Help center

Getting started

• Watching needs nothing. Anyone can open the entrance canvas at /draw and every public canvas. A private canvas only its owner, the people invited to it, admins and moderators can see.
• Drawing needs an account. Open Account → Register… or Account → Sign in…. Signed in, you draw on the entrance canvas and on every public canvas, and on private canvases where you were given the right to draw.
• The screen: the menu bar runs along the top (MultiDraw, File, Tools, Layers, Settings, View, Account). The toolbar holds the tools, the stroke and fill colour and the size and opacity sliders. Both the toolbar and the tool settings float: drag their strip to move them, press it to fold them away. Under the toolbar, the position fields show where you are (x, y and zoom); type into them to jump.
• Moving around: the mouse wheel or a touchpad pans, Ctrl + wheel (or a pinch on a touchpad) zooms around the pointer. Hold Space and drag, or drag with the middle or right mouse button, to pan with any tool. On a phone or tablet, one finger draws and two fingers pinch to zoom and pan.
• Sharing a spot: the address in your browser always holds the view (?x=…&y=…&z=…). Copy it and whoever opens it lands at the same place and zoom.

Tools

Pick a tool in the toolbar, in the Tools menu or with its key (no modifier). The painting tools draw with the stroke colour, size and opacity from the toolbar. On some canvases they only work from a certain zoom on (see minimum drawing zoom): zoom in if a painting tool is greyed out.

Painting

• PencilP

  A smooth vector line with a round tip, the everyday drawing tool.

  With a pen tablet its width and opacity follow the pressure.

• HighlighterH

  A see-through marker of even width, laid over what is drawn.

  A stroke crossing itself does not darken; pressure changes nothing.

• BrushB

  Paints with a textured brush tip. Choose the tip in Settings → Brushes… (Shift+B), or double-click or double-tap the brush button (the small triangle in its corner says it opens more).

  Width and opacity follow pen pressure.

• SprayS

  Fine dots scattered around the path, denser in its middle, like a spray can.

  Go over a spot again to build the colour up.

Shapes

In Tools → Shapes. A shape is drawn from where you press to where you let go, previewed while you drag, and keeps one width and one opacity whatever the pressure. With Settings → Fill shapes (Shift+O) switched on, rectangles, ellipses and polygons are filled with the fill colour and outlined with the stroke colour.

On the toolbar the shapes share one button: the shape you chose last (the freehand shape at first), its small corner triangle saying there are more. Double-click it, or hold your finger on it on a touch screen, and the other shapes open beside the toolbar; their keys and the Tools menu reach them too.

• Filled freeformF

  Draw an outline freehand; the area it encloses is filled with the fill colour.

  Its border takes the stroke colour.

• LineL

  A straight line between two points.

• ArrowA

  A straight line with an arrowhead where you let go.

• RectangleR

  A rectangle from corner to corner.

• EllipseO

  An ellipse inside the box you drag.

• PolygonG

  Click once per corner. Close it with a double click, Enter or a click on the first corner.

  Backspace takes the last corner back, Escape gives it up.

Erasing

• EraserE

  Rubs out what is under it, like a pencil that paints nothing.

  On a canvas with layers it erases the layer you draw on only.

• Stroke eraserD

  Deletes every whole stroke you drag over, for everybody.

  You erase your own strokes; whoever manages the canvas erases anyone's. Right after, Undo brings them back.

View and pointing

• PanM

  Drag to move the view. Paints nothing.

• ZoomZ

  Click to zoom in, Ctrl-click to zoom out, or drag a box to fill the screen with it.

  Escape cancels a drag.

• Laser pointerK

  A red trail that fades within a second, seen by everybody on the canvas.

  Nothing is drawn or stored: made for showing others where to look.

• PickerI

  Click a spot to take its colour as your stroke colour.

Undo and redo (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z) take back and bring back your own strokes, never other people's.

