107 Open an Existing Drawing

107 Open an Existing Drawing

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.

Before You Begin

106 Create a New Drawing

See Also

108 About Drawing with Draw

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 following kinds of files as well as exports Draw drawings to these file formats:

• BMP (Windows Bitmap)

• DXF (AutoCAD Interchange Format)

• EMF (Enhanced Metafile)

• EPS (Encapsulated PostScript)

• GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

• JPEG and JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)

• PCT (Mac Pict)

• PCZ (Zsoft Paintbrush)

• PNG (Portable Network Graphic)

• PSD (Adobe Photoshop)

• SDA and SDD (StarDraw 3.0 and 5.0)

• TGA (Truevision Targa)

• TIF and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)

• WMF (Windows Metafile)

NOTE

Draw opens a few more graphic file types than those listed here, but the rest are far more obscure and less important these days.

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 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.

1. Request an Existing Drawing
   
   Select Open from Draw's File menu to display the Open dialog box.
   
   
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.
   
   
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 Impress 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 111 Place Shapes on the Drawing Area and 112 Draw Lines ).
   
   
5. Save the Drawing
   
   Once you've made all the changes you wish to make, select File, Save to save your drawing. Your recent changes will be saved in the drawing file for your next editing or printing session.