Select Tool Properties

The Select tool lets you select strokes and apply basic transformations such as repositioning, rotating, scaling or skewing, using the different handles of the bounding box.

If you have text or pencil lines selected with the Select tool, their properties will display in the Tool Properties view, allowing you to make changes to your selection.

NOTE

Selecting the Select by Colour tool from the Tools toolbar activates the Select tool, with the Select by Colour option enabled. Hence, this topic covers the tool properties for both the Select and Select by Colour tools.

Select Tool Properties

NOTE To learn how to use the Select tool, see About the Select Tool.

Tool Options

Icon Property Description
Selection Mode

Allows you to choose the method to visually select multiple elements:

  • Lasso: Allows you to select multiple elements by drawing an irregular closed shape around them with your mouse.
  • Marquee: Allows you to select multiple elements by drawing a rectangle around them. This is faster, as you only need to drag your mouse from one corner of the rectangle to its opposite corner, but it may not be as precise as you want.
TIP You can press and hold the Alt key to temporarily use the other selection mode.
Easy Drag

When enabled, you can drag the selection by clicking anywhere inside its bounding box. By default, you must click on the artwork in the selection to be able to drag it.

Snapping

Allows you to enable or disable snapping for this tool and all other animation and drawing tools that support snapping, as well as to select which types of snapping are enabled.

If you double-click or long-click on this button, it will open a pop-up menu in which you can toggle different snapping modes. You can also click on this button to toggle it off, which will disable all snapping modes, and click on it again and toggle it on to re-enable the snapping modes which were previously enabled.

This tool supports the following snapping modes:

  • Snap to Contour: While moving the selection or one of its control points, it will snap against the nearby points and contours of your artwork, allowing you to snap parts of your artwork together.
  • Snap to Alignment Guides: While moving the selection or one of its control points, it will snap against nearby alignment guides—see About Alignment Guides.

  • Snap and Align: While moving the selection, the rectangular bounding box of the selection will align with the rectangular bounding boxes of other strokes and shapes in your artwork. If you move one of your selection's control points, it will also align with the bounding boxes of other strokes and shapes in your artwork.

  • Snap to Grid: While moving the selection, the mouse cursor will snap against the intersecting points of the grid.

    TIP To display the grid, select View > Grid > Show Grid from the top menu or press Ctrl + '.
  • Allow Snapping on all Drawing Layers: If toggled on, the selections can be snapped to all bounding boxes, nearby points, and contours of artwork on any layer.

Scale Pencil Line Thickness

When enabled, the width of pencil lines will be adjusted when scaling them with the Select tool.

TIP You can quickly enable this mode by selecting the Scale Pencil Line Thickness tool, in the Select tool's properties dialog.
Select by Colour

When enabled, clicking on a coloured zone in your artwork will instantly select all the zones that are filled with the same colour.

Select by Colour can also be accessed from the Tools toolbar.

NOTE Only the zones painted with the same colour swatch in your palette will be selected. If another zone is coloured with the exact same colour, but not the same colour swatch, it will not be selected.
Permanent Selection

Allows you maintain a selection while editing multiple drawings. Once this option is enabled, the selection zone made using the Select tool will remain as you navigate through drawings of the same layer and drawings from other drawing layers.

Apply to Visible Drawing Layers

This option allows you to select which layers the tool should affect. It can be toggled on or off. When toggled on, it has two different modes. You can select a mode by clicking and holding on the button.

  • Off: When this button is toggled off, the tool only works on the currently selected layers. If several layers are selected, the tool will work on all these layers simultaneously.
  • On When this button is toggled on, the tool will work on all the visible layers.
  • Apply to Visible Drawing Layers: The tool will work on all the visible layers in the Camera view.
  • Apply to Synced Drawing Layers: If the currently selected layer is synced with another layer, the tool will work on both the current layer and its synced layer.

NOTE This option only works in the Camera view.
Apply to All Frames

This option allows you to determine which drawings in the current layer the tool should affect. It can be toggled on or off. When toggled on, it has two different modes. You can select a mode by clicking and holding on the button.

  • Off: When this button is toggled off, the tool only works on the drawing in the current frame.
  • Apply to All Frames: The tool will work on every exposed drawing in the selected layer simultaneously.
  • Apply to Onion Skin Range: The tool will work on every drawing displayed in the Onion Skin. Onion Skin must be enabled for this option to work.

Apply to Line and Colour Art

Allows you to perform drawing operations on both the Line Art and Colour Art layers of your drawing simultaneously.

NOTE If you have Overlay and Underlay Art layers enabled, they will also be affected when this option is enabled.

Operations

Icon Property Description
Flip Horizontal Flips the current selection horizontally.
Flip Vertical Flips the current selection vertically.
Rotate 90 Degrees CW Rotates the current selection 90 degrees clockwise.
Rotate 90 Degrees CCW Rotates the current selection 90 degrees counter-clockwise.
Smooth

Smooth out selected drawing strokes and remove extra points.

