Overview of the Canvas X Draw Interface
Overview of the Canvas X Draw Interface
Canvas X Draw has several types of documents: Illustration, Presentation, and Publication. These documents share some common elements, while some specialized controls apply to particular documents types.
Canvas X Draw Window
The Canvas X Draw interface contains seven main components, providing you with a Layout area as the main area for working on your illustrations, and a variety of toolboxes and palettes with all the tools you need. Depending on your operating system and your Canvas X Draw customizations, your interface may look different than what you see in the image below.
You can customize the interface in several ways, such as by hiding the Toolbar, Docking bar, and Properties bar. Each document window has Zoom controls, Document controls, and scroll bars. All documents share the Smart Toolbox, Properties bar, and Status bar. You can switch between Canvas X Draw documents using the Window menu, or you can tile or stack windows to see more than one document at a time.
1 | Menu bar | Menus for all the Canvas X Draw features. |
2 | Toolbar | Shortcuts for common tasks. |
3 | Properties bar | Lets you control the properties for the text, painting, or vector tools as well as document setup. You can toggle this bar on or off. |
4 | Toolbox | Tool palettes snap out to the right. If you use a specific tool palette regularly, lock the palette so it remains open while you use other tools. |
5 | Zoom controls | Use these controls to zoom in and out of a document. |
6 | Document controls | Add pages and move from one page or layer to another. |
7 | Status bar | Displays the status and properties of the currently selected item. |
8 | Layout area | The main working area for creating illustrations, page layouts, presentations, and animations. |
9 | Docking bar | Provides a customizable dock for the Canvas X Draw palettes you use often. You can move the Docking bar to the left, right, top, or bottom of the layout area. |
10 | Palettes | Canvas X Draw organizes settings, tools, special effects, object attributes, and other functions in palettes. |
After manually reducing Canvas X Draw's main window, you can restore it to full screen mode by holding down the Option key when re-launching Canvas X Draw. Otherwise, Canvas X Draw will remember your last set dimensions.
You can use the option + spacebar to temporarily switch to the Magnifying Glass tool.
Layout Area
The rectangle centered in the Canvas X Draw document window is the Layout area. The white space around the Layout area is known as the pasteboard and is additional working space where you can place objects before using them in an illustration. Objects on the pasteboard are saved with the document, but they are not printed.
To Hide the Outside of the Layout Area Temporarily:
- Deselect All.
- Select the True View checkbox in the Properties bar.
The Layout area represents different things in the different Canvas X Draw document types.
- Illustration: A page, called a “sheet,” with layers.
- Publication: A single-sided page or two facing pages with layers.
- Presentation: A "slide" with layers.
You can change the color of the Layout area to represent the color of tinted paper.
To Set the Layout Area Color:
- Choose Layout | Document Setup.
- In the Document Setup section of the Preferences dialog box, select a color from the Paper color popup palette.
Document Navigation Controls
A pop-up menu appears below the document window. Open this menu to move through a document.
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