The Draw program is a collection of tools that enable you to create shapes and lines and to format them according to your needs. Although most of the program's options can be found in PowerPoint's menus, the ones you use most are conveniently located on PowerPoint's Drawing toolbar (see Figure 7.1). (Throughout this chapter, I focus on the use of this toolbar and only rarely mention menu alternatives.) Figure 7.1. Using the Drawing toolbar is the most convenient way to access PowerPoint's drawing features.
This toolbar appears when you first use PowerPoint, and unless you turn it off, it is always available while you're creating and editing slides. Most of the toolbar's buttons are typical in that you simply click them to begin using a feature. However, some of them are used a bit differently. Among the types of Drawing toolbar buttons are the following:
You'll get used to these differences in buttons eventually. At first, however, you'll sometimes find yourself getting the wrong results because you've clicked the wrong button. If this happens, just choose Edit, Undo or press Ctrl+Z to undo your unintentional mistake. By default, the Drawing toolbar appears across the bottom of the screen, but as with any toolbar, you can drag it to any side of the screen or out to the middle as a floating toolbar. If you can't find the toolbar at all, it's probably turned off. To fix this, choose View, Toolbars and click the Drawing toolbar. Then drag it to the location you want.
For more information on repositioning toolbars, see p. 371. |