What Mashq is
Mashq is a site for designing Arabic calligraphy in your browser. You type a word, the site draws it as true vector calligraphy you can shape letter by letter, and you export a file ready to publish or print.
It runs in your browser
There is nothing to install and nothing to download before you start. You open the site and write.
The interface is Arabic first and right to left, with English for anyone who prefers it, and both work by touch on a phone or a tablet as well as with a mouse.
The Editor, the Font Builder and the Shape Builder need an account. A free account is enough to start.
Your letters never break apart
What sets the site apart is that the letters stay joined the way a calligrapher would draw them. Write on a circle, an arc, a wave, a curve or a ribbon, or on a guide you draw yourself, and the joins hold instead of falling into separate shapes.
The What sets us apart section on the home page is not a picture. The engine draws that line live, in front of you.
Type on path is on the Pro and Studio plans. The Pricing section on the home page has the details.
Medallion and symmetry
The Medallion tool takes one word or one shape and repeats it around a single centre, so it becomes a balanced ornament you can use as a logo, a seal or an art piece.
You choose how many copies go round, which way the letters face, and how big the circle is. You can put a word in the centre, turn the copies into mirrored pairs in the muthanna style, and recolour the whole ornament from a ready palette.
The Medallion is on the Pro and Studio plans.
Three tools, one account
The Editor is where you design: you write, colour, order the layers and export the result.
The Font Builder is where you build your own font from scratch, or upload a font file and turn it into something you can edit.
The Shape Builder is where you draw the decorative pieces you later drop onto the canvas.
Each screen is described in A tour of the screens.
What the site is not
It is not a word processor. It is a design surface, and what comes out of it is an image file or a vector file you download.
It is not a photo editor, although you can place a picture on the page and trace it into an outline you can edit.
It does not print for you. It prepares the file at its real size so you can send it to a print shop or to a cutting machine.
It does not need fonts installed on your computer. Fonts come from the site's own library, or from a font you upload yourself.
Calligraphers' fonts are on the way
We are adding Arabic fonts drawn by hand by professional calligraphers rather than computer fonts. That feature is still in progress.