Reading the dial
The page opens on the Tilt test. The green line from the centre of the dial points the way the pen leans, and its length is the angle from upright: the inner ring is 45°, the outer ring 90°. Hold the pen straight up and the line shrinks to the dot.
Work around the four quarters one at a time, keeping the tip on the dot. A quarter turns green at 25° of lean; the result line keeps the largest angle seen in any direction. Lean slowly, so you can watch whether the line grows smoothly or jumps.
The Readings panel shows the same lean twice, as it arrives from the browser: tilt X and Y, the two side-on angles, and altitude and azimuth, the angle above the surface and the compass direction of the lean. Browsers that support both work one out from the other, so they should always agree.
What a good and a bad result look like
A healthy tilt sensor reaches a similar angle in all four quarters and moves the line without steps. Watch for:
- One quarter that won’t fill while the others do: the sensor or the driver is losing one side.
- A line that snaps between positions instead of sweeping: tilt arrives in coarse steps.
- Nothing at all, every value 0°: the pen has no tilt sensor, a driver option such as XP-Pen’s Disable tilt has switched it off, or the browser doesn’t pass it on.
Drawing apps use tilt to shape brushes, so a pen that tilts here but not in your app has an app setting to change, not a hardware fault. To check pressure, switch to Pressure ramp at the top of the canvas, or open the base pen pressure test. Wacom owners can use the Wacom set-up.