27 Useful PaintTool SAI Shortcuts to Make Your Life Easier

Use these PaintTool SAI shortcuts to simplify and speed up your workflow.

PaintTool SAI is a lightweight, Japanese digital painting program and is popular among artists because of its vast range of tools and simplicity of use.

With that said, shortcut keys are essential for most advanced artists, as you keep one hand on the drawing pad and the other on the keyboard. They make your workflow more efficient while drawing digitally.

If you’d like to learn more about shortcuts in PaintTool SAI to make your life easier, then keep on reading.

PaintTool SAI Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut Action Ctrl + N Opens a new canvas Ctrl + O Opens a saved canvas Ctrl + S Saves current canvas Ctrl + Shift + S Saves canvas as Ctrl + W Closes the current canvas (it will ask you whether you want to save your progress) Ctrl + C Copy Ctrl + X Cut Ctrl + V Paste Ctrl + “+” Zooms in Page Up Zooms in Ctrl + “-“ Zooms out Page Down Zooms out Home Zooms out to fit the working space. It will also straighten and unflip your canvas Tab Toggles the toolboxes on and off Ctrl + Tab Jumps to the open canvas on your right (if you have multiple canvases open) Ctrl + Shift + Tab Jumps to the open canvas on your left (if you have multiple canvases open) Right-click Picks up the color under the cursor Ctrl + Alt + Drag Changes the size of the tool you are using Ctrl + Click on a pixel + Drag Allows you to move all the pixels within that layer of the pixel that you clicked on (not affected by your current layer) H Flips the Canvas (saved files are not mirrored) Ctrl + A Selects everything on the current layer Ctrl + D Deselects everything on the current layer D Deletes all pixels in your current layer Shift + Left-click Draws a straight line between the last click and the new one Delete Rotates the canvas counter-clockwise End Rotates the canvas clockwise Spacebar + Alt + Left-click + Drag Rotates the canvas

Related: Use Microsoft Word's Quick Parts to Insert Frequently Used Text

Keep in mind that you can change the shortcuts of most of the tools in PaintTool SAI. All you have to do is double click on the tool in the toolbox, and the Custom Tool Property window will pop up. Here, you can change the Shortcut Key to anything you want, as well as rename the tool.

You can also customize your shortcuts by clicking on Help > Shortcut Keys.

In the Shortcut Key Assignments, you can select the keys on the left, and select an appropriate action in the right column to change it.

Related: How to Use Photoshop Actions to Make Your Life Easier

Shortcuts Make Everything Easier

PaintTool SAI is a simplistic digital art program that gives you a lot of freedom. By getting used to its shortcuts, drawing in PaintTool SAI will be so much easier. Use the default shortcuts that PaintTool SAI offers, or customize your own!

About The Author