Draw GuidePreface
Drawing Vector Graphics in LibreOfficeCopyrightThis document is Copyright © 2020 by the LibreOffice Documentation Team. Contributors arelisted below. You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either the GNU General
Public License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), version 4.0 or later.
All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Contributors
To this editionPeter Schofield

To previous editions
Jean Hollis WeberPeter Schofield

Feedback
Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to the Documentation Team’s
mailing list: documentation@global.libreoffice.org

NoteEverything sent to a mailing list, including your email address and any other personal
information that is written in the message, is publicly archived and cannot be deleted.

Publication date and software version
Published June 2020. Based on LibreOffice 6.4.

Documentation for LibreOffice is available at http://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/Contents
Copyright..............................................................................................................................2Contributors................................................................................................................................. 2To this edition.......................................................................................................................... 2To previous editions................................................................................................................ 2Feedback..................................................................................................................................... 2
Publication date and software version.........................................................................................2

Who is this book for?..........................................................................................................4
What is in this book?...........................................................................................................4
Where to get more help?.....................................................................................................4Help system................................................................................................................................. 4
Other free online support.............................................................................................................5
Paid support and training.............................................................................................................6

What you see may be different...........................................................................................6
Illustrations.................................................................................................................................. 6Icons............................................................................................................................................ 6

Using LibreOffice on macOS..............................................................................................6
What are all these things called?.......................................................................................7
Who wrote this book?..........................................................................................................8Frequently asked questions...............................................................................................8
What’s new in LibreOffice 6.4?...........................................................................................9

Preface | 3

Who is this book for?
Anyone who wants to get up to speed quickly with LibreOffice Draw will find this guide valuable.
You may be new to drawing software, or you may be familiar with another program.

What is in this book?
This book introduces the main features of LibreOffice Draw. Draw is a vector graphics drawing tool,
although it can also perform some operations on raster graphics (pixels) such as photographs.
Using Draw, you can quickly create a wide variety of graphical images.
A few examples of the drawing functions are: layer management, snap functions and grid-point
system, dimensions and measurement display, connectors for making organization charts, 3D
functions that enable small three-dimensional drawings to be created (with texture and lightingeffects), drawing and page-style integration, and Bézier curves.
The Draw Guide is not a course book to be worked through from beginning to end. Rather, it is areference work in which you can browse for guidance on particular topics.

Where to get more help?
This guide, the other LibreOffice user guides, the built-in Help system, and user support systems
assume that you are familiar with your computer and basic functions such as starting a program,
opening and saving files.

Help system
LibreOffice comes with an extensive Help system. This is the first line of support for using
LibreOffice. Windows and Linux users can choose to download and install the offline Help for use
when not connected to the Internet; the offline Help is installed with the program on macOS.
To display the Help system, press F1 or select LibreOffice Help from the Help menu. If you do
not have the offline help installed on your computer and you are connected to the Internet, yourdefault browser will open the online Help pages on the LibreOffice website.
The Help menu also includes links to other LibreOffice information and support facilities.

NoteThe following options shown here prefixed by a ‡ sign are only accessible if yourcomputer is connected to the Internet.
•What's This? – for quick tips when a toolbar is visible, place the mouse pointer over any ofthe icons to see a small box (“tooltip”) with a brief explanation of the icon’s function. For a
more detailed explanation, select Help > What's This? and hold the pointer over the icon.
In addition, you can choose whether to activate Extended Tips using Tools > Options >LibreOffice > General.

•User Guides – opens your default browser at the Documentation page of the LibreOfficewebsite, https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/. There you will findcopies of User Guides and other useful information.

•Show Tip-of-the-Day – opens a small window with a random tip on how to use LibreOffice.

4 | Preface•Get Help Online – opens your default browser at the Ask LibreOffice forum of questions
and answers from the LibreOffice community, https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/questions/.

•Send Feedback – opens your default browser at the Feedback page of the LibreOfficewebsite, https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/feedback/. From there you can report bugs,
suggest new features and communicate with others in the LibreOffice community.

