Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 20: Adding Graphics and Charts to Your Presentation

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Drawing Your Own Graphics


Adding graphics that you've created in a spreadsheet or other drawing program is a big part of most presentations. A slide is similar to a picture, though, and sometimes you need to add a feature specific to one slide.

StarOffice drawing tools enable you to do this. The basic drawing tools are always visible on the Main toolbar--on the left of the screen--as you edit slides in Drawing mode (a single slide fills the screen in this mode). The toolbar is shown in Figure 20.4.

Figure 20.4
The Main toolbar on the left side of a slide in Drawing mode contains a complete set of drawing tools.

The drawing tools shown on the Main toolbar are vector-based drawing tools, like those used in StarDraw (see Hour 6). Bitmap (raster) drawing tools are available by choosing Picture from the Insert menu, and then selecting From Image Editor.

Adding Lines and Rectangles

Simple shapes such as lines and boxes are easy to add and edit with the drawing tools. The steps that follow take you through a series of additions to a basic slide from a StarOffice template.

Start with a slide in Drawing mode, as shown in Figure 20.5. (This is the first slide of the New Employee Introduction presentation from the templates.)

Figure 20.5
This slide is used as the basis for these examples of drawing lines and shapes.

1. Click on the Lines and arrows icon on the Main toolbar on the left side of the screen.

2. Move the mouse pointer over the slide and notice how it changes from an arrow to crosshairs.

3. Click and drag the mouse pointer across the middle of the screen to make a long horizontal line.

4. Press the Shift key to constrain the line to vertical, horizontal, or a 45 degree angle.

5. Release the mouse button to finish drawing the line. The mouse pointer changes back to an arrow (the select object mode), but the line you drew remains selected (with a green handle on each end). The screen looks similar to Figure 20.6.

Figure 20.6
After drawing a line, the mouse pointer changes back to an arrow for object selection but the line object you drew remains selected.

6. Move the mouse pointer over the line you drew and press the right mouse button. A pop-up menu appears.

7. Choose Line from the pop-up menu. The Line dialog box appears, as in Figure 20.7.

Figure 20.7
Lines and other shapes are formatted for color and style in the Line dialog box.

Tip - After an object is selected, you can usually use either the Format menu or the pop-up menus (accessed through the right mouse button) to choose formatting options for the object.


8. Choose a line style from the Style drop-down list. (See the Preview area in the dialog box to see how it will look.)

9. Increase the line width in the Width field.

10. Choose the Arrow Styles tab. (See Figure 20.8.)

Figure 20.8
The Arrow Styles tab defines how the ends of lines appear.

11. Select a style for the ends of the lines from the drop-down list.

Tip - You can import or save arrow styles as graphics by using the Folder or Diskette icons in the bottom right corner of the Arrow Styles tab.


12. Choose OK to close the Line dialog box. Your slide now looks somewhat similar to Figure 20.9.

Figure 20.9
A line can be added anywhere on a slide to separate sections of the slide.

Now add a rectangle using another of the drawing tools as follows:

1. Click and hold on the 3D Rectangle icon on the Main toolbar on the left side of the window. A pop-up set of icons appears next to the Rectangle icon. (See Figure 20.10.)

Figure 20.10
Icons that have a small arrow include several options that you can see by clicking and holding the mouse button.

2. Move to the 3D Cylinder icon and release the mouse button.

3. Click and drag the mouse pointer within the slide to form a 3D cylinder. The new object remains selected.

4. Click in the middle of the cylinder and drag it to cover the text in the lower left corner of the slide.

5. Click and drag the green arrow in the middle, right side of the cylinder to make it wider.

6. Right-click on the cylinder. A pop-up formatting menu appears.

7. Choose Send to Back on the Arrange submenu. The slide text now appears on top of the cylinder.

Tip - You can also use the Line menu item to control the thickness and color of the object borders.


The slide now looks similar to Figure 20.11.

Figure 20.11
Lines and shapes can be added to any slide with the drawing tools.

Other drawing tools from the Main toolbar on the left side of the screen can be selected to add polygons, circles, blocks of text, and other graphic elements to your slide.

Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 20: Adding Graphics and Charts to Your Presentation

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