DrawZal toolbar and drawing tools
When you start drawing, a vertical toolbar appears at the edge of the screen. Use it to pick the brush, arrows, shapes, and text and to change the thickness and color. The highlighter, number badges, and eraser are in the toolbar’s ⋯ menu.
Based on DrawZal 0.4.0 · checked
What is on the toolbar?
While semi-transparent drawing is on, a half-circle button appears to the right of custom color. Click it to turn semi-transparency off.
How do I move or hide the toolbar?
Drag an empty part of the toolbar, not a button, to move it. Drop it near a screen edge (within 40 pt) and it docks to that edge. DrawZal remembers where you put it, even after a relaunch.
The first time, the toolbar appears in the middle of the left edge of the screen. It shows only in drawing mode and hides in Ghost Mode.
Press ⌘T or choose "Hide Toolbar" in the ⋯ menu to hide it, or press ⌃⇥ to start drawing without it. Starting with ⌥⇥ brings the toolbar back.
What is in the ⋯ menu?
Click the ⋯ button at the top of the toolbar for the tools and features that have no toolbar button. Screen features are covered in Modes and Presentation helpers, and saving and copying in Snapshots and export.
- Tools: Highlighter, Number Badge, Eraser
- Screen: Whiteboard, Semi-Transparent Drawing, Black/White Color, Freeze Screen, Lower Third, Edit Lower Third…, Cursor Highlight, Click Effect
- Saving and copying: Take Snapshot, Show Snapshots…, Copy Drawings, Full-Screen FlashShot
- Clearing: Selective Clear, Clear All
- App: Settings…, Keyboard Shortcuts, Hide Toolbar, Quit DrawZal
How do I use each tool?
| Tool | How to pick it | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Brush | B | Draw freely. With a pen tablet, pressure changes the thickness. |
| Quick arrow | Q | Draw freely and get an arrowhead at the end. |
| Arrow, line | A, L | Draw straight from start to end. Pick the arrowhead style in Settings › Drawing › Arrow. |
| Rectangle, ellipse | R, E | Draw a rectangle or an ellipse over the area you drag. |
| Text | T | Start typing where you click. |
| Highlighter | ⋯ menu | Paints a translucent band 3 times the thickness, so it highlights text without hiding it. |
| Number badge | ⋯ menu | Stamps the next number where you click. Pro |
| Eraser | ⋯ menu | Erases drawings it passes over. Freehand strokes are cut, and shapes are removed whole. Scroll to change the eraser size. |
| Scissors | ⌘X | Removes every drawing the dragged rectangle touches. Click a drawing to remove just that one. |
| Hand | ⌘M | Click a drawing to select it, then drag to move it. Drag on empty space to select everything inside the rectangle. |
| Repeat | ⌘R | Places another copy of the last drawing at the pointer. |
A plain click leaves no dot or shape. You have to drag to draw.
- Hold ⇧ while dragging to snap lines and arrows to 45° steps and to make rectangles and ellipses square and round. The brush, highlighter, and quick arrow draw a straight line in 45° steps.
- Hold ⌥ while dragging to draw once with the current tool’s partner (brush and quick arrow, arrow and line, rectangle and ellipse).
- Hold ⌘ and right-click to open the Tool Wheel with all 13 tools around it. Release the button over the tool you want.
- ⇥ cycles through the brush, arrow, rectangle, and text groups, and P goes back to the previous tool group.
How do I change the thickness?
Thickness runs from 1 to 40 pt, and the default is 20 pt. Click the dot on the toolbar for the thickness popover with a slider and 6 levels (2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25).
⌘D or ] goes one level thicker and ⌃D or [ one level thinner, wrapping around at either end. Hold ⌘ and scroll to change it 1 pt at a time.
If drawings are selected, changing the thickness changes theirs too. The thickness in Settings › Drawing only sets it for new drawings.
How do I pick a color?
Press the number keys 1 … 0 for ten colors (red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, cyan, blue, purple, magenta, crimson). The first color is red, and changing the color while drawings are selected recolors them.
Click the rainbow button or press ⌘E for rainbow hue mode. The color shifts little by little as you draw, more when you draw faster. Click the custom color button to go back to custom color mode.
In custom color mode, click the custom color button again for the color popover: twelve colors (the ten plus white and black), the eyedropper, the color panel, and semi-transparent drawing.
- ⌘I: an eyedropper that picks a color from the screen
- ⌃C: the macOS color panel
- fnW: black, then white, then your previous color
- Scrolling with a drawing tool: change the hue (you can switch it to thickness in Settings › Drawing › Thickness & Color)
How do I add text?
Click on the screen with the text tool (T) or press fnT to start typing right there. Press ↩ or click elsewhere to finish, or Esc to discard what you typed.
While typing, drag the dot at the bottom right toward the right or down to make the text bigger, or toward the left or up to make it smaller. Scrolling or pinching also resizes it. The default text size is 48 pt, and you set the font and size in Settings › Text & Badges.
To resize text you already typed, hold ⌘ and double-click it to select it, then drag its bottom-right handle. You can’t edit the words afterwards, so delete the text and type it again.
Press fnE to start typing at the pointer and open the macOS Emoji & Symbols window.
Typing a time such as 15:00 or 1:00:00 as text creates a countdown timer (see Presentation helpers).
How do I stamp number badges?
ProIn the brush, quick arrow, highlighter, arrow, line, rectangle, ellipse, and text tools, hold ⌥ and click to stamp the next number badge where you click. The next number is the largest number on screen plus 1.
Pick the Number Badge tool in the ⋯ menu to stamp a badge with every click. Badges use the current color and stay on screen even with Fade on.
Fixed badges with your own labels (⌃1 … ⌃0) and the badge counter (⌃=, ⌃-, ⌘0) are in Presentation helpers.
How do I select and move drawings?
- Hold ⌘ and double-click a drawing to select it. Add ⇧ to add or remove drawings one at a time.
- ⌘A selects every drawing. With the hand tool, drag on empty space to select the drawings inside the rectangle.
- Hold ⌘ and drag to move drawings with any tool, or hold ⌥⌘ and drag to move a copy.
- Arrow keys move the selection 1 pt at a time, or 10 pt with ⇧.
- ⌘G glues the selection into one group, and ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ move it one layer forward or backward.
- ⌫ deletes only the selected drawings. With nothing selected, it clears every drawing on the screen.
⌘Z goes back up to 200 steps, and ⇧⌘Z redoes. Both repeat while you hold them.