Arranging, Moving, Duplicating And Resizing Shapes
In This Topic
As MyDraw’s primary drawing area is made of shapes and connectors, arranging shapes is integral to the program’s usage. In the Arrange tab of the ribbon bar, you will find options for alignment, resizing, positioning, Z-order, spacing, grid alignment, snapping, and shape layout.
For all shape alignments and comparative resizing, the last shape selected is the shape that will stay static, i.e., the other shapes will be moved to align with it. The shape which will be aligned to (the last one selected, which is static) will be outlined with a thick black border, while alignment shapes will have thinner, blue borders.
Moving and Duplicating Shapes
To move a shape, select it and drag it across the drawing area until you reach the desired location.
To duplicate a shape, select it, hold down the shift key and drag the duplicate shape to your desired location. You can also right-click on any shape to access the context menu and copy, then right-click somewhere else and paste the shape(s). Alternately, Ctrl+c will copy the selected shape(s), and Ctrl+v will paste them underneath the cursor.
Resizing Shapes
To resize a shape, drag one of its tracker points in any direction. For more precise resizing, right-click on the shape, and choose Shape Properties from the context menu. The Shape Editor dialog will appear. Click on the Transform tab at the top right to access the settings with more precise controls.
To resize a shape in relation to another shape, go to the Arrange ribbon tab and the Resize group.
There are four options available, including:
- Make Same Width: This will make two or more shapes the same width as the last selected shape.
- Make Same Height: This will make two or more shapes the same height as the last selected shape.
- Make Same Size: This will make two or more shapes take up the same amount of grid square area that the last selected shape occupies. MyDraw calculates a grid square shape area by taking the furthest left, right, bottom, and top pixels of an object and creating a rectangular box out of them. The shape area grid space can clearly be seen with the object outlines appearing when selected.
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Size to Grid: This will make the shape size itself to the nearest grid lines. Note that specific shapes will have a locked aspect ratio, which requires permission to use this function.