Computer Scrapbooking: Using Draw's Slice Command for Scrapbooking

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Windows Draw 6 or CompletePublisher'99

Changing Colors in a Graphic

Editors Note: Originally published as Micrografx Windows Draw 6, the current version of this program is published by Sierra as CompletePublisher'99. For all practical purposes, they are the same program. Both are referred to in this tutorial as Draw.

Draw allows you to change the colors of individual elements within vector based graphics. Two types of vector graphics are WMF and EPS formats. Draw can use both.

This is a great benefit for scrapbooking! Using this feature, you change the colors in graphics to better compliment your scrapbook pages.

With most of the Draw tutorials, we've used the Visual Toolbar to perform tasks. For this lesson though, we're going to close the Visual Toolbar and use Draw's regular program interface.

Don't panic, it's easy and actually quicker for editing colors.

Are you ready? Let's go!

1. Start a new layout. If the Visual Toolbar is visible, click on the "Hide Visual Toolbar" button just below the Visual Toolbar.

2. When you hide the Visual Toolbar, a series of tabs appear along the right side of the program window. These tabs are used for choosing different formatting options for objects. We're going to use these tabs for changing the fill color of an element in a clip art image.

3. From the Insert menu, click on the "Picture" command. Navigate on your hard disk to the location of a WMF or an EPS image. Click on the image's file name and then click on the Open button. This will import the image into your layout.

4. For this tutorial, enlarge the size of the image to a fairly good size so that it will be easier to select individual elements within the graphic.

5. With the image still selected, go to the "Edit" menu and select the "Edit Group" command. When you do, a blue hatched line will appear around the graphic. You're now in editing mode and you can modify the elements within the graphic.

6. Click on top of a single element in the graphic. At the bottom of the program window, near the center, are 2 squares that show the line and fill attributes for the element you've selected.

Note: You can use this to make sure that you've selected the right element you wanted. If you think you've selected a red element, but the fill color shows black, you've not selected the right element! Draw will also let you select different elements within the graphic by clicking on the tab key. Try it! First, select one element and then press the tab key. The selection changes from the element you selected, to the next element in the graphic.

7. With the element selected that you want to change the color of, click on the "Fill" tab on the right side of the program window. When you do, you'll see the Draw's basic colors palette.

8. Click on the color you want to change the element to, and it's color changes.

9. You can continue changing colors in the graphic by either clicking on different elements or by tabbing through the elements in the graphic.

10. When you're done changing colors, click outside the blue hatched rectangle that surrounds the graphic and your done!

That's it!