36No tablet needed
Drawing with a mouse is awkward: holding the button while steering is tiring, and the wobble shows. Air draw removes both problems — you draw with nothing held down, and Slate tidies the line once you finish.
Find itThe Air draw button in the style bar, next to the pen settings. It appears whenever Pen, Pencil or Highlighter is chosen on a computer. It starts off — press it once to switch it on, and it lights up while it is. Slate remembers your choice.
Use itClick once to start. Move the mouse with no button held — a light trail follows. Click again to finish, and the tidied stroke appears.
While drawingEsc throws the stroke away. Enter or Space finishes it. Moving off the board pauses the trail rather than dragging a line across your work, so you can reach a menu and come back.
Clean-upRight-click the button for Light, Medium or Strong. Slate removes hand tremor, straightens a line that was meant to be straight, closes a shape whose ends nearly meet, and tapers the ends the way a real pen does.
Why it looks betterThe tidying happens after you finish, not as you go — so Slate can see the whole path at once and knows what you were aiming for. That is why a shaky line comes out straight instead of merely smoothed. On an iPad with a stylus nothing changes: the button stays out of the way.
Part of the Slate guide — or read the whole guide on one page.