Working with Office for iPad Graphics
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
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In this chapter:
- Inserting photos
- Drawing lines, rectangles, and circles
- Selecting one or more graphics
- Sizing, moving, and rotating graphics
- Applying styles and effects to graphics
When most people think about using the Office for iPad apps, they generally think about text, whether it’s writing sentences and paragraphs in Word, adding formulas and labels in Excel, creating slide titles and bullets in PowerPoint, and so on. It is certainly true that most of the work people do in Office for iPad—from writing papers to generating purchase orders to creating presentations—is and should remain text-based.
However, if you think only text when you think of Office, you’re missing out on a whole other dimension. All the Office for iPad apps have a small but useful collection of graphics tools that you can take advantage of to improve the clarity of your work or just to add a bit of pizzazz to liven up an otherwise drab document.
Even better, these graphics tools work the same across apps, so when you learn how to use them, you can apply your knowledge to any program. This chapter shows you how to create, edit, and enhance graphics in the Office for iPad apps.
Inserting Images
To spruce up your Office for iPad documents, the apps come with commands that you can use to insert several types of images:
- Picture—You can enhance the visual appeal and strengthen the message of a document by adding a picture to the file. The Office for iPad apps can work with the most popular picture formats, including BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and GIF. This means that you can insert almost any photo that you have stored on your iPad.
Shape—This is an object such as a line or rectangle that you draw within your document. You can use shapes to point out key features in a document, enclose text, create flowcharts, and enhance the look of a document. Office for iPad offers a number of shape types, including the following:
- Lines—Straight lines, squiggles, free-form polygons, arrows, connectors, and curves
- Rectangles—Rectangles, rounded rectangles, and more
- Basic Shapes—Triangles, circles, boxes, cylinders, hearts, and many more
- Block Arrows—Two-dimensional arrows of various configurations
- Equation Shapes—Two-dimensional images for the basic arithmetic symbols, such as plus (+) and equals (=)
- Flowchart—The standard shapes used for creating flowcharts
- Stars and Banners—Stars, starbursts, scrolls, and more
- Callouts—Boxes and lines for creating callouts to document features
- Text box—The graphics you add to your documents will usually consist of images, but sometimes you’ll need to augment those images with some text. For example, you might want to add a title and subtitle or insert a label.
Insert a Picture
If you have a photo or other image on your iPad that you think would add just the right touch, you can insert it into your document.
- Tap where you want the picture to appear.
- Tap the Insert tab.
- Tap the Pictures icon to open the Photos dialog.
Tap the album that contains the picture you want to insert.
Tap the picture.
If you’re using OneNote, tap the Crop icon if you want to use only part of the picture.
Tap the check mark. The app inserts the picture into the document.
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Insert a Line
You can use lines to point out important document information, create a free-form drawing, or as part of a more complex graphic such as a company logo. You can insert a straight line, which can have an arrowhead at one or both ends, or a connector, a multisegment line or curve normally used to connect two other objects.
- Tap the Insert tab.
- Tap Shapes.
Tap the shape you want from the Lines section. The app adds a default shape to the document.
- Tap and drag the ends of the line or curve to set the length and orientation.
If you inserted a connector, tap and drag the yellow handle to set the position of the middle segment of a line connector, or the extent of the curve in a curve connector.
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Insert Any Other Shape
You can use the other shapes either on their own—for example, to point out features with callouts or block arrows or to enhance text with stars or banners—or as part of a more complex graphic.
- Tap the Insert tab.
- Tap Shapes.
Tap the shape you want. The app adds a default shape to the document.
Tap and drag the shape’s sizing handles until the shape has the size and form you want and then release.
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Insert a Text Box
The graphics you add to your documents will usually consist of images, but sometimes you’ll need to augment those images with text. For example, you might want to add a title and subtitle or insert a label. If a WordArt image seems like overkill for this, then a better alternative is to draw a text box and type your text within that box.
- Tap the Insert tab.
Tap Text Box. The app adds a default shape to the document.
Tap and drag the text box sizing handles until the box has the size and form you want and then release.
- Double-tap inside the text box.
- Type your text.
When you’re done, tap outside the text box.
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