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 will form a paragraph into a specified shape, and the size of the shape is automatically adjusted so that the given paragraph completely fills the shape. It is of course possible to define your own shapes to use with \shapepar 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.