ShapePatch is a patch against Transfig, which adds the capability to export XFig figures to shape definitions for shapepar. Shapepar itself is a TeX-Macro by Donald Arsenau that allows to form a paragraph into a given shape, where the size of the shape is automatically adjusted so that the given paragraph completely fills the shape. There are some predefined shapes, like e.g., a heart. So you can form any paragraph into the form of a heart by putting \heartpar{sometext...} inside your document. It is of course possible to define your own shapes but it involves specifying polygon coordinates. This is where ShapePatch helps - it allows you to simply draw the shape you want with XFig and then convert it to a shape definition either by calling fig2dev manually or by choosing "Export/Shape" in XFig (if you install the additional XFig patch). The author is Christian Gollwitzer. See also shapepar.