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Draw Guide 7.5

Chapter 5,
Combining Multiple Objects

Copyright

This document is Copyright © 2023 by the LibreOffice Documentation Team. Contributors are listed below. This document maybe distributed and/or modified under the terms of either the GNU General Public License (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), version 4.0 or later. All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Contributors

Contributors for this edition:

Peter Schofield

Contributors for previous editions:

Claire Wood

Hazel Russman

Jean Hollis Weber

John A Smith

John Cleland

Kees Kriek

Martin Fox

Peter Schofield

Winston Min Tjong

Feedback

Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to the Documentation Team mailing list: loguides@community.documentfoundation.org.

Note

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Publication date and software version

Published July 2023. Based on LibreOffice 7.5 Community.
Other versions of LibreOffice may differ in appearance and functionality.

Using LibreOffice on macOS

Some keystrokes and menu items are different on macOS from those used in Windows and Linux. The table below gives some common substitutions used in this document. For a detailed list, see LibreOffice Help.

Windows or Linux

macOS equivalent

Effect

Tools > Options
menu selection

LibreOffice > Preferences

Access setup options

Right-click

Control+click, Ctrl+click, or right-click depending on computer setup

Open a context menu

Ctrl or Control

⌘ and/or Cmd or Command, depending on keyboard

Used with other keys

Alt

⌥ and/or Alt or Option depending on keyboard

Used with other keys

F11

+T

Open the Styles deck in the Sidebar

Grouping objects

Grouping of objects is similar to placing objects into a container. Objects within a group are moved together as one object and any changes made are applied globally to the objects within the group. A group can always be ungrouped and the objects that make up the group can always be manipulated separately.

Temporary grouping

A temporary grouping is when several objects are selected together. Any changes to object parameters are applied to all of the objects within the temporary group. For example, a temporary group of objects can be rotated in its entirety and is created using one of the following methods:

Grouping

When objects are grouped, any editing carried out on the group are applied to all objects within the group. Click on one object in a group and the whole group is selected. Objects within a group retain their own individual properties and can be edited independently. See “Editing individual group objects” on page 1 for more information.

1)  Select objects for a group using one of the following methods. Selection handles appear around all objects selected for the group (Figure 1).

2)  Create a group of selected objects using one of the following methods:

Ungrouping

1)  Select a group of objects and selection handles appear around objects within the group (Figure 1).

2)  Ungroup a group of objects using one of the following methods:

Figure 1: Example of grouping objects

Figure 1: Example of grouping objects

Figure 2: Example of editing individual objects in a group.

Figure 2: Example of editing individual objects in a group.

Editing individual group objects

An object within a group can be edited individually without ungrouping the objects.

1)  Select a group, then enter the group using one of the following methods.

2)  Click on an object to select and individually edit it, as shown by the example in Figure 2.

Note

After entering a group, any other objects outside the group cannot be selected for editing until exiting from the selected group.

3)  After editing and saving changes to an individual object within a group, exit the group using one of the following methods:

Nesting groups

A group of groups can be created and this is commonly known as nesting groups. When nested groups are created, Draw retains the individual group hierarchy and remembers the order in which groups were selected. That is, the last individual group selected is on top of all the other groups within a nested group. Ungrouping and entering a nested group works in exactly the same way as for individual groups.

Tip

If group and ungroup commands are regularly used, or any other command, tools can be added to a toolbar so that they are readily available. See Appendix B, Toolbars and the Getting Started Guide for more information on customizing toolbars.

Combining, splitting, breaking, and connecting

Combining objects

Combining objects is a permanent merging of objects creating a new object. The original objects are no longer available as individual objects and cannot be edited as individual objects.

1)  Select several objects that are overlapping each other.

2)  Combine the selected objects into a single object using one of the following methods:

At first glance, the results can seem rather surprising, but the following explains how combining objects works.

Figure 3: Example of area fill on combined objects

Figure 3: Example of area fill on combined objects

  1. Overlapping individual objects

  2. Combined overlapping objects

Figure 4: Example of area fill on combined objects

Figure 4: Example of area fill on combined objects

  1. Overlapping individual objects

  2. Combined overlapping objects

Figure 5: Example of splitting combined objects

Figure 5: Example of splitting combined objects

  1. Overlapping objects before combining

  2. Split result of combined overlapping objects

Splitting combined objects

An object which has been created from combining several objects can be split into individual objects. However, the original objects retain the formatting of the combined object and do not revert back to their original formatting.

Select the combined object and use one of the following methods to split the combined object:

In Figure 5, the left graphic is the original example of overlapping area fills before combining. The right graphic is the result of splitting the combined object. The individual overlapping objects have taken the formatting of the object (Rectangle 1) at the rear of the overlapping objects.

