User Guide

Canvas 12 User Guide
Inserting objects into Canvas documents
You can use three methods to insert objects in a Canvas document: the Clipboard, drag-and-drop,
and the Insert Object command. The objects you insert can be either linked or embedded.
Clipboard: When you copy Canvas objects to the Clipboard, Canvas places OLE formats, as
well as lower-fidelity formats, on the Clipboard. When you paste into another program, that
program receives the highest-fidelity format it can accept. If the other program is an OLE
container, pasting creates an embedded OLE object.
When pasting into Canvas from other applications, a MetaObject container is created. The
MetaObject is a Canvas “Container” for a system metafile (WMF/EMF). It will draw, print, and
act like a normal Canvas object using the system to render it. This should preserve the
fidelity of the metafile.
The MetaObject container method eliminates problems in scaling, positioning, and overall
look. OLE and pasting as metafile will automatically create a MetaObject. To convert the
MetaObject to a Canvas object, choose Path | Convert To Paths.
Drag-and-drop: In Windows, you can drag objects from Canvas documents to almost any
destination on the Desktop (including local and network folders) to create a “scrap” file
containing the objects. You can also drag Canvas objects into other documents, and drag
objects, such as scrap files and other program’s objects, directly into Canvas documents.
When you drag an object to another program, it creates an embedding.
You can copy an object when you drag it by pressing a modifier key. Normally, dragging
moves the object. If you want to copy the object, rather than move it, Ctrl-drag the object to
another document. This copies the object and creates an embedding.
Insert Object: Choose Edit | Insert Object to open a dialog box in which you can choose any
registered OLE object type to insert into a document. Create a new object or choose a file as
the source of the embedded object.
To embed objects:
When you embed an object in another document, use the original program’s tools and commands to
edit the object.
Not all programs support OLE and can create embeddings.
1. Select the objects you want to embed in another document.
2. Choose Edit | Copy to put the selection on the Clipboard.
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