Pen and stylus test. Pressure, tilt, hover, palm.
Draw on the canvas with an Apple Pencil, an S Pen, a USI or Windows pen, or a drawing tablet. The line thickens with pressure, and the test counts the distinct pressure values that reached the browser, the tilt range, whether the pen is seen hovering, and whether a palm resting on the screen got through as a touch.
One check
- Pen and stylus
One check after another, with your progress along the top and a plain verdict on each. Nothing you show the camera or say into the microphone leaves this page.
What it measures
Measured here, not assumed.
- Pressure levels seen
- The distinct pressure values in your drawing. It is what reached the page, a floor for the figure on the box. Under 8 (our line) means pressure is not being passed through.
- Tilt
- The range of tilt on each axis, in degrees. A pen without tilt reports zero throughout.
- Hover
- Pen movement with no contact, which only a pen sensed above the glass produces.
- Palm rejection
- Touches that began while the pen was down. A palm the screen rejects never reaches the page.
If it fails
The usual failures, and what fixes each.
- The line has one weight
- Pressure is not reaching the browser. On Windows install the pen maker's driver and turn on Windows Ink; on a drawing tablet, check its driver's settings for the browser.
- No pen is seen
- A passive rubber-tip stylus reads as a finger; only an active pen reports pressure and tilt. Check the pen is charged and paired.
- The palm gets through
- Turn on the palm rejection or touch-off-while-pen setting, or use a drawing glove. Drawing apps often add their own rejection.
Where a browser stops
What it cannot tell you.
- The level count on the box: a short drawing shows only the values you pressed, and browsers pass pressure as a number from 0 to 1.
- Pen buttons and the eraser end, which browsers report inconsistently.
- Latency between the pen and the line.
Privacy
Nothing leaves this page.
The camera and microphone are read on this page and stopped as soon as they have been measured. The clip you can play back lives in the browser's memory and is discarded when you leave. The location check discards the position. The internet test sends random bytes to this site and nothing else. The result is stored nowhere unless you ask for it by email, and then only the fact that an email was sent is kept.
Questions
Pen and stylus test, answered
- How do I test pen pressure?
- Draw a stroke from light to hard on the canvas. The line should thicken, and the pressure count should climb. One level, or a line of one weight, means the pressure is not passed through.
- Why is the level count lower than my pen's 4096?
- The count is the distinct values your drawing produced, not the pen's resolution. A short drawing touches only part of the range.
- Does this work with an Apple Pencil?
- Yes, in Safari on an iPad, with pressure, tilt and, on models that support it, hover.
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