Section 107. Create a New Drawing

107. Create a New Drawing

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

106 Set Draw Options

SEE ALSO

108 Open an Existing Drawing

111 Draw from Scratch

Unlike most other OpenOffice.org programs, Draw comes with no templates. Unlike common documents (such as memos) and presentations (such as those that might introduce a new product), drawings can differ from one another in such a major way that there isn't any way OpenOffice.org could provide templates that attempt to help you with what you might want to draw next .

NOTE

Draw does support templates, and you can create your own by saving your drawing with the File, Save As menu option and selecting the OpenOffice.org Drawing Template option for the file type.

Most often, you'll create a brand-new drawing from scratch (or change one you've already created). Draw supplies drawing tools such as shapes and lines, and you can place graphic images and charts in your drawings also. Of course, you can put text throughout a drawing and add some effects to the text to make it look more artistic than plain text would look.

NOTE

Unlike in Writer and Impress, AutoPilot provides no help when creating drawings.

107. Create a New Drawing

1.	Choose New, Drawing Select Drawing from the Windows menu to create a new drawing. Draw displays a blank drawing area on which you can work. Of course, once inside Draw, you can select File, New, Drawing to display a fresh drawing area where you can create your drawing. Alternatively, you can click the New toolbar button to open a new, blank drawing area quickly.
2.	Compose Your Drawing Create your drawing in the blank drawing area that Draw provides. You'll draw lines, add shapes, type and format text, and edit your composition depending on your drawing's goals. You can print your drawing (see 110 Print a Drawing ) at any time.
3.	Save the Drawing After creating your drawing, select File, Save and type the name of your drawing. Draw uses the filename extension `.odg` for your drawing. Click Save to save your drawing. If you want to use your drawing on the Web, export it (choose File, Export ) in a Web-compatible format such as GIF or JPEG. You can also export a drawing as a series of web pages (choose File, Export and choose the HTML format) or as a PDF file (choose File, Export as PDF ). (See 36 Save a Document as a PDF File for help with PDF.) If you export to HTML format, a main page is created, with links to each slide in the drawing file (each slide is saved to its own web page). If you export to PDF format, each slide in the drawing file is placed on its own page in the PDF document.

TIP

If you want to protect your drawing from prying eyes, click to check the Save with password option before clicking Save . Draw requests a password that anyone will have to enter before editing or viewing your drawing.

108. Open an Existing Drawing

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

107 Create a New Drawing

SEE ALSO

109 About Drawing with Draw

Opening an existing drawing to edit within Draw is simple. You tell Draw that you want to open a drawing file and then locate the file. Draw then loads the drawing into memory, where you can edit the drawing on the drawing area.

One important Draw feature is its capability to open drawings that you create in other graphics programs. In addition to opening Draw files, Draw opens the files in many popular graphic formats such as BMP, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, WMF, and EPS, as well as exports Draw drawings to those file formats.

1.	Choose File, Open Select Open from Draw's File menu or click the Open button to display the Open dialog box. 108. Open an Existing Drawing
2.	Navigate to the Drawing's Location The drawing that you want to open might not appear at the default location shown in the Open dialog box, so navigate to the folder in which the drawing you're looking for resides using the Look in drop-down list. TIPS You can open drawings from your computer's disk or from elsewhere in the file system. If you want to open a drawing located on the Web, preface the filename with the http:// web address or the ftp:// File Transfer Protocol address to open drawing files from those sources. Feel free to open more than one drawing by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking multiple filenames. Draw opens each drawing that you select in its own window. Use the Window menu to select a currently opened drawing that you want to edit.
3.	Locate the Drawing You Want When you locate the folder that holds the presentation file, select the file you want to open. Then click the Open button to open the selected Draw file. Draw opens the drawing and places it for you to view, edit, and print on Draw's drawing area. If the entire drawing is large, you may need to select the View, Zoom menu option and increase the zoom factor to see a close-up of your drawing's details before editing them.
4.	Edit the Drawing After the file opens on the Draw workspace, you can edit the drawing (see 109 About Drawing with Draw ).
5.	Save the Drawing When you've made all the changes you want to make, choose File, Save or click the Save button to save your drawing. Your recent changes will be saved in the drawing file for your next editing or printing session.

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