PixelStick is a tool for measuring distances and angles on the screen. Excellent for designers or anyone who wants to measure a distance on their screen in any window or application.

Most of what PixelStick does is obvious. Drag the endpoints to change the measurement. Click the locks to constrain the movement. Launch it, play around, you're already a pro!

Coordinate System PixelStick uses a Cartesian coordinate system like the OS X coordinate system. This means that the origin (pixel 0,0) is at the lower left corner of the screen. However, OS X deals mainly in points, whereas PixelStick is all about pixels. A point has no width and resides between pixels.

Distances PixelStick reports both pixel distance and pixel difference.

The pixel distance includes the width of the PixelStick endpoints. This is so that the actual size of the item being measured is reported. The pixel difference merely subtracts the coordinates.

In the illustration below, the height of the picture is 13 pixels, so the distance is reported as 13.00. Note that if the diamond endpoint is at a position of y = 1, then the circle endpoint is at a position of y = 13. Thus pixel difference is 13 - 1 = 12.

PixelStick Tips

• When measuring, position the endpoints inside the area to be measured.
• The easiest way to get both dimensions of an area is to position the endpoint exactly on top of the corner.
• After measuring the height (see example), the circle endpoint can be dragged over to the other corner to get the width.

Requirements PixelStick requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

License PixelStick is free. You can give it to your friends and neighbors with no restriction, except that you include the files that came with your download.

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