The preferences (found under the Edit menu) allow you to control some features of Iconographer. They are divided into three categories: general, defaults, and external editing. Below are descriptions of each one of them.

Check masks when saving: If masks are created incorrectly, it is possible for the icon to not display as desired when you view it in the Finder. This setting enables Iconographer to check the masks and optionally, if errors are found, to fix them.

Dither when copying down to lower depths: This option dithers images when they are copied down to lower bit depths (for example, for 32-bits to 8-bits). Dithering is the use of a pattern to simulate colors.

Startup Options: This set of radio buttons allows you to determine what action Iconographer will perform on start-up. By default it creates a new, empty, icon, but it can also be made to automatically select an icon to open, or simply stay open and do nothing.

Mac OS Icon Saving: Icons are normally saved in the resource fork of a file. However, under Mac OS X, icons can also be put in a special .icns file which stores the information in the data fork. If you wish to create icons of this type (which are not viewable on Mac OS 9.x and older), you can turn on saving to the data fork. For maximum compatibility, you can save to both the data fork and the resource fork.

Members Palette Display: The members palette usually displays it's contents at their natural size. However, if an icon contains many of them, and the screen area is limited, it becomes rather tedious to scroll between members. This option allows you to scale them down so that they take up less space (this is purely an aesthetic modification, the actual contents of the icon are not modified in any way).

Default members: Although the members of an icon can be set on a case by case basis using the info dialog, this option allows you to globally set it for all new icons.