Open Office Draw Basics Tutorial - · PDF fileOpen Office Draw Basics Tutorial Downloading and installing OpenOffice Drawing tools Line tool Multi-segment line tool Arrow tool Shape

Open Office Draw Basics TutorialMark Neal

USATF National Certifier

Open Office Draw Basics TutorialDownloading and installing OpenOffice

Drawing tools➢ Line tool

➢ Multi-segment line tool

➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers




➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

To download

Choose Save File

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Downloading and installing OpenOffice (Macintosh)

Right click or<control> click

Select Show in Finder

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http://www.openoffice.org/

Double-click

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Downloading and installing OpenOffice (Macintosh)

Drag the OpenOffice iconto the Applications icon

To download

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Downloading and installing OpenOffice (Windows)

Double-click

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http://www.openoffice.org/

ChooseSave File

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Right-click and thenselect Open ContainingFolder

Opening a New Drawing

After starting the OpenOffice application selectFile>New>Drawingto open a new drawing




➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

Line Tool

Click on the line tool icon and then click anddrag in the drawing area to create a line.

While the line isselected youcan change theline type (dash,dot, etc.) bypulling downthis menu.

Thickness of the line isset here. All linesshould be set to at least0.01” thickness or theywill not be seen whenthe map is exported toPDF format.

The color of the line isset by pulling down thismenu. Unless yourcertifier has told youotherwise, you shoulduse only black andwhite.

Multi-segment Line Tool

Select the polygon, or multi-segment line tool.

Click, drag, and release tocreate first segment of path.Move mouse and left-click tocreate next line segment.Continue left-clicking to makenew segments to completecourse path. Then double left-click to finish.

Left click to select the path, then right-click andselect Edit Points. To move points slimply click-hold-drag the point. To delete points left-click to select apoint then <cntr> X.

To add new points to the path, left-click to select thepath, right-click and select Edit Points. Then select the “+” icon. Now left-click on path betweenpoints and hold-drag-release to create a new point

With the multi-segment line selectedyou can use the same formatingicons to change its properties.

Arrow Tool

Click on the arrow tool icon and then click anddrag in the drawing area to create an arrow.

With the arrow selected you can usethe same formating icons to changeits properties.

Alternatively, right-click on the arrow andselect Line... to bringup the formatting box.

Arrow type a thebeginning of line.

Arrow type athe end of line.

Line type

Line color

Line thickness

Arrow head size

Shape Tools

Rectangle andcircle/oval shapes

Pull down thismenu for othershape types

Once you create a shape andselect it, you format it with thetop ribbon items shown below

Controls the outline of the shape Controls the fill color of the shape

Creating a rectangle with white outline and whitefill color is a way to cover things up on your map

Text Tool

Select the Text tool

Click on an open area in yourdrawing and start typing

Click on the text (not the border)and drag to select all the text

This will cause text formating iconsto appear in the upper ribbon

Font type Font size Bold, underline, etc. Font color




➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

Keyboard Shortcuts

You can use combinations of keystrokes as ashortcut to many commands, or mouse selections.

For example, “<cntr> C” copies the currentlyselected object to the temporary location called theclipboard. Subsequently hitting “<cntrl> V” pasteswhatever you just copied to the drawing.

“<cntr> C” means holding down the cnt key (on theWindows PC) or the “command” key (on the Mac)and then the letter C. This is similar to holding theshift key while typing a letter to get the upper caseversion.

Below is a list of useful keyboard shortcuts

<cntr> c = Copy the currently selected object(s) to the clipboard<cntr> v = Paste the current clipboard contents onto the drawing<cntr> x = Cut (remove from the drawing) the currently selected object(s) to the clipboard<cntr> s = Save all the changes you have made to the currently selected file<cntr> z = Undo the last action or change




➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

Grouping Objects

Or, once you have selected multiple objects, youcan “group” them by right-clicking on one of theobjects and selecting Group

This results in the selected objects now beingselectable as a single object

Multiple objects can be selected by holding down theshift key and selecting objects one at a time, or, youcan draw a rectangle around all the objects byclicking on an open space in your drawing, and thenholding down the mouse button and dragging tocreate rectangle

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Once you have selected multiple objects, you can<shift> click on one of the objects, and then dragwhile holding the click to move all the objects atonce. Or hit <cntr> C to copy them all to theclipboard, etc.

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When clickis released

To ungroup the objects right-click on the groupand select Ungroup

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➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

Rotating Objects

You can cause rotation “handles” to appear on aselected object by clicking on the rotation icon.

This results in

Clicking and dragging on a corner handle will rotate the object

Clicking and dragging on a middle handle will rotate and distort the object

The symbol in the middle is the point about which the object will rotate

If you move the object while the rotate handles are present,the object will move but the center of rotation will not

Rotation center does not move when object is moved

To return the rotation center to the center of the object, clickin an open area of the drawing to unselect the object, selectit again, and then click on the rotation icon.




➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

Arranging ObjectsArranging Objects

All objects in your drawing can be thought of asbeing different distances from your eye. If you moveand object that is closer to you eye over top of anobject that is further away, the closer object willcover, or partially cover, the object that is furtherway.

Further away, or more rearward, object

Closer, or more forward, object

You can change this forward/rearward positioning ofan object by first selecting the object and thenselecting the Arrange icon

Arrange pull-down menu

Move object behind all other objects

Move object in front of all other objects

Move object one level forward

Move object one level rearward




➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

Zooming

When you hover over a selected object and see ahand symbol, it means you can click-hold-drag tomove the object.

With small objects however, it can be difficult toselect the object itself rather than one of the cornersof the object. This is one good time to use zooming.

Click repeatedly to move closer toobjects and make them bigger

Click repeatedly to move closer toobjects and make them bigger

You can use zooming to make the object bigger so itis possible to grab the object with grabbing its cornerhandle.

Any time it is difficult to adjust and object making itappear bigger by zooming often helps.

If zooming control does not appear make yourOpenOffice window wider.




➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

Undo

The Undo command is in Edit>Undo, but itskeyboard shortcut is <cntr> z

Undo does exactly what it suggests, it undoes themost recent action.

OpenOffice remembers a large number of recentactions. Multiple clicks on Undo (or multiplekeyboard shortcut Undo's) will undo multipleprevious changes that you made to the document inthe reverse order that they were done.

Undo can also be useful for trying things out that youaren't sure of. For example, you might think youhave all the objects that you want selected, but youaren't sure. Knowing Undo is available, you goahead and drag to move them, know that if youdidn't have all of them selected you can alwaysselect Undo to move them back.




➢ Arrow tool

➢ Shape tools

➢ Text tool

Keyboard shortcuts

Grouping objects

Rotating objects

Arranging objects

Zooming

Undo

Layers

Layers

Layers are something you probably won't use muchuntil you get more comfortable, and more advanced,with OpenOffice Draw. But it is still a good idea tohave some understanding of Layers.

Each of the “tabs” at the bottom of an open Draw filedesignates a different Layer. Every object in the drawingbelongs to one, and only one, Layer.

Double-clicking on a Layer's tab brings up the Layer dialogue.

Determines whether the objectsbelonging to this Layer will be visible.

Determines whether the objectsbelonging to this Layer will print, andalso if they will appear in the drawingwhen exported to PDF.

Determines whether the objectsbelonging to this Layer can beselected and modified.

The highlighted tab indicates the activeLayer. All objects that are pasted orcreated are put into the Active Layer.

Documents

Open Office Draw Basics Tutorial - · PDF fileOpen Office Draw Basics Tutorial Downloading and installing OpenOffice Drawing tools Line tool Multi-segment line tool Arrow tool Shape