Floor Plans & Facilities Center

HOW TO DRAW FLOOR PLANS (cont'd)

Creating Your Own Shapes and Objects
SmartDraw comes with thousands of symbols to help you create professional-looking floor plans quickly and easily. You'll find everything from gym equipment to office and home furnishings.

But if you can't find a particular symbol that you need, you can always draw it yourself using the freeform drawing tools.

Drawing with the Polygon Line Tool
You can draw a new shape with the Polygon Line Tool.

Start by clicking in the drawing area at the point you want your shape to begin and continue clicking to draw 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 draw 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, right click on the shape and select Edit Shape Outline from the pop-up menu or go to the Design tab.