Flatten

Merges drawing objects and brush strokes into a single layer. If you draw new lines to fix a drawing or line with many brush strokes, it can be useful to flatten them all into a single shape. By default, lines are drawn one on top of each other. If you intend to repaint the lines or modify their shape, it will be easier if they are flattened.

Create Colour Art from Line Art

Lets you use the outline you traced on one of the four embedded layers (line art, colour art, overlay, underlay) and create invisible strokes to paint your drawings on separate layers. This provides more inking and painting flexibility.

You can also configure this option to create the invisible strokes on any of the four embedded layers.

Distribute to Layers

The Distribute to Layers option is used to separate the selected art strokes and send them to new drawing layers. In the Camera view, once you have drawn your artwork, you can select the strokes you want to distribute using the Select tool and click on the Distribute to Layers button; you can also select Drawing > Distribute to Layers. It will automatically take every stroke from the drawing selection made in the Camera view and separate them into a different layer for each. If an artwork is composed of several strokes, you must group them using Edit > Group > Group before using the Distribute to Layers option. This option cannot be done from the Drawing view.

Store Colour Gradient Use the Store Colour Gradient operation to record the selected gradient’s position. This reuses the stored position of the gradient when drawing new brush lines or painting colour zones. Enable the Use Stored Colour Gradient option in the Paint or Brush Tool Properties view to do this.
Pencil to Brush

Converts the selected centre line pencil strokes into contour strokes brush lines.

Merge Pencil Lines

Because pencil lines are defined by their centre lines, two pencil lines that brush against each other may not actually make a closed shape, even if they appear closed. If you select several pencil lines that are close together, you can use this button to close the small gaps between these pencil lines and make them into a single pencil line.

NOTE Points must be close enough to be merged. If there is a large gap between the lines, they will not be merged.
Reverse Pencil Thickness

The Reverse Pencil Thickness option inverts the thick and thin section on a selected pencil line. This option will take the thickest size on the line and apply it to the thinnest, and it will apply the thinnest to the thickest.

Offset X

Lets you enter a value to reposition the selection along the X-axis.

Offset Y

Lets you enter a value to reposition the selection along the Y-axis.

Width

Lets you enter a value to resize the width of the selection.

Height

Lets you enter a value to resize the height of the selection.

Lock

Locks or unlocks the ratio between the Width and Height values.

Angle

Lets you enter specific values to rotate the selection. A positive value rotates the selection counter clockwise and a negative value rotates the selection clockwise.

Pencil Selection

If the selection contains pencil lines, the Pencil Selection section appears at the bottom of the Tool Properties view, allowing you to adjust the properties of those pencil lines.

Icon Property Description
  Maximum Size

Adjusts the size of the parts of the pencil lines that are the thickest. Parts of the pencil lines that are between the minimum and maximum sizes will be adjusted proportionally.

  Minimum Size Adjusts the size of the parts of the pencil lines that are the thinnest. Parts of the pencil lines that are between the minimum and maximum sizes will be adjusted proportionally.
  Pencil Line Shape

You can adjust the start, end, and join style of a pencil line.

Pencil Line Style

  • Start: Lets you select the style of the start tip, which is the first tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • End: Lets you select the style of the end tip, which is the last tip you drew. You can choose between Round or Flat style.
  • Join: Lets you select the joint style. The joints are where the line curves abruptly. You could also define the Join style as the corner style. You can choose between Round, Mitre and Bevel style.
  Pencil Stencils

Allows you to apply one of the available line thickness stencils to the selected pencil lines. Stencils set the width of a pencil lines all along its length. You can use one of the preloaded presets, or create your own pencil stencils—see Creating Pencil Thickness Presets.

  Adding Texture to a Pencil Line

Pencil lines support texture. Once a pencil line is drawn, you can apply a preset texture or load your own. Textures are independent from pencil stencils—see About Pencil Line Textures.

Text Selection

If your selection include text boxes created with the Text tool, a Text Selection section will appear at the bottom of the Tool Properties view, allowing you to adjust the formatting of the whole text box.

TIP You can also adjust the formatting of parts of the text in the text box using the Text tool—see Text Tool Properties.

Adjusting the Text Selection

Icon Property Description
 

Font

Lets you select the font in which to display the text.

Bold

Makes the selected text bold.

Italic

Makes the selected text italic.

Align Left

Aligns the text in the selected text box to the left.

Align Center

Aligns the text in the selected text box to the centre.

Align Right

Aligns the text in the selected text box to the right.

Justify

Makes the text in the selected text box take all the horizontal space by adjusting the spacing between each word. Text that use a single line and text in the last line of a paragraph is aligned to the left.

 

Size

Allows you to set the size of the selected text.

 

Kerning

Allows you to increase or decrease the spacing between each character.

 

Auto Kern

Sets the kerning automatically based on the font’s predefined standard.

 

Indent

Allows you to increase or decrease the indentation of the first line of text in each paragraph.

 

Line Spacing

Increases or decreases the space between each line of text.