Rulers and guides

View → Rulers (Alt+R) shows rulers along the top and the left edge, counting the canvas's pixels as the position fields do; a blue mark follows the pointer. On a canvas with edges, the ruler is darker beyond them.

• Pull a guide out of a ruler onto the canvas: the top ruler gives a horizontal line, the left one a vertical line, at whole pixels. Draw along it as you like: guides are never drawn into the canvas, and nobody else sees them.
• Move a guide with the Pan tool (M): drag the line. With every other tool you draw across it.
• Remove a guide by dragging it back onto a ruler.
• Your guides are kept in this browser for each canvas, and come back with the rulers when you return.

Colours, brushes and pressure

• Two colours. The toolbar has a stroke colour and a fill colour. Click either swatch to open Colors on its tab (Shift+C): a wheel, a square, swatches and sliders, each with its own opacity. X swaps the two. Recently used colours are kept for you.
• Size and opacity are the toolbar's sliders. The presets are on the number keys: 1 … 0 set the opacity (10 % to 100 %), Shift+1 … Shift+0 the size (2 px to 128 px). Both are also in the Settings menu.
• Brushes (Settings → Brushes…, Shift+B): sets of textured tips (Artistic, Structural, Experimental) and a Custom tab where you make your own tip from a base shape and a few sliders.
• Pressure sensitivity (Settings → Pressure sensitivity…, Shift+P): whether pen pressure changes the size, the opacity or both, how strongly, and along which curve. Without a pen, simulated pressure takes it from your drawing speed.

Shortcut cheat sheet

Canvases

The entrance canvas (/draw) is the big shared one: endless in every direction, open to every signed-in user. Beside it, every account can make canvases of its own, each at its own address (/draw/<name>). Find them in File → Browse canvases… (Alt+O, the public ones) and Account → My canvases… (Alt+M, yours).

Creating a canvas

File → New canvas… (Alt+N) or Account → Create canvas… asks for:

• A title of 3 to 32 letters, digits, spaces or underscores. Its address follows from it in lowercase, spaces becoming _. Title and size cannot be changed later.
• A size: infinite, a preset (square, desktop, tablet, phone) or your own width and height in pixels.
• What shows under the drawing: white, a colour of your choice, or transparent (shown as a checkerboard). It can be changed later.
• Who can find it and draw: public or private (below).
• Minimum drawing zoom: painting tools only work from this zoom on (none, 25, 50, 75 or 100 %), so nobody scribbles over a whole canvas from far away. Infinite canvases always have one.
• Layers (canvases of at most 4096 px a side only): see Working with layers.

The number of canvases an account may own, and the space each may fill, are limited; the dialog tells you when you reach a limit.

Public or private

Switch between the two any time in Settings → Canvas settings… (Alt+S), tab General. Everyone on the canvas gets the change right away.

Who may do what

Admins may do everything everywhere. Moderators look after the entrance canvas and the public canvases with the owner's rights, and may watch private canvases. A blocked user cannot open the canvas at all.

Workflows

A private sketchbook

1. Sign in, then File → New canvas… (Alt+N).
2. Give it a title and a size, and choose Private.
3. Nobody else sees it, not even with its link: to show it to someone, invite them under Canvas settings → People with View only.
4. Draw. Nobody else can, so you can set the minimum drawing zoom to none and draw at any zoom.
5. Find it again any time in Account → My canvases… (Alt+M).

A public canvas for everybody

1. Create a canvas as above and choose Public: it is listed in Browse canvases.
2. Every signed-in user may draw on it. Choose a minimum drawing zoom so people draw close up, not across the whole canvas.
3. Keep parts of it for yourself or chosen people with protected regions.
4. Decide which exports others may make (Canvas settings → General → Exports by others); you can always export everything.
5. If someone spoils it, see Looking after your canvas.

