Operation Manual

Using LibreOffice’s drawing tools
You can use LibreOffice’s drawing tools to create graphics such as simple diagrams using
rectangles, circles, lines, text, and other predefined shapes. You can also group several drawing
objects to make sure they maintain their relative position and proportion.
You can place the drawing objects directly on a page in your document, or you can insert them into
a frame.
You can also use the drawing tools to annotate photographs, screen captures, or other illustrations
produced by other programs, but this is not recommended because:
• You cannot include images in a group with drawing objects, so they may not remain aligned
in your document.
• If you convert a document to another format, such as HTML, the drawing objects and the
graphics will not remain associated; they are saved separately.
In general, if you need to create complex drawings, it is recommended to use LibreOffice Draw,
which includes many more features such as layers, styles, and so on.
Creating drawing objects
To begin using the drawing tools, display the Drawing toolbar (Figure 307) by clicking View >
Toolbars > Drawing.
If you are planning to use the drawing tools repeatedly, you can tear off this toolbar and move it to
a convenient place on the window.
1 Select 5 Freeform Line 9 Symbol Shapes 13 Stars
2 Line 6 Text 10 Block arrows 14 Points
3 Rectangle 7 Callouts 11 Flowcharts 15 Fontwork Gallery
4 Ellipse 8 Basic Shapes 12 Callouts 16 From File
17 Extrusion On/Off
Figure 307: The Drawing toolbar
To use a drawing tool:
1) Click in the document where you want the drawing to be anchored. You can change the
anchor later, if necessary.
2) Choose the tool from the Drawing toolbar (Figure 307). The mouse pointer changes to a
drawing-functions pointer similar to this one for a rectangle shape .
3) Move the cross-hair pointer to the place in the document where you want the graphic to
appear and then click and drag to create the drawing object. Release the mouse button.
The selected drawing function remains active, so that you can draw another object of the
same type.
4) To cancel the selected drawing function, press the Esc key or click on the Select icon (the
arrow) on the Drawing toolbar.
5) You can now change the properties (fill color, line type and weight, anchoring, and others)
of the drawing object using either the Drawing Object Properties toolbar (Figure 308) or the
choices and dialogs reached by right-clicking on the drawing object.
320 | Getting Started with LibreOffice 5.0