Drawing Tablets¶

This page is about drawing tablets, what they are, how they work, and where things can become incorrect.

What are Tablets?¶

Cartoon with a mouse can be unintuitive and hard compared to pencil and paper. Even worse, extended mouse use can result in carpal tunnel syndrome. That's why most people who depict digitally use a specialized piece of hardware known every bit a drawing tablet.

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A cartoon tablet is a piece of hardware that you tin can plug into your machine, much similar a keyboard or mouse. It ordinarily looks like a plastic pad, with a stylus. Some other popular format is a computer monitor with stylus used to draw directly on the screen. These are improve to use than a mouse because it's more natural to describe with a stylus and generally better for your wrists.

With a properly installed tablet stylus, Krita tin use information like pressure sensitivity, assuasive you to make strokes that get bigger or smaller depending on the pressure yous put on them, to create richer and more interesting strokes.

Annotation

Sometimes, people misfile finger-bear upon styluses with a proper tablet. You tin can tell the difference considering a drawing tablet stylus usually has a pointy nib, while a stylus made for finger-touch has a big rubbery round beak, like a finger. These tablets may not give adept results and a pressure-sensitive tablet is recommended.

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Supported Tablets¶

Supported tablets are owned by Krita developers themselves, so they can reliably diagnose and fix bugs. Nosotros maintain a list of those here.

If you're looking for information about iPad or Android tablets, look here.

Drivers and Pressure Sensitivity¶

Then y'all take bought a tablet, a real drawing tablet. And you desire to become it to work with Krita! So you lot plug in the USB cable, commencement upwardly Krita and… It doesn't piece of work! Or well, y'all can make strokes, but that pressure sensitivity y'all heard so much nearly doesn't seem to work.

This is because y'all need to install a program called a 'driver'. Normally y'all tin detect the driver on a CD that was delivered alongside your tablet, or on the website of the manufacturer. Go install it, and while you lot wait, nosotros'll get into the details of what it is!

Running on your computer is a basic system doing all the tricky bits of running a computer for you lot. This is the operating organization, or OS. About people utilize an operating system called Windows, just people on an Apple device have an operating organisation chosen macOS, and some people, including many of the developers apply a system called Linux.

The base principle of all of these systems is the same though. You would like to run programs like Krita, called software, on your computer, and you want Krita to exist able to communicate with the hardware, like your drawing tablet. Only to have those ii communicate can be really difficult – so the operating system, works equally a mucilage between the two.

Whenever you lot start Krita, Krita volition commencement make connections with the operating arrangement, so it can ask information technology for a lot of these things: It would like to brandish things, and use the memory, and so on. Most importantly, it would similar to go information from the tablet!

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Only it can't! Turns out your operating organisation doesn't know much about tablets. That'due south what drivers are for. Installing a driver gives the operating system plenty information, so the OS can provide Krita with the right information virtually the tablet. The hardware manufacturer'due south job is to write a proper commuter for each operating system.

Alarm

Considering drivers modify the operating organisation a lilliputian, you will always need to restart your calculator when installing or uninstalling a driver, so don't forget to do this! Conversely, because Krita isn't a driver, you don't need to even uninstall information technology to reset the configuration, but rename or delete the configuration file.

Where it can get wrong: Windows¶

Krita automatically connects to your tablet if the drivers are installed. When things get wrong, usually the trouble isn't with Krita.

Surface Pro tablets need two drivers¶

Sure tablets using n-trig, similar the Surface Pro, have ii types of drivers. One is native, north-trig and the other i is called WinTab. Since 3.3, Krita tin can use Windows Ink style drivers, only go to and toggle the Windows viii+ Arrow Input (Windows Ink) there. You don't need to install the WinTab drivers anymore for due north-trig based pens.

Windows ten updates¶

Sometimes a Windows x update tin can mess upwards tablet drivers. In that case, reinstalling the drivers should work.

Wacom Tablets¶

There are three known issues with Wacom tablets and Windows.

The first is that if you have customized the driver settings, then sometimes, frequently afterwards a driver update, but that is non necessary, the commuter breaks. Resetting the driver to the default settings and then loading your settings from a backup will solve this problem.

The 2nd is that for some reason it might exist necessary to change the display priority lodge. You might have to make your Cintiq screen your primary screen, or, on the other paw, make it the secondary screen. Double bank check in the Wacom settings utility that the tablet in the Cintiq is associated with the Cintiq screen.

The tertiary is that if you have a display tablet like a Cintiq and a Wacom ExpressKeys remote, and you lot have disabled Windows Ink in the calibration page of the stylus settings dialog, and then yous accept the full set of WinTab features, the Cintiq needs to be the first item in Wacom's desktop application list. Otherwise, you will have an offset between stylus and mouse that will go worse the more than displays there are to the left of the Cintiq display.

Broken Drivers¶

Tablet drivers need to be made by the manufacturer. Sometimes, with really inexpensive tablets, the hardware is fine, only the commuter is badly written, which means that the driver just doesn't work well. Nosotros cannot do anything almost this, sadly. Yous will have to send a complaint to the manufacturer for this, or purchase a better tablet with better quality drivers.

Conflicting Drivers¶

On Windows, you can simply have a single WinTab-style driver installed at a time. So be sure to uninstall the previous driver earlier installing the 1 that comes with the tablet you want to utilise. Other operating systems are a bit improve almost this, but even Linux, where the drivers are often preinstalled, can't run 2 tablets with dissimilar drivers at one time.

Interfering software¶

Sometimes, there'due south software that tries to make a security layer betwixt Krita and the operating system. Sandboxie is an example of this. However, Krita cannot always connect to certain parts of the operating system while sandboxed, so it will frequently interruption in programs similar Sandboxie. Similarly, certain mouse software, similar Razer utilities tin can also affect whether Krita can talk to the operating system, converting tablet data to mouse data. This blazon of software should be configured to get out Krita alone, or be uninstalled.

The following software has been reported to interfere with tablet events to Krita:

  1. Sandboxie

  2. Razer mouse utilities

  3. AMD Catalyst TM "game manner" (this bankrupt the right click for someone)

Flicks (Wait circle showing up and and so calling the popup palette)¶

If you have a state of affairs where trying to draw keeps bringing up the pop-up palette on Windows, then the problem might be flicks. These are a blazon of gesture, a bit of Windows functionality that allows you lot to make a motility to serve as a keyboard shortcut. Windows automatically turns these on when you install tablet drivers, because the people who made this office of Windows forgot that people also draw with computers. So you lot will need to plough information technology off in the Windows flicks configuration.

Wacom Double Click Sensitivity (Straight starts of lines)¶

If you experience an event where the start of the stroke is straight, and have a Wacom tablet, it could be caused by the Wacom driver double-click detection.

To fix this, get to the Wacom settings utility and lower the double click sensitivity.