How to Use the Drawing Toolbar with Word 2007

Article by Camesha White (2,476 pts )
Edited & published by Daniel P. McGoldrick (18,083 pts ) on May 27, 2009

Learning how to use the drawing toolbar function in Microsoft Word 2007 can be the best thing to ever happen to your document. Its easy to use interface and commands make drawing effortless.

Creating and Designing Your Drawing Canvas

First, you must create a drawing canvas before you may begin drawing. To do this click the Insert tab. Next, click Shapes. Now click New Drawing Canvas. The Format tab will appear and above the Format tab you will see the words Drawing Tools. You should also notice the options on the Ribbon have changed.

These options are categorized into five sections labeled: Insert Shapes, Shape Styles, Shadow Effects, 3-D Effects, Arrange, and Size. Below are brief descriptions of the capabilities of each.

Insert Shapes

Here you can add lines, basic shapes, flowcharts, and even text boxes to your canvas with just one click.

Shape Styles

Allows you to choose how you would like to fill your canvas (or shape). You can choose a canvas outline or an entirely new canvas if your current canvas isn’t exactly what you want.

Shadow Effects

If you would like to add shadow effects to your canvas, this option gives a variety of choices ranging from Drop Shadows to Prospective Shadows. There is also a tool that allows you to nudge you shadow up, down, left of right. If these options aren’t to your liking, Microsoft also provides additional shadow designs.

3-D Effects

This option is a lot of fun! You can experiment with different 3-D effects that allow you to make changes to your canvas color, lighting, surface, direction and depth. There is also a tool here (very similar to the nudging feature of shadow effects) that allows you to tilt your 3-D effect up, down, left or right.

Arrange

This option helps you to position your canvas. Methods of positioning can range from text wrapping, alignment, and rotation.

Size

This feature allows you to adjust the width and height of your canvas. Be aware that making these changes can also change the height and width of text or image, therefore, making the two appear distorted.

Once you are completely satisfied with your drawing, just click OK to save your changes. If you would like to make changes later, simply click on your canvas, the Format tab will appear and the options will be readily available to you.

Comment

Jul 29, 2009 6:54 AM
Kashif
Excellent
I really appreciate information provided by you, other wise i was thinking to move back to office 2003 to use drawing bar tool.
 
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