How do I…

Colours that print

Why a white annotation still shows up on paper, and what is changed for you.

Where to find it: Annotations (left edge) › open one › Colour

The eight colours a session hands out are chosen to read on paper and on a dark screen alike, so they are drawn exactly as you pick them. Nothing here touches them.

A colour of your own can be one that disappears. White is invisible on paper, and what you issue and what you share is always paper, whatever your screen is set to — so a white note that looked right while you drew it would come out blank in a PDF or on a share link.

So a mark that would vanish into what it is drawn on is repainted as it is drawn — on screen, in the PDF, on the share link. Your own choice is what is kept; it is the drawing of it that adapts:

• White becomes black on paper. Black becomes white on a dark screen.
• A grey is turned over and keeps its weight.
• A colour too pale or too deep keeps its hue and moves only far enough to be seen — a pale red is still read as red.
• Everything with enough contrast is left exactly as it is.

Nothing is rewritten in your drawing — the colour you picked stays the colour you picked, white included, and the Colour button goes on showing it. A PDF, an issued version and a share link are treated as paper whatever your screen is set to; change your theme and the same marks are repainted the other way.

A faded mark is left faint. Opacity is a deliberate fade and this does not fight it: a white mark at 20% prints as black at 20%, not as black.

A Note is the exception worth knowing. Its words sit on its card rather than on the sheet, so they are measured against the Card colour and do not care what your screen is set to — white words on a dark card stay white, on screen and on paper. Because a card can be any of the same strong colours as the ink, the words are held to a higher bar there than a mark on the sheet is: choose a green card for green words and the words are lightened until they can be read on it. The Frame colour is on the sheet, so it is treated like any other ink.

Versions you issued before this existed keep the colours they were frozen with; a frozen version never changes. Draw the mark again if one of them came out blank.

See Style a mark and Add an annotation.