Drawing Objects

Raster and Vector Drawing

There are two main types of computer drawing. Raster drawing is “freestyle” and includes art made with various brushes, markers, colored pencils, and other drawing materials. All paintings would be considered raster drawing. On the other hand, vector drawing is created using several different shapes. A picture is composed entirely of lines, curves, circles, rectangles, and other shapes.

Drawing Objects

Microsoft Publisher provides you with several different tools to make shapes for vector drawing. You can use the following tools to draw lines, circles, ovals, squares and rectangles:

 Line Tool

 Circle Tool

 Rectangle Tool

After you draw a shape, you can change the fill color, line color, and line/border style using the buttons on the formatting toolbar. You can move it by dragging its border, resize it with its handles, or delete it by pressing Delete on your keyboard.

To draw perfect circles and squares, hold the Shift key as you draw.

In addition to these basic shapes, there are a number of custom shapes available:

 Custom Shapes

Practice:

  1. Create each of the shapes available.
  2. Change the border width and color of all shapes you have drawn.

Selecting Multiple Objects

To select more than one object at a time, there are two different methods:

  1. Click on the first object, then hold the shift key while clicking others.
  2. Click in an empty space and drag a selection box around multiple objects.
Practice:

  1. Make sure that Snap to Objects is enabled.
  2. Using only the line tool, draw a trapezoid.
  3. Select the four sides with the first method (shift key).
  4. Unselect everything by clicking on a blank space in your publication.
  5. Select the four sides with the second method (selection box).

Grouping / Ungrouping Objects

Grouping links several objects together so that you can move, resize or rotate them all at once. It is very easy to group objects. Simply select multiple objects and click the grouping button that appears below the objects. To ungroup, click the same button.