Drawing Basic Lines and Shapes

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Although drawing capabilities continue to expand in Word, the old standby tools remain intact and readily available. As with earlier versions of Word, Word 2003 enables you to draw basic lines and shapes in your documents by clicking Drawing toolbar buttons. Basic lines and shapes frequently serve as the foundation for more complex drawings that you create by combining and formatting objects.

Note 

When you draw in Word, you must work in Print Layout, Web Layout, or Reading view. If you're in Normal or Outline view when you click a line or shape button on the Drawing toolbar, Word automatically changes your view to Print Layout.

Working with Straight Lines and Arrows

In Word, you can use the Drawing toolbar to create straight lines and arrows. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Click Line or Arrow on the Drawing toolbar. The pointer changes to a crosshair pointer whenever a drawing tool is selected.

2. Click in the drawing canvas where you want to start the line or arrow.

3. Drag to draw the line or arrow.

After you draw a line or an arrow, you can manipulate and control it in the following ways:

• Change the appearance of a line or an arrow. Click the line or arrow to select it; click the Line Style, Dash Style, or Arrow Style button on the Drawing toolbar; and choose a new style for the line or arrow from the menu. You can apply multiple settings to a single object. For example, you can apply a dash style and an arrow style to the same object. Figure 12-3 shows the Arrow Style menu.

  
  Figure 12-3: You can change the appearance of arrows and lines by choosing options from the Line Style, Dashed Style, and Arrow Style menus.

• Constrain a line or an arrow to move in 15-degree-angle increments from the starting point. Press Shift as you draw the line or arrow. As you move the mouse pointer, the angle of the object will change in 15-degree increments.

• Lengthen a line or an arrow in opposite directions. Press Ctrl as you draw the line or arrow.

• Reposition a line or an arrow. Click the line or arrow to select it, click the selected object (but do not click a selection handle), and then drag the object to a new location.

• Resize a line or an arrow. Select the line or arrow, and then drag a selection handle to lengthen, shorten, or change the angle of the object.

You can also double-click an existing line or arrow to display the Format AutoShape dialog box, shown in Figure 12-4. The Format AutoShape dialog box enables you to configure a number of shape formatting settings. The techniques for formatting objects are discussed throughout this chapter.

Figure 12-4: You can double-click an object in the drawing canvas to display the object's formatting dialog box.

Tip 

Add a vertical line between columns  When you want to add a line between columns, you can do so without creating a drawing canvas or using Drawing toolbar buttons. To add a vertical line between columns, click in a column, and then choose Format, Columns. In the Columns dialog box, select the Line Between check box. For more information about working with columns, see Chapter 19, "Formatting Columns and Sections for Advanced Text Control."

Creating Ovals and Rectangles

Creating ovals, circles, rectangles, and squares is similar to creating lines and arrows. To create an oval or a rectangle, click the Oval or Rectangle button on the Drawing toolbar, click in the drawing canvas, and then drag to create the object. To create a circle or square, click the Oval or Rectangle button, and then press Shift as you drag to create your shape. You can move and resize an oval or a rectangle by selecting and dragging the object to move it or by dragging the object's selection handles to resize it.

Tip 

Create a box around paragraph text  If you want to draw a box around text, use the the Border button's menu on the Formatting toolbar. For more information about adding borders, see Chapter 18, "Drawing Attention to Documents by using Borders and Shading."

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