Tux Paint Download

Tux Paint is a digital drawing app designed for kids between ages 3 to 12, designed by lead developer Bill Kendrick in 2002. The goal is to give an easy to understand, low-information overload way to make art.

Compared to other art applications that deliver lots of powerful tools for industry professionals, Tux Paint offers both a breath of fresh air for designers looking for relaxing way to sketch, as well as something for kids to jump straight into drawing without a lot of boring technical work.

When you open Tux Paint, you’ll have a blank canvas and a few tools on the left, right, and bottom. The icons are larger than on other programs, but labeled clearly and with icons that fit the tool.

It’s like opening old, early or pre-Windows drawing programs, but with higher quality options; you can make pixel or glitch art, but you’re not limited to 256 color schemes (or older). While there is a default view and settings that can be adjusted, you can scale Tux Paint to greater heights with plug-ins.

Features

A simple interface. The most common tools, your file menu options, and options for your tools are all that you’ll see. Tux Paint menu isn’t filled with tons of (often necessary for professionals) formatting and design tools. They can be added, so Tux Paint can grow with the user.

Kid-friendly and kid-entertaining options. Sound effects, animations, and a cartoon guide are available. Not everyone–and not all kids–are into that kind of sensory stimulation, so keep in mind that it’s optional and can be toggled. Custom sound editing isn’t too difficult for professionals who want to tailor the experience.

Great brush selection and flexibility. Multiple brush tips, rubber stamps, line tools, fill tool options, shape tools, texts and labels, distortion, color filters, and transformations are available. They’re labeled with buttons that explain the feature, and backing out of the options is easy.

Available in multiple languages. 129 languages currently, and growing with community contribution.

Available on multiple operating systems. macOS 10.10 Yosemite and up, Windows 7 to Windows 11, multiple flavors of Linux, the Android mobile OS, Haiku OS, and an unofficial iOS version for iPad and iPhone users.

Compatibility and Conversion Options

Tux Paint is a vector graphics program, and saves in multiple standard file formats. However, to promote simplicity, the app takes a no-questions-asked approach.

That means when you save an image, it simply saves to the default location. How do you find your images? A set of thumbnails are shown, and you can pick from the gallery. If you hate that idea, or if it’s too simple to the point of being too different, there is a customization guide that delivers a more modern, standard way of opening files.

Accessibility

Tux Paint includes a virtual keyboard, joystick or gamepad control options for the mouse/pointer, and UI (user interface) size increases. Because eye-gaze trackers are becoming more viable, having larger buttons with precise spacing is helpful.

As mentioned earlier, the app was designed with kids in mind and includes sounds and animations for entertainment. Overstimulation is an issue for lots of children–a topic often brought up with autism, but spanning many parts of the mental health spectrum.

Kids can easily turn the sounds off with basic understanding of computers. For teachers, parents, and administrators who want to disable certain overstimulating entertainment options, use the config file.

If you’re deploying multiple installations, changing the config files to disable certain features by default can save a lot of time. Along with disabling features, you can also pre-load certain plug-ins for other tools.

“For kids” doesn’t have to mean “no features”, and if you or the children using Paint want better tools without branching to more complex apps, config helps here as well! Preload your installations with the plug-ins you want, and use the config guide accordingly.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Simple, low-overload interface.
• Low impact app, the system requirements aren’t very high.
• Scalable to modern features with plug-ins.

Cons

• The save and open file is simple, but not intuitive for people who already know how to use computers.
• Limited power by default, but that’s the intent.

Check out Tux Paint today, and survey the many simple, yet scalable ways to design.