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.