When you select a polygon shape (like a triangle or star), interactive handles will appear on the preview image. You can click and drag these handles to move the points (vertices) of the polygon. The CSS code will update in real-time to reflect the new coordinates of the points you have defined.
CSS `clip-path` is a very performant property. Because the clipping is handled by the browser’s rendering engine, it is generally much faster and more efficient than using a transparent PNG or a complex SVG mask to achieve the same visual effect. It’s a lightweight way to create interesting layouts.
Yes. The values generated by this tool use percentages, which means the clipping path will scale proportionally with the size of the element it’s applied to. This makes the shapes inherently responsive and adaptable to different screen sizes without any extra work.