How to use the
Microsoft Draw Toolbar

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Microsoft's Drawing Toolbar is available in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The icons on the drawing toolbar allow you to add Word Art, text boxes, shapes, arrows and lines. In this tutorial we will use Word for explanations and examples, but the toolbar works almost the same in Excel or PowerPoint.

Once created, all of the items are considered to be objects, which are part of the document, but may be located in a different layer of the document from the text. A post-it or sticky note is a good comparison. You can move the note around on the top page of a document, or remove it and stick it to the second, third, or fourth pages of a document.

Viewing the Drawing Toolbar              Icons on the Drawing Toolbar             Text Box

Inserting an Oval or Rectangle       Free Rotate      Selecting Objects       Draw Button

Inserting a Line or Arrow            AutoShapes           WordArt            Copying Objects

Changing Line Colour              Changing Line Style                    Changing Arrow Style

Adding Shadows                                                                      Adding 3D Effects

Viewing the Drawing toolbar

If your Drawing toolbar is not available, you can turn it on by going to the View menu, selecting Toolbars4 Drawing.

OR

Click on the Drawing button on the standard toolbar.

The icons on the Drawing toolbar

A pulldown menu with several drawing options

Changes the pointer to a selection arrow

Rotates the selected object to any degree

A pulldown menu with several libraries of shapes

Draws a line where you click and drag. Hold the Shift key down to make the line straight.

Inserts a line with an arrowhead where you click and drag.

Draws a rectangle where you click and drag. Hold down Shift to draw a square

Draws an oval where you click and drag. Hold down Shift to draw a circle.

Draws a text box where you click and drag.

Create text effects with WordArt.

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Add, modify, or remove fill colour from a selected object.

Add, modify, or remove line colour.

Formats the selected text with the colour you click.

Changes the thickness of lines.

Selects dash style for dashed lines.

Select arrow style; placement and shape of arrowhead.

A pull down menu offers shadow choices.

Add 3-d effects to rectangles or ovals.

Text boxes have one great advantage: they can be positioned anywhere on the page. This is very helpful in desktop publishing and other areas where you need to place text or pictures at a certain spot on the page.

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Inserting a Text Box

  • Click on the text box icon.

  • Move your mouse over the document area. The mouse pointer has changed to a plus sign.

  • Click and drag down and over, or over and down to draw the box.

  • As soon as you release the mouse button, the text box appears with the insertion point blinking inside the box. This is the editing mode. The editing mode allows you to enter the text into the text box. Word wrap works according to the size of the box. Key your text, then click outside the box.

Adjusting the Size of the Text Box

If you need to adjust the size of the box, point to the box and click once. Small squares called sizing or selection handles will appear. Their appearance indicates that the box has been selected.

  • Point to one of the selection handles and your mouse pointer will change to a two headed diagonal arrow.

  • Click and drag to change the size of the box as needed.

If you choose one of the selection handles located at a corner of the box, the box will change height and width proportionally.

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Moving the Text Box

If you want to move a text box, point not to the selection handles, but to the borders of the box. Your mouse pointer will change to a quad arrow. Click and drag the box to its new position.

These same procedures for changing the size of a text box and moving a text box also work on any of the other objects that can be created with the drawing toolbar. The key is to get the object selected (click on the object and look for the selection handles), then change the object as needed.

Changing the Text in the Text Box

If you need to edit the text in the text box, click inside the text box, and it will return to the editing mode.

  • You can select the text and add formatting. Notice the slashed lines in the borders of the text box while you are in the editing mode.

  • This indicates that you are in the editing mode, and in this mode you can change the contents of the box.

But suppose you want to remove the lines around the box, or fill the box with colour? Both of these things relate to the appearance of the box itself, not the contents.

  • Click once on the border of the box and the borders will change from slashes to small dots.

  • In this mode, you can work on the box itself. (In Word, it is not totally necessary to show the dotted border, but in Excel and PowerPoint, it is.)

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Changing how the Text Box looks

There are a number of things you can do to the textbox, including removing the lines, filling it with a colour or pattern, or changing the wrapping around the box. All of these things are located under Format.

  • Select the text box.

  • Click on Format, Text Box.

You can also right click on the border of the text box, then select Format Text box from the quick menu.

Since we are working with a text box, the Format menu changes to Format Text Box. If you are working with another object that you created from the Drawing toolbar, the menu will say Format Object or Format AutoShape.

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The Format dialog box has 6 tabs: Colours and Lines, Size, Position, Wrapping, Picture and Text Box. Depending on the object you have created, some of these may be greyed out.

Colours and Lines

Most objects, text boxes included, default to black borders and no fill. Under Line colour and Fill colour, you can choose from a colour palette by clicking on the list arrow. For a wider variety of colours, click on More Colours. You can choose from the palette or create a custom colour.

Under Fill Colour, Fill Effects. Here you can choose a gradient of one or two colours and a shading style, select a texture or pattern, or insert a picture.

If you would like to remove the fill colour or borders, select no fill or no lines under Fill colour and Line colour. Do not select white as a fill colour when what you really want is no colour - white is considered a colour. You can also select semitransparent. If selected, this will produce a lighter colour fill.

Size

In addition to using the selection handles to change the size of a text box, you can also use the commands on the size tab. One nice feature is the Lock Aspect ratio. When selected, you can increase either the height or width of the object and it will keep the same proportions.

