Instantly sample any colour from your drawing — or anywhere on your screen — and make it your active drawing colour.
Find the Eye Dropper icon in the toolbar — it looks like a pipette or medicine dropper. Click it once to activate the tool. The button will highlight to show it is active.
A brief message will appear telling you what to do next. On supported browsers you will see "Click anywhere on screen to pick a colour". On other browsers you will see "Click on the drawing area to pick a colour". The cursor will also change to a crosshair.
Click on the exact pixel whose colour you want to use. The tool reads the colour at that precise point and immediately applies it as your active drawing colour. A confirmation message will show the picked hex code.
The Eye Dropper closes automatically after picking. Your picked colour is now active and ready to use with any drawing tool — just select a tool and start drawing. To cancel without picking a colour, press Esc at any time.
Quick tip
The Eye Dropper tool works alongside all other drawing tools. Pick a colour from an existing shape, then immediately switch to the Rectangle or Pencil tool to draw with it — perfect for colour matching.
School Draw uses the best picking method available in your browser. There are two modes:
Uses your browser's built-in colour sampling. The entire screen dims slightly and a magnified preview follows your cursor, showing the exact pixel you are about to pick.
Used automatically when Screen Mode is not available. A transparent overlay covers the drawing area and your cursor becomes a crosshair.
You do not need to choose — the tool selects the best mode automatically. If Screen Mode is supported, it will be used first. If anything goes wrong (for example a permission is denied), the tool falls back to Canvas Mode seamlessly and lets you know via an on-screen message.
The Eye Dropper button is highlighted and the browser (Screen Mode) or a transparent overlay (Canvas Mode) becomes ready to capture your click.
In Screen Mode the browser reads the pixel colour directly. In Canvas Mode the drawing area is serialised into a temporary image and the pixel at your click position is read from it.
The raw RGB pixel values are converted to a hex colour code (e.g. #3B82F6) and validated before being applied.
The colour becomes the active colour for all drawing tools. The colour swatch in the toolbar updates instantly and a confirmation message displays the hex code.
Captures the exact colour of a single pixel. In Screen Mode a built-in magnifier helps you zoom in for precise selection.
The picked colour becomes active immediately — no confirmation dialogs. Just click and draw.
Automatically switches from Screen Mode to Canvas Mode if the native API is unavailable, so it works in every browser.
Press Esc at any moment to cancel without changing your current colour. Your drawing is never affected.
The picked colour applies to every drawing tool — rectangles, circles, pencil, line, text, and fill. Switching to another tool automatically closes the dropper.
The button meets minimum touch-target requirements. Haptic feedback confirms the colour pick on supported mobile devices.
The Eye Dropper tool works in all modern browsers. The experience varies depending on which mode is available:
| Browser | Screen Mode (full screen) | Canvas Mode (drawing area) |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome 95+ | ✓ Supported | ✓ Supported |
| Microsoft Edge 95+ | ✓ Supported | ✓ Supported |
| Opera 81+ | ✓ Supported | ✓ Supported |
| Firefox | Not yet available | ✓ Supported |
| Safari | Not yet available | ✓ Supported |
Using Firefox or Safari?
You will get Canvas Mode automatically, which lets you pick any colour from your drawing. For full screen-wide colour picking, try using Chrome or Edge.
Because Screen Mode hands control to the browser's native interface, standard keyboard navigation operates exactly as that browser implements it — typically Esc to cancel and the mouse to pick. Canvas Mode follows the same pattern within the drawing area.
Ideas for using the Eye Dropper
Check that your browser supports the feature. In Screen Mode, some browsers may ask for a one-time permission — look for a browser prompt at the top of the window and click Allow. If no prompt appears, the tool will switch to Canvas Mode automatically.
Canvas Mode works by reading pixel data from the SVG drawing canvas directly. Reading pixels from outside the canvas (other tabs, the desktop, other apps) is not permitted by browser security policies without the native EyeDropper API. Upgrade to Chrome 95+ or Edge 95+ to pick from anywhere on screen.
In Canvas Mode the SVG is briefly rendered to a hidden canvas to sample the pixel. Anti-aliased edges (e.g. the edge of a circle or curved path) may return a blended colour rather than the solid fill colour. For the most accurate result, click clearly within the centre of a filled area, away from edges.
The Eye Dropper changes your active drawing colour but does not create a new shape or modify existing drawing history. Pressing Ctrl+Z will undo the most recent drawing action, not the colour pick. To revert to a previous colour, simply pick it again using the Colour Picker or the Eye Dropper.
Yes — in Canvas Mode you can click anywhere on the drawing canvas, including empty background areas. The background colour will be sampled and set as your active colour.