Pencil Tool Properties

When you select the Pencil tool, its properties and options appears in the Tool Properties view.

NOTETo learn how to use the Pencil tool, see About the Pencil Tool.

Pencil Properties

The following properties affect the pencil's width and smoothing. Those properties can be saved into pencil presets for later use.

Icon	Tool Name	Description
	Preview Area	The Preview area lets you see a preview of the stroke your drawing tool will make.
	Size	Defines the width of the pencil line.
	Smoothing	Defines the number of control points added to the centre line. The fewer the control points the smoother (but less faithful) the line.

These options allow you to select, create and manage pencil presets.

Icon	Tool Name	Description
	Presets list	Harmony provides a variety of pencil presets and also lets you create and save your own. It is a good idea to create and save pencils with precise sizes and parameters when you draw and design for efficiency and consistency. You can export the pencil presets that you have created and import those that others have created. This is a good way for you and project collaborators to keep a consistent look for the project.
	New Preset	Creates a new preset based on the current brush properties.
	Delete Preset	Deletes the currently selected preset.
	Presets Menu	Gives access to more options for managing presets.
	Rename Brush	Deletes the currently selected preset.
	Import Brushes	Allows you to import brush presets exported from Harmony.
	Export Brushes	Allows you to export your brush presets into an .xml file.
	Small Thumbnail	Displays presets in a grid of small thumbnails with a preview of their tip.
	Large Thumbnail	Displays presets in a grid of big thumbnails, with their name and a preview of their tip.
	Stroke View	Displays presets in a list, with their name and a preview of a stroke done with each preset. This is the default setting.

These options affect the way your drawing strokes are integrated into your artwork.

	Draw Behind	When enabled, your brush strokes will appear behind the existing artwork. Note that they will appear over your artwork while drawing your stroke, until you release the brush.
	Auto Fill	When enabled, drawing a closed shape will automatically fill it with the currently selected colour.
	Trim Extra Lines	When enabled, drawing a closed shape will automatically remove the outstanding lines.
	Align Handles After Trim	When the Trim Extra Lines option is enabled, enable this option to make the point where the beginning and end of the stroke meet into a smooth curve rather than a hard corner.
	Auto-Flatten Mode	By default, when drawing, each new stroke is created as a separate drawing object, which can be edited independently from other parts of the artwork. When enabled, the Auto-Flatten option automatically merges strokes into existing artwork. NOTE Using the Select tool, you can use select and remove a segment of flattened pencil lines. Overlapping pencil lines drawn with the Auto-Flatten mode are essentially cut into segments by the overlap and can be treated as individual lines.