Drawing Shapes

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Drawing Shapes

You don't have to be a gifted artist to draw lines, circles, squares, or any of a number of different shapes. Excel provides tools to assist you with all your drawing needs.

Displaying the Drawing Toolbar

Excel provides the drawing tools through the Drawing toolbar. You will find the drawing tools useful in many ways. Each button on the Drawing toolbar performs a specific function. Some tools draw lines or shapes; some tools help position the drawn objects on the screen; and you can use some drawing tools to change the color or appearance of a drawn shape or line.


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Creating Lines and Arrows

Two of the most commonly used drawing tools in an Excel worksheet are the line tools and arrow tools. With these tools, you can draw straight lines or angled lines, either of which can have an arrow head. The arrow tool is predefined with an arrow head that will appear at the end of your line. If you use the line tool, you can add the arrow head later.


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Choosing a Line Style

After you draw the line, you can make a number of changes to it, including adjusting the thickness of the line and choosing whether the line is a single line or a double line.


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Setting Arrow Heads

If you created a plain line and later determine you want arrow heads, or even if you want different arrow heads than you originally drew, Excel contains a tool to let you select from a variety of arrow heads.


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Rotating and Resizing Lines

After you draw the line, if you move your chart or data, you may need to move the line or arrow as well.


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NOTE

Position the mouse pointer over the center of a selected line to drag it to a new position.

Adding Text Boxes

In Chapter 18, "Collaborating with Others," you will learn how to add comments to a worksheet. However, text boxes are different. You can draw text boxes to annotate and further explain data on your worksheet. Think of a text box as a "Post-it" note for your worksheet.


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NOTE

Highlight and format the text as you would any text.


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Working with AutoShapes

Excel includes built-in images called AutoShapes that make it easy to click and drag to draw anything on your worksheet. AutoShapes are a group of ready-made shapesfrom arrows, lines, stars, and banners, to basic shapes such as rectangles, ovals, or pyramids . Drawing an AutoShape is as easy as selecting a shape, then using your mouse to click and draw the shape in your worksheet.


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NOTE

To insert the same drawing object several times in your worksheet, double-click the Drawing Object button. The button stays selected or "sticky." When you're finished inserting the objects, click the Drawing Object button again, or press the Esc key.

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Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Fast & Easy
Windows XP Registry: A Complete Guide to Customizing and Optimizing Windows XP (Information Technologies Master Series)
ISBN: N/A
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 157
Authors: Olga Kokoreva

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