Drawing objects — creating, setting properties, resizing and grouping

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. Your science report needs a simple diagram with boxes and arrows. Do you need a separate drawing program? No. Today we will create drawing objects in LibreOffice Writer, set their properties, resize them and group them.

Let us begin with the meaning. A drawing object is a shape that you draw directly inside a document. Examples are lines, arrows, rectangles, circles, stars and callouts, which are speech bubbles. You draw them with the Drawing toolbar. After drawing, you can move them, colour them, resize them and group them.

First, show the Drawing toolbar. Open the View menu, choose Toolbars, and tick Drawing. You can also click the Show Draw Functions icon on the standard toolbar. The Drawing toolbar appears, often at the bottom of the window. It has buttons for shapes, lines, arrows and a text box.

Here are the steps to create a shape. Click a shape button, like Rectangle, on the Drawing toolbar. Move the mouse to the document, and the pointer becomes a thin cross. Press and drag to draw the shape at the size you want. Release the mouse button. The shape is drawn and stays selected.

A few tips make drawing easier. Hold the Shift key while dragging to draw a perfect square or a perfect circle. Double-click a shape to type text inside it, like a label in a flowchart box. To select a shape, simply click on it, and small squares called handles appear around it. Press the Delete key to remove a selected shape.

Properties are the settings that control how a shape looks and sits in the page. Area sets the fill, like a colour, gradient or pattern inside the shape. Line sets the border style, colour and width. Position and Size, opened with F4, sets exact measurements. Wrap decides how the document text flows around the shape. Anchor decides what the shape is attached to, such as a paragraph or the page.

You can also set properties in the sidebar. Select the shape first. The sidebar then shows panels for Area, Line, and Position and Size. You can change the fill colour or line colour with one click. The changes apply only to the selected shape.

Resizing means changing the size of a shape. Drag a corner handle to change the width and height together, but the proportion may change. Hold Shift while dragging a corner handle to keep the proportions, so a circle stays a circle. In the Position and Size dialog, opened with F4, you can type an exact width and height, with an option to keep the ratio.

Now grouping. Grouping means joining several drawing objects into one single unit. The group can then be moved, copied or resized together, so your diagram never breaks apart. Each part still keeps its own colour and line. And you can ungroup at any time to separate the parts again.

Here are the steps. Click the first object to select it. Hold Shift and click each of the other objects to add them to the selection. Right-click on the selected objects. Choose Group, and then Group again, or use the Format menu. Now the objects behave as one unit.

Now pause and predict. A box, an arrow and a circle are grouped together. You drag the circle to the right. What moves? All three objects move together, because a group behaves as one unit.

Sometimes you need to change one part. To separate all the parts, right-click the group, choose Group, then Ungroup. To edit just one part without ungrouping, choose Enter Group. Make the change, then choose Exit Group. This is useful for fixing one label in a diagram.

Let us revise. Show the Drawing toolbar from View, Toolbars, Drawing. Drag to draw a shape, and hold Shift for a square or circle. Properties include area, line, position and size, and wrap. Resize with the handles, and hold Shift to keep the ratio. To group, Shift and click the objects, right-click and choose Group.