Using the Drawing Toolbar

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.

graphics/07fig01.gif

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:

  • Buttons that activate a dialog box, such as the Insert WordArt, Diagram, Clip Art, and Picture buttons.

  • Buttons that display menus, such as the Draw and AutoShapes buttons.

  • Buttons that display palettes to choose from, such as the Line, Dash, Arrow, Shadow, and 3-D Style buttons.

  • Buttons that change semi-permanently when you choose one of their options. For example, if you click the drop-down arrow next to the Fill, Line, or Text Color boxes and choose a new color, that color then becomes the default the next time you just click the button.

  • Buttons that activate a feature but then wait for you to do something. For example, if you click the Rectangle button, nothing seems to happen until you move the pointer to the slide and drag to create a rectangle.

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.

graphics/rarr.gif For more information on repositioning toolbars, see p. 371.




Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
Absolute Beginners Guide to Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
ISBN: 0789729695
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 154
Authors: Read Gilgen

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