Breaking objects

An object that consists of more than one part can be broken into its individual parts as follows. For example, a star is broken into separate lines and the area fill is lost, as shown by the center graphic in Figure 6.

1)  Select an object that consists of more than one part.

Figure 6: Example of breaking an object

Figure 6: Example of breaking an object

  1. Original object

  2. Object broken

  3. Individual parts edited

2)  Convert the object to a curve or polygon using one of the following methods:

3)  Go to Shape > Break on the Menu bar and the object is broken into individual parts.

4)  Move, format or delete the individual parts as necessary, as shown by the right object in Figure 6.

Connecting lines

The individual parts of an object or individual objects can be connected together as follows:

1)  Select all the objects that are going to be connected.

2)  Go to Shape > Connect on the Menu bar. Individual lines or lines in a border are converted to curves and the end points of each line connected.

Note

The shape created when connecting individual parts or lines is not a closed shape. The new shape has to be closed to create an area fill.

Closing objects

Closing objects creates an object that uses an area fill.

1)  Select an object that has a gap in its border.

2)  Right-click on the selected object and select Close Object from the context menu to close the gap.

3)  Format the area fill created to requirements. See Chapter 4, Changing Object Attributes for more information on working with area fills.

Merging, subtracting, or intersecting objects

After selecting more than one object, the merge, subtract, and intersect functions become available allowing creation of a new object with a new shape.

Merge

When merging objects, a new object is created with a shape that follows the shape of the merged objects. The area fill of the merged object is determined by the area fill of the object that is at the rear of all the other objects, as shown in Figure 7.

After selecting several objects, use one of the following methods to merge the objects:

Subtract

When subtracting objects, the objects at the front are subtracted from the object behind. This leaves a blank space the subtracted objects occupied creating a new shape, as shown in Figure 8. After selecting several objects that overlap each other, use one of the following methods to subtract objects:

Figure 7: Example of merging objects

Figure 7: Example of merging objects

Figure 8: Example 0f subtracting objects

Figure 8: Example 0f subtracting objects

Figure 9: Example of intersecting objects

Figure 9: Example of intersecting objects

Intersect

When intersecting objects, the front objects and the exposed area of the rear object are removed. This creates a new object from the area of the rear object that was covered by the front objects, as shown in Figure 9. After selecting several objects that overlap each other, use one of the following methods to intersect objects:

Practical example

The following example shows how to use the merge, subtract, and intersect functions to create a knife with a wooden handle.

1)  Draw an ellipse and then a rectangle overlapping half of the ellipse width.

2)  Select both shapes and select Shapes > Subtract on the Menu bar.

Image9

3)  Draw another rectangle and put it over the top half of the ellipse.

Image10

4)  Select both shapes and select Shapes > Subtract on the Menu bar.

Image11

5)  Draw a small ellipse covering just the lower right corner.

Image12

6)  Select both shapes and select Shapes > Subtract on the Menu bar. The knife blade shape is now complete.

Image13

7)  To make the handle, draw a rectangle and an ellipse.

Image14

8)  Merge the shapes together.

Image15

9)  Position the handle on the blade. Select the handle and blade, then group together to create a drawing of the knife.

Image16

Duplication and cross-fading

Image17

Duplication

Duplication makes copies of an object while applying a set of changes to the duplicate copies, such as color or rotation.

1)  Select an object or group of objects, then use one of the following methods to open the Duplicate dialog (Figure 10):

Figure 10: Duplicate dialog

Figure 10: Duplicate dialog

Figure 11: Example of duplication

Figure 11: Example of duplication

2)  Select the number of copies, placement, enlargement, and the start and end colors for the duplicate copies.

3)  Click OK and duplicate copies are created. An example of a duplication is shown in Figure 11. Each duplicate object is a separate object.

4)  To group the duplicate objects into one group, see “Grouping objects” on page 1.

5)  To combine the duplicate objects into one object, see “Combining, splitting, breaking, and connecting” on page 1.

The following options are available when using the Duplicate dialog:

Number of copies

Enter the number of copies required.

Placement

Sets the position and rotation of duplicated objects in relation to the original object.

X axis

Enter the horizontal distance between the centers of the selected object and the duplicate objects. Positive values shift the duplicate object to the right and negative values shift the duplicate object to the left.

Y axis

Enter the vertical distance between the centers of the selected object and the duplicate objects. Positive values shift the duplicate object down and negative values shift the duplicate object up.

Angle

Enter the angle (0 to 359 degrees) required for rotating the duplicate object. Positive values rotate the duplicate objects in a clockwise direction and negative values in a counterclockwise direction.

Enlargement

Sets the size of the duplicate objects.

Width

Enter the amount to enlarge or reduce the width of the duplicate objects.

