Book Image

OmniGraffle 5 Diagramming Essentials

Book Image

OmniGraffle 5 Diagramming Essentials

Overview of this book

If a picture is worth a thousand words, why settle for anything less? Creating good visualizations to substantiate your ideas is essential in today's corporate environment. Use OmniGraffle's remarkably powerful and flexible features to get your diagrams right. Although fun to use, it can get cumbersome to find out exactly how to get what you want.This book will teach you how to make stunning diagrams without spending much time and energy. No matter if you have never used OmniGraffle, or if you are using it on a daily basis, this book will teach you how to get the most out of this splendid diagramming tool. It will first teach you the basics of the program and then extend your knowledge to a higher level.The book will teach you to make eye-popping visuals using a lot of useful, step-by-step examples. It begins with covering concepts that beef up your basics of using OmniGraffle. The earlier chapters will teach you to prepare dazzling diagrams from scratch with the many stencils, shapes, and fonts that are included in OmniGraffle. As your understanding of OmniGraffle broadens, the book will go even deeper to explain the less understood features of the software. It also covers some handy time-saving techniques such as workspaces and keyboard shortcuts.By the time you reach the end of this book, you will have mastered OmniGraffle to turn your ideas into diagrams.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
OmniGraffle 5 Diagramming Essentials
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
Preface
9
OmniGraffle workspaces
Index

Gridlines


So far in this book you have worked without using a visible grid on your canvas. With the aid of the Smart Alignment Guides and the Smart Distance Guides, you have made perfectly aligned and good-looking diagrams. If your diagrams are much like the ones you have created so far, you may never have to use a grid when placing shapes.

However, if you are making diagrams, which represent "real life objects" – using a grid is a must. These kinds of diagrams can be anything from a diagram showing the new office layout – to a diagram for showing office visitors where various parts of the building are.

Enabling gridlines

You turn the visibility of grid lines on or off by using the View | Gridlines menu command. You could also use the ⌘+\ keyboard shortcut command.

In the previous screenshot, you see the canvas with grid lines. The thick grid lines are called the Major Gridlines, while the thinner lines are called the Minor Steps.

Adjusting gridlines

You can control the measurement unit...