•Restart in Safe Mode – opens a dialog window where you will have the option to restart
LibreOffice and reset the software to its default settings.

•Get Involved – opens your default browser at the Get Involved page of the LibreOfficewebsite, https://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/. There you can choose a topic
of interest to help improve the program.

•Donate to LibreOffice – opens your default browser at the Donation page of theLibreOffice website, https://donate.libreoffice.org/. There you can choose to make adonation to support LibreOffice.

•License Information – outlines the licenses under which LibreOffice is made available.

•Check for Updates – opens a dialog window and checks the LibreOffice website for
updates to your version of the software.

•About LibreOffice – opens a dialog window and displays information about the version ofLibreOffice and the operating system you are using. This information will often be
requested if you ask the community for help or assistance with the software. (On macOS
this item is under the LibreOffice menu.)

Other free online support
The LibreOffice community not only develops software, but provides free, volunteer-based support.
In addition to the Help menu links above, there are other online community support options
available, see the table below.
Free LibreOffice support
FAQs

Answers to frequently asked questions
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq

Mailing lists

Free community support is provided by a network of experienced users
https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/

Questions & Answers
andKnowledge BaseFree community assistance is provided in a Question & Answer formatted webservice. Search similar topics or open a new one in
https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/questions
The service is available in several other languages; just replace /en/ with de,es, fr, ja, ko, nl, pt, tr, and many others in the web address above.
The LibreOffice website in various languages
https://www.libreoffice.org/community/nlc/

Native language support

Mailing lists for native languages
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Local_Mailing_Lists
Information about social networking
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website/Web_Sites_services

Accessibility options

Information about available accessibility options
https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/accessibility/

OpenOffice ForumAnother forum that provides support for LibreOffice, among other open
source office suites https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/

Where to get more help? | 5

Paid support and training
You can also pay for support through service contracts from a vendor or consulting firm
specializing in LibreOffice. For information about certified professional support, see The Document
Foundation’s website: https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/support/

What you see may be different
Illustrations
LibreOffice runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems, each of which has several
versions and can be customized by users (fonts, colors, themes, window managers). The
illustrations in this guide were taken from a variety of computers and operating systems. Therefore,
some illustrations will not look exactly like what you see on your computer display.
Also, some of the dialogs may be differ because of the settings selected in LibreOffice. You caneither use dialogs from your computer system (default) or dialogs provided by LibreOffice. Tochange to using LibreOffice dialogs:1)

On Linux and Windows operating systems, go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice >General on the main menu bar to open the dialog for general options.

2)

On a Mac operating system, go to LibreOffice > Preferences > General on the mainmenu bar to open the dialog for general options.

3)

Select Use LibreOffice dialogs in Open/Save dialogs to display the LibreOffice dialogs on
your computer display.

4)

Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.

Icons
The icons used to illustrate some of the many tools available in LibreOffice may differ from theones used in this guide. The icons in this guide have been taken from a LibreOffice installation thathas been set to display the Tango set of icons.
If you wish, you can change your LibreOffice software package to display Tango icons as follows:
1)

On Linux and Windows operating systems, go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View on
the main menu bar to open the dialog for view options.

2)

On a Mac operating system, go to LibreOffice > Preferences > LibreOffice > View on themain menu bar to open the dialog for view options.

3)

In User interface > Icon size and style select Tango from the options available in the drop
down list.

4)

Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.

Notes
Some Linux operating systems, for example Ubuntu, include LibreOffice as part of theinstallation and may not include the Tango icon set. You should be able to download
the Tango icons from the software repository for your Linux operating system.

