The property "Object outside shape" detects whether an object is outside the area defined by a shape. In this context it is irrelevant, whether objects are on top or below, and also whether objects are opaque or transparent.

Shapes provide a means to establish a definition for an area in a very flexible manner, starting from simple shapes such as rectangles, areas defined by vector objects, or areas derived from rendering some or all of the content of a page and then turning the border of the rendered content into a definition of an area. For details see the article "Shapes" property for use in "Context aware object detection" checks.

The configuration options for a check based on the "Object outside shape" property can be seen below.

The "Consider" option defines the set of objects for which it shall be determined whether any of these objects is outside the shape defined by the "Check against" option.

In the example used below, the shape is derived from a subset of the vector objects on the page.

The subset of vector objects on the page to be taken into account for establishing the shape are 'spot green' vector objects. In the example used below, in order to achieve the desired effect, the option "Reduce shape to outer border" has been checked.

In the two screenshots shown below, it can be seen how two spot red squares completely outside the area defined by the shape defined by the outer border of the spot green circles (regardless whether they are filled or just stroked) are detected.

This is different from what the property "Object outside other object" would detect – for details see the article Inside versus outside: Object outside other object.

Note: In the sample file, first six 'spot red' squares are painted, followed by six ' spot green' circles.