Create neat lines and shapes with the draw and hold gesture

Draw and Hold feature is currently only available in OneNote.

To make it easier to create neater lines and shapes as you take notes and brainstorm, you can now use the Draw and Hold gesture. Here’s how:   

  1. Draw a shape, such as a line, circle, triangle, or arrow, with a single ink stroke.

  2. Before picking your pen up off the screen, hold it in place for a few milliseconds.

  3. The shape will convert to a neat shape.

  4. While holding, you can drag to resize or rotate the converted shape.  

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Supported shapes include: 

  • Arrows

  • Circles

  • Ellipses

  • Hexagons

  • Lines

  • Pentagons

  • Rectangles

  • Rhombuses

  • Squares

  • Trapezoids

  • Triangles

Erase ink with the scratch out feature

With your pen tool, you can scratch out ink (letters, words, or drawings) to erase them. This new gesture is an even faster way to remove ink while staying in the flow. Here's how: 

  1. With a pen tool selected, draw a scribble (loopy or zigzag stroke) over the ink you want to erase.

  2. Notice when the scribble and the ink it covered are removed.

    If you want to restore the ink and the scribble shape, select Undo

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Here's how to turn off the scratch-out gesture: 

  1. In OneNote, Select File > Options > Advanced > Pen.

  2. Clear the checkbox by Enable the scratch-out gesture while inking.

Related articles

Convert your Ink to a math equation or shapes - Microsoft Support

Convert your Ink to Text, Shape, and Math Equations - Microsoft Support

Explore Full Page View - Microsoft Support

Explore the Ink to Text Pen - Microsoft Support

Ink Replay - Microsoft Support

Learn more about Drawing Tools - Microsoft Support

Style your documents - Microsoft Support

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