====== How to Use Slide Annotations ======


My Pathomation comes with a set of tools to annotate and draw on your slides. Besides the annotations you make yourself annotations can also be generated by AI image analysis algorithms, for more details on this function look at section [[interpreting_ai_results|]]\\
These can be made at the Slide level, which appear everywhere, or at the Collection level.\\
See these other articles for videos on [[other_features_of_collections|making annotations in collections]] and [[exporting annotations]] for use in other programs.

In the slide view screen a menu with all available options grouped in boxes is shown. 

{{ ::v3.1.0_viewer_annotation_menu.png?600 |}}

Starting at the top row from left to right these are:\\
  * custom colour selection, standard colours, pen size options, recursive drawing, hide/show all annotations, measurements, hide/show all labels\\
  * full screen, [[accessing_the_ai_menu|AI menu]], [[custom_and_fixed-size_annotations|preset custom annotations]], annotation tools, counter tool, delete selected/all\\ 


The available annotation tools are listed here:\\
 
  - Measurement tool
  - Straight line & measurement tool 
  - Arrow & text tool 
  - Circle tool 
  - Square tool 
  - Freehand line and measurement tool 
  - Closed freehand tool 
  - Text tool 
  - Delete selected annotations
  - Delete all annotations

The line tool will show you the length of the line, and the area tools will show the area inside the annotation you have marked out. If you want to make a quick series of distance measurements that do not need to be stored, you can use the measurement tool. A video explanation of this can be viewed at https://youtu.be/AfVNdafwNMw

An illustration of the results can be seen below: 

{{ :How to add annotate slides_1 annotation tools.png |}}


The annotation outline colour (1), body colour (2), line thickness (3) can all be changed. If drawing multiple annotations of the same type, you can toggle recursive drawing (4) which removes the requirement to select the type of annotation each time.

{{ :How to add annotate slides_2 annotation color size.png }}

The annotations you make on a slide will persist if you include this slide in a collection, slide box or course.

Annotations can also be created at the level of a collection and will be collection specific, in this way a whole slide image belonging to different collections can be given different visible annotations in each collection.

**Other options**

The //hide/show all annotations// <o> icon allow you to hide all annotations with one button. This is very useful for presentation and teaching purposes.

The //hide/show all labels// icon makes it easy to hide show the AI annotation labels. This is very useful for controlling when you need to see results at the level of individual annotations or prefer to have an unobstructed view without the label text.\\

The //counter tool// # icon allows you to mark and count elements in your image. You can select the colour and pen thickness, select recursive drawing and then the # icon to start counting.

{{ :v3.1.0_counter_tool.mp4?600 |}}