Introducing Draw
- Chapter 1: Introducing Draw
This is Chapter 1 of OpenOffice.org 2.x Draw Guide (second edition), produced by the OOoAuthors group. A PDF of this chapter is available from the OOoAuthors Guides page at OpenOffice.org.
What is Draw?
Draw is a vector graphics drawing tool, although it can perform some operations on raster graphics (pixels). It offers a series of powerful tools that enable you to quickly create a wide variety of graphical images.
Vector graphics store and display a picture as simple geometric elements (lines, circles, polygons, etc) rather than as a collection of pixels (points on the screen). This permits simpler storage and supports precise scaling of the picture elements.
Draw is fully integrated into the OpenOffice.org suite, and this makes exchanging graphics with all components of the suite very easy. For example, if you create an image in Draw, reusing it in a Writer document is as simple as copy and paste. You can also work with drawings directly from within Writer or Impress, using a subset of the functions and tools from Draw.
Draw’s functionality is extensive and even though it was not designed to rival high-end graphics applications, it possesses significantly more functionality than the drawing tools that are generally integrated with office productivity suites.
A few examples of the drawing functions are: layer management, magnetic grid-point system, dimensions and measurement display, connectors for making organization charts, 3D functions enabling small three-dimensional drawings to be created (with texture and lighting effects), drawing and page style integration, and Bézier curves.
The Draw Guide is not a course book which must be worked through from beginning to end. Rather it is a reference work in which you can browse for guidance on particular topics.
This document describes only the functions associated with Draw. Some notions, such as file management or the way the OpenOffice.org environment works, are mentioned only briefly as they are covered in the Getting Started guide.
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