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Tips & Tricks
To enter the names of “swim lanes”:
1. Triple-click “Text” in the first lane. Other objects will gray out. DO NOT grab the green “handles”; you'll move all the text on the page. (If you do, press Ctrl+Z to move it back)
2. Triple-click “Text” again. Green handles will display around the word “text”.
3. Triple-click “Text” again to select it.
4. Type the name.
5. For each additional “lane”, repeat steps 3 and 4.
6. When all “lanes” have been named, click several times off the page until the “gray” disappears.
The objects already displayed on Slide 1 are designed to give you an idea of the conventions used in flowcharting. They can be deleted, if desired. Or you can copy and paste them as needed.
Once you have created a new presentation document, you'll need to access the flowchart objects via the Tools menu - Gallery
The flowchart objects will display in the Beamer.
The objects contain nearly everything you'll need to create a flowchart. Point at the object to view its name. Shapes are displayed first, followed by arrows and finally various text objects (YES, NO, and pre-formatted Step Numbers.) To use an object, drop-and-drag it from Beamer to work space. Once it's on the work space, you can adjust its size and text as described below.
Hold down the shift key while drawing or re-sizing a line to keep it straight! You can use this trick to draw horizontal lines, vertical lines, or lines at a 45-degree angle.
First method (using the icon bar):
1. Click the Lines and Arrows icon.
2. On the workspace, hold down the Shift key while dragging the mouse. Release Shift key and mouse at the same time.
Second method (using the Beamer shapes):
1. Drag the line from the Beamer onto the workspace.
2. Click to select it.
3. To change its length while keeping it straight, hold down the shift key while you click and drag the end you want to move.
Arrows and Lines:
Resizing objects:
Objects you drag off the Beamer will always be the same size. You can resize them as follows.
To resize an object, click to select it, then drag one of the green “control points” and release.
To resize an object but keep its original proportions, hold down the Shift key while you drag the control point.
Entering text in objects:
There are a number of options for text entry: Depending on the options you select, you may find objects getting larger to accommodate text; text spilling out over the boundary of the object that you expect to contain it; or text making itself incredibly tiny (or large) so that it occupies all the space in the object that contains it.
There are two rectangles in the Beamer, each of which provides a different relationship between the amount of text and object that contains it.
Rectangle: Text Overvflows
Choose Rectangle: No Word Wrap to enter text without expanding the size of the rectangle. This is a good option if you want to enter a bunch of text, and then resize therectangle yourself until it looks good. Hint: Use Shift+Enter to insert line breaks where you want them.
Chooose Rectangle: AutoWrap and AutoGrow if want the text to auto-wrap and you do not care how large the rectangle gets as you type. You can still manually re-size it afterwards.
The two types are shown at right.Note: Text in the Decision Diamond overflows, with no word wrap.
Rectangle: Grows With Text