Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 11: Adding Graphics to Documents

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Moving and Resizing Images


The first thing you might want to do with an image is to move it to a new location on the page, to position it more precisely after you dragged it from the Beamer.

To move a selected image, click anywhere in the image and drag the mouse. The outline that moves shows where the image is to be placed when you release the mouse.

By default, the text flows around the image, above and below it. You'll learn how to change that setting momentarily.

If you need to resize the image, use the green handles that appear when you select the image.

To resize any selected image, click and drag on any of the green handles. The moving outline shows you the size that the image will be when you release the mouse button.

Notice that you can easily (too easily) alter the ratio of height to width for an image as you resize it. (See Figure 11.8.)

Figure 11.8
As you resize an image, hold down the Shift key to prevent the distortion shown here.

To prevent distortion, hold down the Shift key as you drag on a handle to resize an image. The Shift key makes both directions of the image move in concert so that the image is sized without being distorted.

Setting Alignment and Text Wrapping

The easiest way to set many image options is by clicking the right mouse button on a selected image. The Formatting pop-up menu appears, so you can easily choose an option from a menu or submenu (see Figure 11.9).

Figure 11.9
The Formatting pop-up menu can be used with any selected image by clicking the right mouse button.

Similar options to most of the pop-up submenus appear on the Object toolbar (just scroll the toolbar over as needed). You can explore the icons on the toolbar by leaving your mouse pointer over an icon for a few seconds. A descriptive message tells you what that icon is used for.

Although you can move an image by dragging it with the mouse, this isn't the most precise method. Instead, you can use the menus to select a left margin, centered, or right margin position for an image. Just follow these steps:

1. Select an image in your document.

2. Click the right mouse button to access the Formatting pop-up, or select Format on the menu bar.

3. Select the Alignment submenu.

4. Choose Left, Center, or Right from the submenu. The image is repositioned horizontally.

The Top, Middle, Bottom alignment options refer to the vertical placement of the image when you have the text wrapping around it.

Text wrapping determines whether the image has blank space to either side of it, or whether the text in your document flows down the sides of the image. Several options are included on the Wrap submenu of the Format menu. The three most useful ones are included on the Object toolbar. They are as follows:

Figure 11.10
No wrap forces blank space to either side of your image.

Tip - Study the Figures to understand the Wrapping terms used by StarOffice. They might differ from what you're accustomed to in other programs.


Figure 11.11
Page wrap flows text around the box that contains the image.

Figure 11.12
Wrap through treats the background of the image as transparent and flows text into the image box.

Using Layers

If you use a lot of images in your documents, you might need to occasionally layer them on top of each other to get the effect that you want.

By selecting options from the Position submenu of the Format menu, you can raise or lower images as graphical layers in your document. For example, suppose you have two images combined to create an effect, as in Figure 11.13.

Figure 11.13
Two images can be overlapped to create an effect.

If you select one of the images and choose Send to Back, the other image covers it, as in Figure 11.14.

Adding a Border

Most graphics that you import into your document won't have a border. Within a text document, however, images often need to be set off with a border.

If you have the Object toolbar displayed onscreen, you can add a border with a few mouse clicks. Follow these steps:

1. Select the image to which you want to add a border.

2. Click on the Border icon on the Object toolbar (see Figure 11.15).

Figure 11.14
Layers are used to arrange multiple images.

Figure 11.15
Use the Border icon on the Object toolbar to add a border to any selected image.

3. Choose a border style from the pop-up menu of icons.

4. Click on the Line Style icon on the Object toolbar (see Figure 11.16).

Figure 11.16
When an image has a border, you can set the border's line type with this icon on the Object toolbar.

5. Click on the Line Color icon on the Object toolbar--it's the one on the far right (see Figure 11.17).

Figure 11.17
You can select any color for the border from the line color icon's pop-up menu.

So how does the result look? It looks similar to Figure 11.18.

Figure 11.18
A border can be added to an image with the icons on the Object toolbar.

Using the Object Dialog Box

The Formatting pop-up menu and the Object toolbar have been used for all the examples of manipulating images. All these functions, however, including moving an image on the page, can be done from the Object dialog box.

With an image selected, choose Object from the Formatting pop-up menu or from the main Format menu. The Object dialog box appears (see Figure 11.19).

From the seven tabs in this dialog box, you can set all the features described previously, as well as several others that you can explore on your own. For example, you can add an URL link to any image so that clicking on it brings up a Web page in StarOffice.

Most of the image editing you'll do is probably more easily done from the pop-up menus and Object toolbar, but you might choose to use this dialog box for a more methodical approach.

Figure 11.19
Every image option and setting can be configured for a selected image from the Object dialog box.

Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 11: Adding Graphics to Documents

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