Getting Started Guide

Adding a shadow
In Draw, shadows are considered as an area property. Click
on the Shadow icon on the Line and Filling toolbar.
You can customize the position, distance, color, and
transparency of shadows by using Format > Area >
Shadow or by right-clicking on the selected object and
choosing Area > Shadow.
Adding transparency
You can make objects partly or fully transparent, or even with a varying degree of
transparency (as a gradient).
Using styles
Suppose that you want to apply the same area fill, line thickness, and border to a set
of objects. This repetitive process can be greatly simplified by the use of styles. Styles
allow you to define a formatting template (a style) and then to apply that style to
multiple objects. For more information about styles, see Chapter 3 (Using Styles and
Templates) in this book.
Special effects
With Draw, you can apply many special effects to objects and groups of objects. This
section describes a few of these effects. More effects include distorting, shadows, and
transparency can be found in Chapter 4 (Changing object Attributes) of the Draw
Guide.
Flip an object
Select an object and click on the Flip icon . You will see a
dashed line through the middle of the object.
This dashed line is the axis of symmetry. The object will be
flipped around this line. Move one or both ends of the line with
your mouse to set the orientation of the axis.
Then, grab any one of the eight green handles and move it across
to the other side of the dashed line. The new position of the
figure is shown dashed until the mouse is released.
Note
If you hold down the Shift key while moving the line, the line will rotate
in 45-degree increments.
Chapter 7 Getting Started with Draw 195