# defaultTool

Part of [SDKMode and the resting tool](https://kernstra.com/docs/web-sdk/config/mode) in the Kernstra Web SDK 1.0.0 configuration reference.

- Type: `'selectText' | 'pan' | null`
- Default: `'selectText'`
- Page: https://kernstra.com/docs/web-sdk/config/mode/defaulttool

The resting tool. A document opens in Select, as it does in Acrobat, and every other tool goes back to it when it is put away — Escape, its button pressed again, the Close on a phone's sheet, a tool that finishes on its own. Select's button shows pressed and `viewer.activeTool` answers `'selectText'` from that moment; `toolChanged` reports it once it has started, and is never told `null` in between. Select and Pan need no license feature and no document permission.

In Select, **text** is selected by dragging over it, which brings up the selection bar. Ctrl/Cmd+C (or the browser's Copy) copies the selection, unless the document forbids copying, a field has the focus, or the host page has a selection of its own or answered the copy itself. A press anywhere else — outside the viewer, on the pages off the text — lets go of the selection, and so do Escape and a zoom. Wherever the words leave the viewer — Copy and Ctrl/Cmd+C, Search for this, the first words of Add a note — the license rule of the accessible text layer applies: the `extract` feature, or a production license's clean output. On a development key without `extract` the bar has neither Copy nor Search for this, and a note starts empty. A click on an **annotation** selects it; over one, the pointer is the arrow, not the text cursor; Escape puts it down without leaving Select. **Links and form fields** answer as with no tool: a click follows a link, and a field takes the click and the typing. On **touch**, one finger scrolls the pages; a long press (half a second, held still) selects the word under it, with handles and the bar in the phone's sheet; a tap selects the annotation under it. A page's text is read when a mouse or pen first comes over that page, or a finger holds still on it — never when the document opens or is scrolled — and read again after a zoom.

`tools.selectText: false` (or `pan: false` for a Pan rest) leaves no tool active; any other value is ignored with a console warning.

- `'selectText'`: Default. Rest in Select: drag over text to select it, click an annotation to select it, links and fields answer as with no tool.
- `'pan'`: Rest in Pan instead: drag to scroll, a click selects an annotation; links are not followed in Pan.
- `null`: Rest in no tool: the pages' own text selection and copy (see the accessible text layer), links and fields, and a click on an annotation still selects it.

```ts
new PDFViewer(container, doc, { defaultTool: 'pan' });
```

Web page: https://kernstra.com/docs/web-sdk/config/mode/defaulttool