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When I was a child, I enjoyed playing with building blocks. I didn't have the finely finished and polished blocks like you can buy for children these days. Instead, I had wood scraps from my father's woodworking. I ended up with a collection of various geometric shapes and sizes. These blocks became forts for my toy soldiers, roadways for my cars, and even a cityscape complete with airport. The only limit was my imagination.
While my artistic skills never advanced much beyond 9th grade art class, I still enjoy putting things together and have always enjoyed geometry. My blocks taught me that most things can break down to basic geometric shapes like circles, rectangles, and other 2D geometric shapes. With these objects you can create, even if only rudimentary, anything. At the heart of LibreOffice Draw are these basic geometric shapes. They allow you to draw almost anything, and the only limitation is your imagination. You will find all the basic objects on the Drawing toolbar. Starting with the most basic of all drawing elements, the line, let's take a look at how to use the basic objects available to us in LibreOffice Draw.
Lines and Arrows
The line is the second tool on the default Drawing toolbar, the first being the selection tool. To draw a line, click in the drawing area where you want to start your line and drag to the end point. If you look at the status bar while you draw your line, you will notice it tells you the size and angle of your line. To restrict the angle of your line to increments of 45 degrees (0, 45, 90, 135, 180, -135, -90, -45), hold down the Shift key while drawing your line.
Sometimes, you need to draw your line from a center point rather than an end point. Hold down the Alt key while drawing your line, and the line will grow outward from the center point. You can hold down Alt and Shift together to draw a line from the center point and restrict the angle to increments of 45 degrees.
There is also an extended toolbar for lines on the Drawing toolbar. It allows you to draw lines with different arrows and start points. There is also a line for showing dimensions. You can use all the same methods for drawing a line with arrows that you use to draw an ordinary line.
Use the line and filling toolbar to change the line style and thickness, and to color your line. Make sure your line is selected when you make these changes. You can also select different arrow styles for your line using the arrows tool on the Line and Filling toolbar.
Rectangles and Squares
If you wanted, you could use the snap to grid function and the Shift key to draw four lines to create a rectangle or square, but Draw does provide you with an easier way to create them. The rectangle is the fourth tool on the default Drawing toolbar. With it you can create rectangles and squares.
To draw a rectangle, select the rectangle tool from the toolbar. Click where you want to place one corner, and drag to the location of the opposite corner. You make a square by holding down the Shift key while dragging. The shift key ensures the width and height are always the same.
Just like the line, you will sometimes need to create a rectangle or square starting from the center point rather than a corner. Again, the Alt key causes the rectangle to expand from the center. Use the Shift-Alt combination to draw a square from the center out.
Rectangles and squares by default are drawn with the currently selected line and fill colors. You can change these using the Line and Fill toolbar. You can also use the color bar. Right-click for line color and left-click for the fill color. You can also control the thickness and style of the border line using the Line and Fill toolbar.
Ellipses and Circles
The ellipse tool is the fifth tool on the default Drawing toolbar. Ellipses are drawn much in the same manner as for rectangles and squares. Basically, you are drawing a rectangle which will contain your ellipse or circle. Just like with the square, the Shift key lets you draw a circle. The Alt key is used to draw your ellipse from the center, and the Shift-Alt combination lets you draw a circle from the center.
As with the rectangle and square, ellipses and circles are drawn with the currently selected line and fill colors. You can change them with the Line and Fill toolbar or the color bar. The Line and Fill toolbar also lets you change the border line style and thickness.
Shapes and Symbols Extended Toolbars
Besides the lines extended toolbar, you have several other extended toolbars to choose from, including basic shapes (2D geometric objects), symbols (smiley face, moon, heart, etc), block arrows, flowchart symbols, callouts, and stars. These extended toolbars give you a broader set of objects for building your graphic.
They are drawn in much the same manner as rectangles, squares, ellipses, and circles. You draw a containing rectangle for the object. The Shift and Alt keys also work on most objects in the same way as with rectangles. You can use the Line and Fill toolbar to change the line thickness, line style, line color, and fill color of the object.
Sample Drawing – A Simple Rocket
As I said in the beginning, I'm not much of an artist, but I do have a sense for putting shapes together to create an object, so let's walk through creating a very simple rocket image. Along the way I will introduce a few new tools and concepts for working with basic shapes.
First, we will set up a grid for our drawing, Tools > Options > LibreOffice Draw > Grid. Set the vertical and horizontal resolution to 1 inch. Set both subdivisions to 10. This will create a nice 1-inch box grid on our drawing surface. Check the snap-to-grid. This will help us get our objects to the right size.
Let's start with the nose cone. Select the isosceles triangle tool from the basic shapes extended toolbar. Draw the triangle, 2 grid squares by 2 grid squares, at the top of the image. Make the line color black and the fill color gray 30%. For the body of the rocket, use a rectangle, 2 grid squares wide and 6 grid squares tall, line color black, and fill color gray 30%.
Let's add some stabilizing fins to our rocket. Select the right triangle from the basic shapes extended toolbar. Draw the right triangle at the bottom right of the rocket body, 2 grid squares tall and 1 grid square wide. Set the line color to black and the fill color to gray 40%. With the newly created fin selected, Edit > Copy, then Edit > Paste. The copy will appear over the top of the first fin. Drag and drop the copy to the left side of the rocket body. Right-click the copy and Flip > Horizontally. Move it to the lower left of the rocket body. With the copy still selected, down-arrow three times to move it just below the rocket body. Do the same with the right fin.
We will finish off our drawing with the engine nozzle. Create an isosceles triangle at the bottom center of the rocket body. Use your best judgment on the size. The top point of the triangle should overlap the bottom part of the rocket body. Make the line color black and the fill color gray 60%. Make sure the nozzle is centered at the bottom of the body. Right-click the triangle and Arrange > Send to Back. This pushes the triangle behind the other objects so we can see only the bottom part. There! You have a very simple drawing.
Conclusion
The basic shapes are the building blocks for images in Draw. From them, you can create as simple or as complicated a drawing as you need for your documents. You can arrange your objects on the image to overlap each other and flip to change the horizontal or vertical orientation.
In my next How-To, I will show you how to create arcs, curves, and polygons in your images.
ANNOUNCEMENT FROM CANONICAL
Ubuntu Touch SDK Beta
Today we [Canonical] are announcing the Ubuntu SDK Beta. The SDK provides a set of APIs that includes the UI toolkit, enabling developers to create responsive and interactive applications with a native Ubuntu mobile UI. Qt Creator is an IDE with a visual interface for writing, testing and deploy applications; its API documentation and a developer site full of resources and tutorials make it easy to produce quality applications.
Together with a vibrant and ever-growing community of app developers, Ubuntu and the SDK provide the best ecosystem for your apps to thrive.
Get started - guide to installing the SDK
To get started with the Ubuntu SDK, including easy installation instructions, tutorials and detailed API documentation, visit developer.ubuntu.com/get-started
To help you design and build beautiful apps, the App Design Guides include everything you need to know about UX and visual design best practices. Find them at design.ubuntu.com/apps
You can keep your development phone up-to-date with the latest build by following the instructions at wiki.ubuntu.com/TouchInstallProcess