Height

Enter the amount to enlarge or reduce the height of the duplicate objects.

Colors

Sets the colors for the selected object and the duplicate objects. For more than one copy, these colors define the start and end points of a color gradient.

Start

Select a color for the selected object.

End

Select a color for the duplicate object. If making more than one copy, this color is applied to the last copy.

Cross-fading

Cross-fading transforms one object shape into another object shape. The result is a new group of individual objects that includes the start and end objects. The intermediate steps show the transformation from one object shape to another object shape. The cross-fading is carried out from the first object selected to the second object selected.

1)  Select two objects and go to Shape > Cross-fading on the Menu bar to open the Cross‑fading dialog (Figure 12).

2)  In Settings, select the number of Increments for the transformation.

3)  If necessary, in Settings, select Cross-fade attributes and Same orientation.

4)  Click OK to cross-fade the selected objects and close the Cross-fading dialog. An example of cross-fading is shown in Figure 13 with Same orientation deselected. The object created is a group of objects.

5)  To ungroup this group of objects and use the individual objects, see “Ungrouping” on page 1.

Figure 12: Cross-fading dialog

Figure 12: Cross-fading dialog

Figure 13: Example of cross-fading objects

Figure 13: Example of cross-fading objects

The following options are available in the Cross-fading dialog:

Increments

Enter the number of steps created between the selected objects.

Cross-fade attributes

Applies cross-fading to the line and fill properties of the selected objects. For example, if the selected objects are filled with different colors, a color transition between the two colors is applied.

Same orientation

Applies a smooth transition between the selected objects.

Positioning objects

Arranging objects

When combining, merging, subtracting, or intersecting objects, the end result varies depending on which object is at the front and which object is at the back. Each new object placed on a drawing automatically becomes the front object and all the other objects move backwards in positioning order. Arranging objects changes the order of a group of objects.

To change the arrangement position of an object, select one or more objects and then use one of the following methods

Figure 14: Position sub-toolbar

Figure 14: Position sub-toolbar

The arrangement options available are as follows:

Bring to Front

Brings the selected object to the front of a group of objects (Shift+Ctrl++) (macOS ⌘+Shift++).

Bring Forward

Brings the selected object forward one step (Ctrl++) (macOS ⌘++).

Send Backward

Sends the selected object one step backward (Ctrl+–) (macOS ⌘+–).

Send to Back

Sends the selected object to the back of a group of objects (Shift+Ctrl+–) (macOS ⌘+Shift+–).

In Front of Object

Moves the selected object in front of another selected object.

Behind Object

Moves the selected object behind another selected object.

Reverse

Reverses the order of the selected objects. This tool is grayed out if only one object is selected.

Aligning objects

To make a drawing look more professional, objects can be aligned with each other. Select one or more objects and use one of the following methods to align objects:

Figure 15: Align Objects toolbar

Figure 15: Align Objects toolbar

The alignment tools available are as follows:

Left

Aligns the left edges of the selected objects. If only one object is selected, the left edge of the object is aligned to the left page margin.

Centered

Horizontally centers the selected objects. If only one object is selected, the center of the object is aligned to the horizontal center of the page.

Right

Aligns the right edges of the selected objects. If only one object is selected, the right edge of the object is aligned to the right page margin.

Top

Vertically aligns the top edges of the selected objects. If only one object is selected, the top edge of the object is aligned to the top page margin.

Center

Vertically centers the selected objects. If only one object is selected, the center of the object is aligned to the vertical center of the page.

Bottom

Vertically aligns the bottom edges of the selected objects. If only one object is selected, the bottom edge of the object is aligned to the bottom page margin.

Distributing objects

Distributing objects allows three or more objects to be evenly spaced along a horizontal or vertical axis. Objects are distributed using the outermost objects in the selection as base points for spacing.

Select at least three objects, then use one of the following methods to distribute the objects:

The distribution options available are as follow:

Horizontal Left

Distributes the selected objects so that the left edges of the objects are evenly spaced from one another.

Figure 16: Distribute Selection toolbar

Figure 16: Distribute Selection toolbar

Horizontal Center

Distributes the selected objects so that the horizontal centers of the objects are evenly spaced from one another.

Horizontal Spacing

Distributes the selected objects horizontally so that the objects are evenly spaced from one another.

Horizontal Right

Distributes the selected objects so that the right edges of the objects are evenly spaced from one another.

Vertical Top

Distributes the selected objects so that the top edges of the objects are evenly spaced from one another.

Vertical Center

Distributes the selected objects so that the vertical centers of the objects are evenly spaced from one another.

Vertical Spacing

Distributes the selected objects vertically so that the objects are evenly spaced from one another.

Vertical Bottom

Distributes the selected objects so that the bottom edges of the objects are evenly spaced from one another.

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