Making (or Altering) Pictures with OOo Draw Drawing Tools

To create your own art, start with a blank drawing slate, which you get by selecting File > New. Then choose Drawing from the "What kind of new work?" choices that show up to the right of the main menu when the cursor is over (or to the right of) the word New.

This gives you tools along the bottom of the work area in addition to the ones along the top that you got when you opened a Text Document window.

The Draw toolbar.

You see a number of icons, starting with a pointer at the left. Each drawing icon has a little down-pointing arrow next to it. Click the arrow next to the Callout iconthe one that looks like a cartoon speech balloon. You see a menu that gives you several different "cartoon balloon" styles.

The callout menu.

Select a calloutor any other drawing shape toolby clicking it. Then choose a point in your picture where you want to insert it, and click and hold down the left mouse button while you move the mouse diagonally until the shape is the size you want it.

The callout balloon.

Don't worry if you don't get the size or alignment exactly right or if you want to rotate your newly-added bit of art in one direction or the other. You can use the same Size and Position and Rotation tools you used on Terri's picture. You can move it around by clicking it and moving the little cross that this action turns the cursor into. You can even change the shape of your shape with the little handles on the edge of the graphics square that contains it.

Note

This set of actions is much easier to learn from a video than from words and pictures. The "Manipulating Images" video will make all this clear.

The rest of the shape icons work exactly the same as the callout one. You can move the mouse over each one and read the little text box that pops up. It will take you only a few seconds to try each one and see what it does. Mistakes are fine. If you don't save your work after you practice, no one will know you made them. So please experiment freely. All pixels (the little dots that make up pictures on the screen) created with OOo Draw are fully recyclable; no precious resources or landfill space are used by your self-training sessions.