Drawing tool
Use the experimental drawing tool to add illustrations, drawings and doodles to your notes.
With the built-in drawing tool, you can draw various sketches and doodles, models and illustrations, or even add handwriting and hand drawings to the text.
Using the drawing tool
The drawing feature is still in experimental phase. For its use you must go to L'Math settings, there to the "Experimental features" tab, and check the Enable drawing and drawing tool checkbox. Restart L'Math after you have changed and saved the settings.
Then a Drawing button appears in the toolbar, which you can use to create a new drawing.
Editing and saving drawings
When a drawing is selected to be edited, it is surrounded by blue edges and the L'Math toolbars change to drawing mode.
Close the drawing by clicking outside it, for example, in the text.
Open a drawing for editing by clicking on it.
User interface elements
Toolbar
In the drawing mode, the drawing tools appear in the top bar.
| Mouse tool. This allows you to move and edit ready-made elements and text boxes. | |
| Hand drawing. With the pen and eraser, you can draw freehand lines and patterns, while using the eraser to remove them. The pen and eraser work on their own layer, and using it does not affect the vector patterns below. | |
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Grid. With this button, you can choose the style of the grid displayed in the background (or remove it completely). |
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| Snap to grid. This button allows you to choose whether to snap the patterns (arrows, lines, points, elements) onto the grid system, or to move them freely. Some patterns, such as text boxes and vectors, can always be moved freely. |
In mouse mode a selection of ready-made vector patterns will be available, ordered by category. Hover your mouse pointer on the icon, and the menu will open, and you can add the desired pattern to your drawing by clicking on it.
In hand drawing mode the toolbar displays brush size and color options.
Sidebar
Topmost in the sidebar a tip is shown, depending on what's happening in the editor.
Below the tip, element properties are displayed, if an element is selected. The content of this section depends on which element is active. For example, the properties of an arrow element include the coordinates of each tip, colour, and "two-endedness" of the arrow. In contrast, properties of a text box include, for example, text content, font, size, etc.
Third section in the sidebar is a list of patterns and elements. From the list you can select any of the elements for editing, rearrange them (for example, move an element under or on top of another), and delete them.
Finally, the sidebar has a separate section for drawing options. Here you can adjust the drawing to any desired size (in pixels). You can also change the size of the drawing by dragging on the arrow mark on the corner .
Modifying and moving elements
Click an element to select it for editing. You will see which element is active from special borders or dragging circles. By dragging on these circles, you can move the element's points or sides, or change its size. Most elements can be moved by dragging on the edges (basic patterns, lines) or the centre point (circles, polygons).
The different colours of the dragging circles indicate different functions. For example, in the image below, the red mark at the top is for changing the height of the cone, while the blue-grayish marks change the size and angle of the base circle. The whole pattern can be moved, for example, by dragging from the dashed diameter line in the bottom circle.
Other properties and settings can be modified from the sidebar's Selected element section.
You can duplicate selected elements with the shortcut Ctrl + D.
Keyboard shortcuts
You can speed up your work with the following keyboard commands.
| Ctrl+D | Duplicate selected element |
| Ctrl+T | Add text box |
| Ctrl+C | Copy selected element to clipboard |
| Ctrl+V | Paste element on clipboard |
| Delete | Delete selected element |
| ← ↑ → ↓ | Move selected element pixel by pixel |
Version support
The drawing tool works with L'Math version r1.10.11 and up. Older versions should show the drawings as static images.
What can't be done with the drawing tool, yet...
- Images cannot be pasted to drawings
- Many useful elements of physics, chemistry, geography, statistics/probability, primary and secondary schools, etc. are missing
- Multiple elements cannot be selected at once