Pipette

First Steps

The program pipette can be used in various fields. On the one hand it offers the possibility to pick up colors from any place of your screen, on the other hand you can easily define and determine colors or convert them from one color model to another one.

The Pipette

If you want to pick up a color value from your screen, for example from another application, your desktop or an image, you can use the pipette function of this software. You can access this function via the button "Pipette" in the main window. Depending on your operating system and the settings (Settings > General), there are two possibilities to pick up a color:

Which of those possibilities is the best for you and your operating system can depend on several thinks. We recommend the first posibility for Windows, Linux or Max OS X, the second possibility for Windows.

As soon as you pick up a color, the Pipette automatically calculates the values for the color models RGB, CMYK, CMY, HSV, XYZ and TColor. You can see the values in the bottom of the main window. The meaning of this models is explained in the section color models on this page. Once you release the mouse, the color snaps, and you are able to use the values within the program or another context.

The Color Translator

The program pipette can also be used as a color translator. Simply adjust one of the values in one of the color models and the software calculates and shows the color in the color field and as values in all of the other color models. To adjust the color values, you can either enter the values with your keyboard manually, you can use the top-down button next to the values or you can use your mouse wheel after you have clicked in the input field you want to chance for one time.

The Color List

The color list on the upper right of the main window saves all of the colors used previously. With one click on a color in the color list, you can recall the color and show it and its values again.

Under "Settings > General > Adding Color to Color List" in the main menu, it can be specified under which circumstances a color should be added to the color list. For example, this can happen automatically when you are moving the mouse or by double clicking on the color field. The colors within the list can be moved with the mouse or can be deleted with the key DEL. Shift + DEL deletes all unmarked colors, CTRL + DEL the complete list. The same functions can also be found when you right-click on the color list.

If you want to save your color list, you can use the menu "File > Save Color List" (or press the key combination CTRL + S). Saved color lists can simply be dragged onto the program in order to reload them.

By default, the colors are displayed as RGB / HEX values. You can change this in the settings "General > Color Model Values > Used Color model in the Color List".

Other Functions

Althought the pipette is already fully functional with the default settings, you can change lots of seetings in the menu "Settings" to adjust the pipette to your own needs.

For example, it is possible to adjust the exact number of decimal places of the values of the color models. You can determine under which circumstances the colors will be added to the color list automatically and you can determine whith which value the color model value is increased or decreased if you use the mouse wheel or the top down button.

Furthermore, it is possible to modify the values if they are copied to the clipboard. For example, it is possible to add units or other characters between the values automatically. See the section functions for details.