MS Publisher Tips
& Tricks
Getting More Out of
MS Draw
Using clip art is an easy way to add professional
looking graphics to your newsletter. The selections of clip art you can
purchase are so extensive that you may think you would never need to alter a
graphic. However, you may find that you want to do more than just resize,
flip, or rotate your picture, all functions that are easily handled by MS
Publisher itself.
Although there are many software programs out there that
can handle graphics creation and manipulation, MS Draw is an easy way to
make simple changes to your clip art, without having to leave MS
Publisher.
To use MS Draw, go to the Insert drop-down menu. Choose
Object. From the list, choose MS Draw 98 Drawing. A box will be created
and the menu selections will be changed to those of the Draw program. You
can then paste or insert a graphic and use the tools in Draw to change it.
Once you click off of the box, the menus will return to those of
Publisher. To access the Draw features again, simply double click on the
box.
That is the basic idea. But there are some features of
Draw that cannot be accessed in this simple way. For example, you cannot
scroll around the box or enlarge or reduce the image size on your screen.
To take full advantage of all of the features of MS Draw, you will need to
do one more simple step. When you are ready to work on your image, right
click on the box. Choose Change Object, then choose Microsoft Draw 98
Drawing. Instead of choosing Edit, choose Open. This will open up the full
version of Draw. Although it will be in a separate window, any changes you
make here will show up in your Publisher document. In fact, if you have
the Draw window open and go back to the Publisher window, you will see
that the box is grayed out--meaning that it is in use by another program.
Once you have finished with all of your changes, click on File, then
choose Exit and Return to (Your Document). All of your changes will show
up on your Publisher page. If you want to change the image again, simply
either double click on it, or open up the full version of MS
Draw.
