The Laser Pointer mode gives you a temporary laser trail for drawing attention while presenting or walking a group through the canvas. Choose Laser from the tool picker at the start of the palette strip, or press K.
How it works
Move the cursor to leave a glowing trail that fades on its own, after about a second at the default setting. It is purely for emphasis: it draws nothing permanent and changes none of your elements, so you can gesture freely without altering the canvas.
On a shared document everyone else sees your trail live, in your colour, and your cursor is hidden for the duration so they see only the laser dot.
- With a mouse or trackpad, just move: the trail follows the pointer. A click-drag pans the canvas, like the Hand tool, and the trail keeps drawing while you pan.
- On a touchscreen, drag a finger to draw the trail. To move around, switch to Hand for a moment.
Setting up your pen
While the mode is active a Laser panel sits at the top right, with four settings over a live preview of the stroke:
- Width: Fine, Medium or Bold.
- Colour: Your colour (your participant colour, the default), one of the ten standard colours (each adjusted to read on a light or a dark canvas), or Add a custom colour (four coloured dots) for a colour of your own, for when your colour doesn't read against the canvas you are presenting.
- Trail: how long the line lingers: Quick, Normal or Long. Long lets the end of the line linger for longer after you stop moving.
- Effect: Beam (a clean line), Glow (a soft halo that survives a projector), Comet (tapers away behind the tip), or Spark (a dotted trail).
Everyone in the room sees your pen, not their own default, and the settings are remembered on this device for next time.
The laser inside a presentation
The laser is not only an editor tool. While you are running a slide deck, press L to arm it over the slide and L again to put it away. It is one of only two tools reachable from a presentation (the spotlight is the other), because pointing at the canvas is the one thing a presenter needs to do to it and neither tool can change it.
While the laser is armed, moving draws the trail and a click no longer advances the slide; the keys and the presenter's buttons still move the deck. Leaving the presentation puts you back on Select, so you don't land in the editor still holding the laser.
Who can use it
- Participants pick it from their palette like an Editor.
- View-only visitors can use the laser too, with
K, since it changes nothing. - On an empty canvas it is greyed out in the picker. Add an element and it becomes available again.
- In Draw mode the palette shows Draw's own tools and
Kis not a shortcut there. - During a vote with Hide cursors on, other people's laser trails are hidden along with their cursors.
The Laser Pointer pairs well with live collaboration, letting everyone watching see exactly what you are pointing at. To pull people's view along with yours as well, see Follow Along.
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