Drawing Tools
The three free-form drawing tools are Pen, Marker, and Highlighter. All three track your cursor while the mouse button is held and commit a single stroke when you release.
Comparison
| Tool | Default Colour | Default Thickness | Default Opacity | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pen | Red (#FF0000) | 3 px | 100% | Precise outlines, handwriting, circling items |
| Marker | Red (#FF0000) | ~6 px | ~70% | Bolder strokes over text or screenshots |
| Highlighter | Yellow (#FFFF00) | ~12 px | 40% | Highlighting lines of text without obscuring |
Defaults and Settings
The tool defaults come from the Annotation section of settings:
Annotation.DefaultPenColor— pen and marker colour (default#FF0000).Annotation.DefaultHighlightColor— highlighter colour (default#FFFF00).Annotation.DefaultThickness— starting stroke width (default3).Annotation.DefaultOpacity— alpha for pen and marker (default1.0).Annotation.HighlightOpacity— alpha for highlighter (default0.4).
Any change you make via the toolbar colour picker, thickness slider, or opacity slider overrides the default for the current stroke only. Persistent defaults live in the Settings window (see 10.5).
Drawing a Stroke
- Pick the tool (Pen, Marker, or Highlighter) from the annotation toolbar.
- Choose a colour from the swatch or recent-colours palette.
- Adjust thickness and opacity if needed.
- Press and hold the left mouse button on the canvas, drag to draw, and release to commit.
Each stroke is a single undo step.
Tip
Tip — Highlighter strokes stack. Dragging over the same region twice doubles the opacity. Use Undo if you overshoot.
Tip
Setting — To make all pen strokes start at a different colour, change Annotation.DefaultPenColor in Settings instead of re-picking the colour every capture.