Drawing Geometric Shapes

Getting Started with OpenOffice 4

Chapter 6: Getting Started with Draw

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• What is Draw?
• Parts of the main Draw window
• Choosing and defining colors
• Positioning objects with Snap functions
• Positioning objects with guiding lines
• The basic drawing shapes
  • Drawing a straight line
  • Drawing an arrow
  • Choosing line endings
  • Drawing a rectangle or square
  • Drawing a circle or ellipse
  • Drawing curves
  • Writing text
  • Gluepoints and connectors
• Drawing geometric shapes
• Selecting objects
• Moving and dynamically adjusting an object’s size
• Editing objects
• Using styles
• Special effects
• Combining multiple objects
• Aids for positioning objects
• Inserting and editing pictures
• Working with 3D objects
• Exporting graphics
• Adding comments to a drawing

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Drawing Geometric Shapes

Geometric shapes include basic shapes, symbol shapes, block arrows, flowcharts, callouts, and stars. You can add text to all these shapes. See Chapter 2 (Drawing Basic Shapes) and Chapter 10 (Advanced Draw Techniques) in the Draw Guide for details.

Figure 152 shows part of the Drawing toolbar with the icons referred to in the following sections. The same icons are available on the Sidebar. Clicking on the arrow next to the icon opens a floating toolbar with the relevant work tools.

The use of all these tools is similar to that of the Rectangle tool, even though they produce different geometric shapes.

Figure 152: Part of the main Drawing toolbar

Basic shapes

The Basic Shapes icon makes available the range of tools for drawing basic shapes, including a rectangular tool identical to the one on the main toolbar.

Symbol shapes

The Symbol Shapes icon provides an array of tools for drawing the various symbols.

Block arrows

The Block Arrows icon opens the Block Arrows toolbar.

Flowcharts

The tools for drawing flowcharts are accessed by clicking on the Flowcharts icon . The creation of flowcharts, organization charts, and similar planning tools are described in Chapter 9 (Organization Charts, Flow Diagrams, and More) in the Draw Guide.

Callouts

Use the Callouts icon to open the Callouts toolbar.

Stars and banners

These tools are associated with the Stars icon .