Position

You can specify the horizontal distance from the left margin, left edge of the paper, or left edge of the column and vertical distance from the top margin, top edge of the page, and top of the paragraph. Be sure to choose the horizontal or vertical position options first, then set the distance.

Wrapping

Under wrapping, you can choose the wrapping style - do you want the text outside the box to be square, tight, through, none, or wrap on the top and bottom? You can also control the white space between the outside of the box and the edge of the text by changing the Distance from text measurement.

Text Box

You can control the white space inside the box by changing the measurements in this dialog box.

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Inserting an Oval or Rectangle

You can insert an oval or rectangle by clicking on the oval or rectangle icon on the toolbar, then dragging the mouse the same way you did to create the text box. Ovals and rectangles can be formatted in the same manner as text boxes.

If you want a perfect circle or square, hold the Shift key down while you drag and draw the oval or rectangle.

Free Rotate

Many drawing objects can be rotated. Select the object, then click on the free rotate icon on the drawing toolbar. Green dots will appear around the object. Point your mouse to one and it becomes an open circle. Click and drag to rotate.

Selecting more than one object

If you need to select more than one object, select the first object, then hold shift down and select other objects.

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The Draw Menu Button

The Draw menu button contains:

Group

Enables you to select multiple objects (hold Shift down while selecting) and turn them into one object.

Ungroup

Turns grouped objects back into single objects.

Regroup

Regroups objects that were grouped, then ungrouped.

Order

Moves objects forwards and backwards through the different layers of the document. Each Word document has 4 layers. They are, from top to bottom: foreground layer, text layer, background layer and header and footer layer. The foreground layer contains drawing objects and pictures. The background layer contains objects sent to the background from the foreground. The header and footer layer contains text, pictures, objects, and watermarks.

Grid

The drawing grid is an invisible network of lines that helps you align drawing objects, such as AutoShapes. Gridlines are not visible on the screen. As you drag or draw an object or an AutoShape, Word pulls it into alignment with the nearest intersection of gridlines.

Nudge

Very useful if you need to "nudge" an object in a certain direction

In Excel and PowerPoint, you can key text inside a rectangle or oval. In Word, position a text box over the rectangle and remove the lines and fill colour in the text box.

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Inserting a Line or Arrow

  • You can insert lines or arrows by clicking on the line or arrow icon, then dragging the mouse.

  • When inserting an arrow, as you drag the mouse, you will be drawing the arrow from the blunt end to the point.

  •  Once you have drawn the arrow, you can change the thickness of the line or the style of arrow tip by selecting the arrow, then clicking on the Line Style and Arrow Style buttons on the drawing toolbar.

If you want the line or arrow to be perfectly straight, hold shift down while you drag and draw.

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AutoShapes

AutoShapes include basic shapes, arrows, callouts and others. Callouts are the "thought bubbles" you see above characters' heads in cartoons. AutoShapes can be created and formatted just line other shapes and text boxes.

WordArt

WordArt makes fancy shapes and outlines out of ordinary text.

  • Click on the WordArt icon on the Drawing Toolbar. You can also click on Insert, Picture, WordArt.

  • Select a style from the WordArt gallery.

  • Select a font style and size, then key the text.

  • Click on OK.

  • A WordArt toolbar will appear when the WordArt is selected.

From left to right, these icons are:

  • Insert WordArt (insert another WordArt)

  • Edit Text (change the text itself or the font)

  • WordArt Gallery (change the style)

  • Format WordArt (change the fill colour, lines, shadow)

  • WordArt shape (has a whole different range of shapes)

  • Free Rotate (turn WordArt clockwise or counter clockwise)

  • WordArt Same letter heights (makes all letters the same height)

  • WordArt Vertical Text (turns text vertically)

  • WordArt Alignment (centre, left, right)

  • WordArt Character Spacing

  • Keep in mind that WordArt is a drawing object, not text. Therefore spell check does not work on WordArt.

Most of the icons on the drawing toolbar work on WordArt.

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Copying Objects

To make an identical copy of an object, select it, hold Ctrl down, then click and drag. Your mouse will change to a small plus sign as you drag. Let go, and you will have a copy.

Changing Line Colour

You can change the colour of the lines in a selected object by clicking on the down arrow beside the Line Colour button on the Drawing toolbar and selecting a new colour from the menu.

Changing Line Style

You can change the style of an object's lines by selecting the object and then clicking on the Line Style button on the Drawing toolbar. This displays a menu of line style options. The More Lines option opens the Format AutoShape dialog box where you can customize all aspects of the object.

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Changing Arrow Style

You can change the style of an arrow by selecting it then clicking on the Arrow Style button on the Drawing toolbar. This displays a menu of arrow options to choose from. Selecting the More Arrows command opens the Format AutoShape dialog box where you can customize your arrows.

Adding Shadows

You can add a shadow to selected objects using the Shadow button on the Drawing toolbar.

After you have added a shadow to an object, you can modify the shadow by selecting the Shadow Settings command from this menu.

Adding 3-D Effects

You can add three-dimensional effects to your objects using the 3-D button on the Drawing toolbar. Select the object, then click on the 3-D button. This displays a menu of options. Select the option you want. Excel then applies the 3-D style to your object.

After you have added a 3-D effect to an object, you can select the 3-D Settings command from this menu to display the 3-D Settings toolbar.

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