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 for the instructions in this book. For a moredetailed list, see the application Help.
6 | Preface

Windows or LinuxmacOS equivalent

EffectTools > Options menu

LibreOffice > Preferences

Access setup options

Right-click

Control+click and/or right-click
depending on computer setup

Open a context menu

Ctrl (Control)⌘ (Command)

Used with other keys

F5Shift +⌘+ F5Open the Navigator

F11

⌘+ T

Open the sidebar Styles deck

What are all these things called?
The terms used in LibreOffice for most parts of the user interface are the same as for most otherprograms (the parts of the program you see and use, in contrast to the behind-the-scenes codethat actually makes it work).
A dialog is a special type of window. Its purpose is to inform you of something, or request input
from you, or both. It provides controls to use to specify how to carry out an action. The technicalnames for common controls are shown in Figure 1. In most cases the technical terms are not usedin this book, but it is useful to know them because the Help and other sources of information often
use them.
In most cases, you can interact only with the dialog (not the document itself) as long as the dialog
remains open. When you close the dialog after use (usually, clicking OK or another button saves
your changes and closes the dialog), then you can again work with your document.

Figure 1: Dialog showing common tools

What are all these things called? | 7

Some dialogs can be left open as you work, so you can switch back and forth between the dialog
and the document. An example of this type is the Find & Replace dialog.
1)

Tabbed page – not strictly speaking a control.

2)Radio buttons – only one can be selected at a time.

3)

Checkbox – more than one can be selected at a time.

4)

Spin box – click the up and down arrows to change the number shown in the adjacent text
box, or type in the text box.

5)

Thumbnail or preview.

6)

Drop-down list from which to select an item.

7)

Push buttons.

Who wrote this book?
This book was written by volunteers from the LibreOffice community. Profits from sales of theprinted edition will be used to benefit the community.

Frequently asked questions
How is LibreOffice licensed?
LibreOffice is distributed under the Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved Mozilla PublicLicense (MPL). See https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/licenses/
It is based on code from Apache OpenOffice made available under the Apache License 2.0
but also includes software that differs from version to version under a variety of other Open
Source licenses. New code is available under LGPL 3.0 and MPL 2.0.
May I distribute LibreOffice to anyone?
Yes
May I sell it?
Yes
May I use it in my business?
Yes.
How many computers may I install it on?
As many as you like.
Is LibreOffice available in my language?
LibreOffice has been translated (localized) into over 40 languages, so your language
probably is supported. Additionally, there are over 70 spelling, hyphenation, and thesaurus
dictionaries available for languages, and dialects that do not have a localized programinterface. The dictionaries are available from the LibreOffice website at: www.libreoffice.org.
How can you make it for free?
LibreOffice is developed and maintained by volunteers and has the backing of severalorganizations.
I am writing a software application. May I use programming code from LibreOffice in myprogram?
You may, within the parameters set in the MPL and/or LGPL. Read the licenses:
https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.

8 | Preface

Why do I need Java to run LibreOffice? Is it written in Java?
LibreOffice is not written in Java; it is written in the C++ language. Java is one of several
languages that can be used to extend the software. The Java JDK/JRE is only required forsome features. The most notable one is the HSQLDB relational database engine.
Java is available at no cost. More information and download links to the appropriate edition
for your operating system can be found at: https://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

NoteIf you want to use LibreOffice features that require Java, it is important that the correct
32-bit or 64-bit edition matches the installed version of LibreOffice. See Chapter 2
Advanced Options of the Getting Started Guide. If you do not want to use Java, you
can still use nearly all of the LibreOffice features.
How can I contribute to LibreOffice?
You can help with the development and user support of LibreOffice in many ways, and you
do not need to be a programmer. To start, check out this webpage:https://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/
May I distribute the PDF of this book, or print and sell copies?
Yes, as long as you meet the requirements of one of the licenses in the copyright statement
at the beginning of this book. You do not have to request special permission. We request thatyou share with the project some of the profits you make from sales of books, in considerationof all the work we have put into producing them.
Donate to LibreOffice: https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/

What’s new in LibreOffice 6.4?
The LibreOffice 6.4 Release Notes (changes from version 6.3) are available at the following links:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/6.4 andhttps://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-notes/
You may also want to read the LibreOffice 6.3 Release Notes (changes from previous versions)are available at the following links:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/6.3 andhttps://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-notes/

What’s new in LibreOffice 6.4? | 9