Editor Basics

After you open or create an image, you land in the editor. This page covers the core gestures and controls that apply across all tools.

Pan and zoom

• Pinch to zoom in or out.
• Two-finger drag to pan.
• The fit-to-screen button in the toolbar resets zoom to fill the visible area.

When zoomed, the canvas size label below the image shows the current pixel dimensions of the canvas (independent of zoom).

Apple Pencil

Annotate supports the Apple Pencil for precise, natural drawing. Pressure sensitivity is picked up by the pen and marker tools.

Undo and Redo

The toolbar shows Undo and Redo buttons (↶ / ↷). They support unlimited steps within the current session. Every annotation creation, edit, or deletion is undoable.

A separate Redo branch survives until you make a new edit that diverges from it.

Selecting and moving annotations

• Tap any existing annotation to select it. Handles appear at the corners/midpoints.
• Drag the body to move; drag a handle to resize.
• Drag with snapping enabled to snap to nearby annotations or canvas edges.

Snapping

When Snapping is on (default), Annotate aligns your drag to:

• The canvas edges
• The center of the canvas
• Nearby annotations' edges, centers, and aligned axes

Toggle snapping in Settings. Snap guides appear briefly as dotted lines while dragging.

Inspector

Open the inspector (sliders icon in the toolbar) to see all style options for the currently selected tool or annotation. Changes apply immediately, and they're undoable.

On iPad, the inspector can be docked inline next to the canvas (set under Settings → Inspector behavior).

Layers

Open the Layers panel from the toolbar to see every annotation, reorder them, hide/show, or delete. Selecting a row selects the annotation on the canvas.

Keyboard shortcut (iPad with a keyboard)

• ⌫ (Backspace) or Delete - remove the currently selected annotation.