Active area aspect ratio

Introduction

The aspect ratio of your drawing tablet's active area, can have a big impact on how good it feels to draw on them.

Basics

Any rectangular area has an aspect ratio. Which is the relationship between the width and height. Usually we will express the AR as a ratio like 16:9 or 16x9.

Displays (monitors) tend to have aspect ratios like 16x9 and 16x10. 16x9 is the most common aspect ratio.

Aspect ratio mismatches with pen tablets (IMPORTANT)

If you are using a pen tablet, it mostly likely does not match the aspect ratio of your monitor and you will see some distortion when you draw.

This will make give you a weird and unpleasant feeling while drawing. You can fix this by forcing the aspect ratios to match. More here: Matching aspect ratios.

Pen displays and aspect ratios

The active area of a pen display and their display panel inside the pen display are equivalent. So they always match.

Reference

A survey of aspect ratios of Wacom pen tablets

As of 2023, NONE of Wacom's pen tablets have an exact 16:9 aspect ratio.