Preface

Who is this book for?

Ever felt an urge to draw something? Anything? Maybe draw your favorite car? Maybe draw your dream house? Maybe draw a flowchart of some business process? Maybe draw a model of the car of the future? Maybe edit an existing picture of your child or spouse?

Maybe this is your first encounter or introduction to the world of vector graphics. Maybe graphic design is a pastime, a purposeful business venture or a hobby you want to pursue - the LibreOffice Draw vector program gives you the freedom to draw anything that your mind conceives and conceptualizes. Everything you need to produce compelling graphics for home projects or your small business is at your fingertips thanks to the LibreOffice Draw vector program.

With LibreOffice Draw you can draw schemes, charts and diagrams. You can draw plans and drafts. You can draw scientific illustrations, icons, symbols, logos, emblems, typography of all kinds, banners, leaflets, posters, page layouts and web graphics. You can draw heraldry, flags and road signs. You can draw comics, cartoons. You can draw book covers, holiday cards, greeting cards and vignettes. The list is endless; the boundaries or precincts of possibilities are drawn by the spirit of imagination that dwells within you and thus defines the innate character that is you.

LibreOffice Draw is part of the LibreOffice offering which is an open source office productivity suite. Being open source, the LibreOffice suite subscribes to the four essential rights of open-source software as embodied within the Free Software Foundation’s family of the GNU General Public License (GPL):

  • The right to use the software for any purpose.
  • Freedom to redistribute the software for free or for a fee.
  • Access to the complete source code of the program (that is, the “blueprints”).
  • The right to modify any part of the source, or use portions of it in other programs.

From drawing basic shapes (straight lines, rectangles and squares, ellipses and circles, arcs and segments as well as curves, polygons and free form lines), to combining multiple objects, editing images, working with 3D objects, flowcharts and organizational charts, adding and formatting text and finally printing and exporting your work of art, LibreOffice Draw has got you covered all the way.