How to Draw Basic Shapes Using Open Office Draw

OpenOffice has its own suite of software that matches the versatility and strength of MS Office and, being open source, it is free. Read this article to learn how to draw basic shapes using OpenOffice Draw. You can draw both 2D and 3D images in Draw.

  • This tutorial was written about OpenOffice version 2, but most, if not all, should apply to version 3.

Steps

  1. Image titled Draw Basic Shapes Using Open Office Draw Step 1
    1
    Become familiar with the Drawing tool bar. The Drawing toolbar is normally located at the bottom of the window. If you do not see it, activate it from the View > Toolbars menu. As in all OpenOffice components, you can place the toolbar on the Draw window wherever you wish.
  2. 2
    Learn about the custom shapes in Draw, below are the basic shapes.

Method 1
Method 1 of 3:
Flowcharts, Stars and Banners

  1. Image titled Draw Basic Shapes Using Open Office Draw Step 3
    1
    Get the tools for drawing flowcharts by clicking on the icon.
  2. Image titled Draw Basic Shapes Using Open Office Draw Step 4
    2
    Use callouts by clicking on this icon . It open the Callouts toolbar.
    • Note: These new callouts replace the old ones in Version 1. If you still need the old ones, you can add them manually to this or another toolbar.
  3. Image titled Draw Basic Shapes Using Open Office Draw Step 5
    3
    Access the Stars and banners by clicking on this icon.
    • You can add text to all these shapes.

Method 2
Method 2 of 3:
Add Text to Objects

  1. 1
    Know that there are two ways to add text to a drawing; A dynamic text frame as an independent Draw object or as text in a previously drawn object. In the latter case the text is integrated with the object.
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    2
    The text tool is activated by clicking on the icon Text for horizontal or for vertical script
  3. Image titled Draw Basic Shapes Using Open Office Draw Step 8
    3
    After activating the Text command mode, click at the location where you want to position the text. A small text frame appears. It contains only the cursor. You can move the frame if desired. The Text Formatting toolbar appears and you can choose the font type, font size and other text properties and begin to type in your text.
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    4
    Observe the information field in the status bar: it shows that you are editing text and also provides details about the current cursor location - paragraph, line, and column numbers.
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    5
    After choosing the Text icon, you can also draw a frame with the mouse to contain future text. Line breaks are inserted automatically at the right edge of the frame when the text fills the frame width. You can however—just like when editing other text—insert your own line breaks, begin new paragraphs or change any of the text properties.

Method 3
Method 3 of 3:
Use text elements in Draw objects

  1. 1
    Be aware that a text element is associated with most Draw objects. By means of these elements text can be added to an object.
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    2
    In the middle of the Draw object you will see a black bar as the text cursor; start typing to input text. The status bar shows at lower left “Text Edit” and the position of the cursor within the text.

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References

  1. This article was created from this wiki

About This Article

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 12 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 66,171 times.
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Co-authors: 12
Updated: March 4, 2021
Views: 66,171
Categories: OpenOffice.org