Office X for Macintosh: The Missing Manual

640 office x for macintosh: the missing manual

The Properties dialog box is also the place to “delete” a clip from a certain category.

When you turn off a checkbox on the Categories tab, the clip will no longer appear

on that category’s panel.

Search

When you enter a word in the Search box at the top of the Clip Gallery and click

Search, Word finds all the clips that match (or are related to) that keyword. For

instance, if you type in automobile, Word pulls up all the clips that have “automo-

bile” as keywords. Cooler yet, it also finds clips with “car” or “vehicle” as keywords—

it relies on the Office X Thesaurus to figure out which possible keywords mean the

same thing as what you typed!

Working with Clip Art

After placing a piece of clip art into your document, you can click it to produce eight

tiny square handles at its perimeter. By dragging these handles, you can resize the

illustration in a variety of ways:

•Drag a handle to resize the figure in that dimension—drag the top one to make it

taller, a side one to make it wider, and so on.

• Shift-dragging a corner handle keeps an object in its original proportions as you

resize it.

• Option-dragging any handle resizes the object from the center outward in the

direction you’re dragging. (This method does not maintain proportion.)

• Shift-Option-dragging a corner handle resizes an object from the center out-

ward and maintains its proportions.

•

cc

cc

c-dragging any handle overrides the drawing grid (see page 648).

You can also move a graphic around the screen by dragging it freely.

AutoShapes and WordArt

There are two kinds of drawings in Word: those you make yourself using Word’s

drawing tools (see page 644), and those Word makes for you, through features such

as AutoShapes and WordArt.

AutoShapes

An AutoShape is a ready-made drawing object. As with the simple circle, square,

and triangle of times past, you simply drag to size and place them in your docu-

ment. However, you now have many more choices. The AutoShapes in Office X in-

clude a smiley face, callout balloons, flowchart boxes, and all manner of star shapes.

To use an AutoShape in your document, click the AutoShapes button on the Draw-

ing toolbar. (If it’s not already open, choose View→Toolbars→Drawing. Or, if you

can’t get enough of that genie effect, click the Drawing button on the Standard

toolbar.)

The Clip Gallery

chapter 18: the graphics programs of office x 641

As shown in Figure 18-3, each AutoShape menu provides a palette of choices. Click

one, then release the mouse; now drag in your document to place the AutoShape—

you can always resize or move it later.

Note: In Word, adding an AutoShape flips you automatically into Page Layout mode; that’s because Word

treats such shapes as objects rooted to a certain spot on the printed page, not embedded into the text. In

fact, if you return to Normal view, the AutoShape doesn’t appear at all. Many a Word fan has grown

alarmed, thinking that the carefully modified shape has disappeared forever.

You can convert the new AutoShape so that it interacts with your text, however; see page 164.

Like other drawing objects, AutoShapes can be grouped (see page 646) and com-

bined with other drawing objects, such as lines. For example, you can combine the

Flowchart AutoShapes with arrows to create a flowchart.

Figure 18-3:

Left: The drawing tools on

the Drawing toolbar give

you (top to bottom): lines,

rectangles, AutoShapes,

and other assorted lines.

You can keep a mini palette

(bottom) of them open by

dragging the palette off the

Drawing toolbar.

Right: Called the “adjust-

ment handle,” the yellow

diamond lets you play with

the AutoShape’s shape

without actually resizing it.

Make Your AutoShapes Talk

You can add text to any enclosed AutoShape.

When you do, the text becomes part of the

shape and moves along with it, as shown

here—a great way to use AutoShapes as

callouts and flowcharts.

To begin, Control-click the AutoShape and

choose Add Text from the contextual menu.

The AutoShape changes to look eerily like a text box, with

an insertion point waiting for you to start

typing.

There’s just one little hitch worth mention-

ing: When you rotate an AutoShape, the text

direction doesn’t change. To rotate the text,

select it and choose Format→Text Direction,

or use the Orientation tool on the Alignment

and Spacing section of the Formatting Palette.

POWER USERS’ CLINIC

AutoShapes

and WordArt