Creating Your Own Shapes and Objects
SmartDraw comes with thousands of symbols to help you create professional-looking crime scenes quickly and easily. You'll find everything from body outlines to hand prints and furnishings.
But if you can't find a particular symbol that you need, you can always create it yourself using the freeform line tools.
Using the Polygon Line Tool
You can create a new shape with the Polygon Line tool located in the Line menu in the Tools group.
Start by clicking in your work area at the point you want your shape to begin and continue clicking to create more segments.
A line segment is automatically added to the line for each point that you click.
The shape will close automatically as the last line segment nears the starting point. To indicate that the shape is ready to be closed, your pen cursor will have a circle at the end.
Edit the New Shape's Outline
Each segment in the line or shape you create is initially a straight line with a diamond-shaped adjustment handle in the center.
If you click on the adjustment handle you can stretch the line into a curve. You can also adjust the corners of your shape by clicking on the square grow handles at the end of each segment.
Using these handles, you can draw just about any shape or line.
Delete and Add Line Segments
To delete a growth handle, hold down the Ctrl key as you select it (this will turn the growth handle green) and then hit Delete. Deleting a growth handle will also delete a line segment from your shape.
To add a new line segment, hold down the Ctrl key and click anywhere on the outline of the shape. This will add another growth handle and line segment.
To get rid of the growth and adjustment handles, simply click off the shape. If you need to edit it again, click on the shape and use the commands in the Shape Properties group under the Design tab.
Modify Fill and Border
If you like, you can change the object's Fill, Border Thickness, Border Dashes, Border Color, and more by having the object selected and right-clicking to bring up an editing menu.
Right-click to bring up menu to edit fill or border