Inviting members to a private canvas

1. The people you invite need an account: ask them to register first and tell you their username.
2. Open Settings → Canvas settings… (Alt+S), tab People.
3. Under People with access, type the username, choose View only or Can draw and add them.
4. Send them the canvas's address. A view link (with x, y and zoom) takes them right to a spot.
5. Change someone's right with the choice beside their name, or remove them; their open page follows at once.

Working with layers

Layers keep parts of a picture apart: a sketch under the ink, a background behind the figures. A canvas has up to four. They exist for canvases of at most 4096 px a side.

1. Switch them on when creating the canvas, or later in Canvas settings → General → Switch layers on. Everything drawn so far becomes “Layer 1”. Layers cannot be switched off again.
2. Open the panel with Layers → Layers panel (Alt+L); on a phone also with the button at the top right. Add one with New layer (Alt+Shift+N).
3. Click a layer's name to draw on it (Alt+↑ / Alt+↓ step through them). Click the chosen one again to rename it.
4. Per layer: show or hide it (Alt+Shift+H), set its opacity and its blend mode (Normal, Multiply to darken like ink, Screen to lighten), and move it up or down .
5. Merge into the layer below joins two layers; both must be visible, at 100 % and Normal, which the dialog offers to set. Only an empty layer can be deleted : merge a full one down instead.

Protected regions

A protected region is a named rectangle of your canvas that others may not draw in: your corner of a public canvas, a finished piece, a space reserved for a group.

1. With the canvas open, go to Settings → Canvas settings…, tab Protected regions, and press Protect a region… (the same button is in My canvases).
2. Drag a rectangle over the canvas and give it a name.
3. Optionally tick Show on the canvas: its border and name are then shown to everyone. Otherwise people only learn about it when their stroke stops at its edge.
4. To let someone draw inside, type their username under the region in the list. Remove them with beside their name.
5. From the list you can also go to a region , rename it, export it, or end its protection .

Drawing together live

• Every stroke appears for everybody while it is being drawn.
• The counter shows how many people are on the canvas and how many of them draw.
• Point at something with the laser pointer (K): everybody sees its fading trail.
• Send a view link (the address bar) or a position: others reach it with View → Go to region… (Alt+G) or the position fields.
• Everybody undoes and erases their own strokes; only whoever manages the canvas removes other people's.
• See something that breaks the rules? MultiDraw → Help → Report… reports what is in view.

Looking after your canvas

As owner, in Settings → Canvas settings…:

• Block a user (People tab): they can no longer open the canvas.
• Remove drawings of one user: everything they drew here, for good.
• Clear an area (Content tab or Ctrl+Shift+D): select a rectangle; what is drawn inside is deleted. You can undo it once, right after.
• The stroke eraser (D) removes anybody's strokes on your canvas.
• Clear this canvas deletes every drawing; Delete this canvas moves it to the trash, where an admin can restore it for 30 days.
• Drop cached images if a picture ever looks wrong: they are rebuilt from the strokes.

Admins' drawings stay when an owner clears; only an admin removes them.

Exporting

• File → Export region… (Ctrl+E): drag a rectangle, then choose a PNG image, an editable SVG vector graphic, or a video timelapse of how it was drawn. Direct shortcuts: Alt+Shift+P, Alt+Shift+S, Alt+Shift+V.
• File → Export screen… (Alt+Shift+E): a PNG of what your screen shows, for everyone who may watch.
• File → Export whole canvas as PNG… (Alt+Shift+A): the entire canvas, for its owner and the people who manage it.
• Which formats others may export, and at which resolution, is the owner's choice (Exports by others in the canvas settings).

Your account

• Account → My canvases…: your canvases, with their settings and actions.
• Account → Privacy → Download my data…: everything stored about you, as one file.
• Account → Privacy → Delete account…: removes your account; your canvases go to the trash.
• MultiDraw → Help holds this help center, the legal pages and the report form.

Questions and problems

Drawing

Canvases and sharing

Working together

Exports

Account