Writer Guide

Modifying an image

When you insert a new image, you may need to modify it to make it

more suitable for fitting into the document. The placement of the

picture relative to the text is discussed in “Positioning graphics within

the text” on page 279. This section describes the use of the Picture

toolbar, resizing, and cropping, as well as a workaround to rotate a

picture.

Note

Although OOo provides many tools for working with images, for

best results it is generally better to use an image manipulation

program such as GIMP

, to modify images (for example, to

crop, resize, rotate, and change color values) and then insert

the result into OOo.

Using the picture toolbar

When you insert a suitable graphic image or select one already present

in the document, the Picture toolbar appears. This toolbar can be

either floating or docked. Figure 253 shows what the Picture toolbar

looks like when it is floating. Two other toolbars can be opened from

this one: the Graphic Filter toolbar, which can be torn off and placed

elsewhere on the window, and the Color toolbar, which opens as a

separate floating toolbar.

From these toolbars, you can apply small corrections to the graphic or

obtain special effects.

Filters

Table 5provides a short description of the available filters, however the

best way to understand them is to see them in action. Feel free to

experiment with the different filters and filters settings, remembering

that you can undo all the changes by pressing

Ctrl+Z

Alt+Backspace

or by selecting Edit > Undo.

2 GIMP is an open-source graphics program that can be downloaded from

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/.

Chapter 8 Working with Graphics 269