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- Hour 11 -

Paint a Picture

In the last hour you learned how to use Windows 95's writing tools. In this hour, you learn how to use Windows 95's primary drawing tool. The Windows 95 Paint program is a drawing program. Although Paint won't make you an artist overnight, you can create some fairly sophisticated art using Paint.

Even though Paint has been available since the first version of Windows 95, Microsoft wrote the Windows 95 Paint program from scratch as a 32-bit application that takes advantage of all of the interface features, such as the new Open dialog boxes, available in Windows 95 programs. The pictures that you create with Paint are considered documents so all the document-management tools you've learned so far work with Paint document files as well.

The Paint program provides several kinds of drawing tools with which you can draw lines and geometric shapes. Paint supports color filling and outlining also. One of the most advanced features of Paint, OLE support, lets you embed a Paint picture in the middle of other OLE-compatible documents such as a WordPad document.

Perhaps the best reason to learn Paint: Paint is fun!

The highlights of this hour include:

Learning About Paints Screen

Paint provides many drawing tools. Before you can use Paint effectively, you must learn how to interact with Paint, and you also must know what each of Paint's tools does. The Paint screen contains five major areas. Figure 11.1 lists each of those five major areas. Table 11.1 describes each area.

Figure 11.1. The five major areas of the Paint screen.

JUST A MINUTE: Paint does not contain a toolbar with buttons as do WordPad and other Windows 95 programs. Paint contains a tool box that is the most important area of Paint. It is from the tool box that you select and use drawing tools.

Table 11.1. Descriptions of the five areas of Paint's screen.
Area Description
Drawing area The drawing appears in the drawing area. When you want to create or modify a drawing, you'll work within this area.
Color box A list of possible colors you can choose for colorizing your artwork.
Menu bar The commands that control Paint's operation.
Status bar Displays important messages and measurements as you use Paint.
Tool box The vital drawing, painting, and coloring tools with which you create and modify artwork.


There are two scroll bars on the drawing area so that you can scroll to other parts of your drawing. The drawing area is actually as large as a maximized window. If, however, Paint initially displayed the drawing area maximized, you could not access the menu bar or the tool box or read the status bar. Therefore, Paint adds the scroll bars to its drawing area so that you can create drawings that will, when displayed, fill the entire screen.

Task 11.1: Getting to Know Paint

Step 1: Description
This task lets you start Paint and navigate around the screen a bit. The rest of this hour contains several tasks so you can practice Paint and learn Paint's features as you use the program.

Step 2: Action

1. Start the Paint program. Paint is located in the Accessories menu.

2. Maximize the Paint program to full size. Paint is one of the few programs in which you'll almost always want to work in a maximized window. By maximizing the window, you gain the largest drawing area possible.

3. If you do not see the tool box, the status bar, or the color box, display the View menu and check each of these three important screen areas to ensure that all five areas show as you follow along in this hour.

JUST A MINUTE: When you exit Paint, it saves the screen size and selected viewing options so that when you start Paint the next time, your screen will look like it did when you exited Paint the previous time.
4. Take a look at Figure 11.2. This figure labels each of the tool box tools. Each tool contains an icon that illustrates the tool's function. The tools on the tool box comprise your collection of drawing, painting, and coloring tools. When you want to add or modify a picture, you will have to pick the appropriate tool. As you work with Paint in subsequent tasks, you'll want to refer to Figure 11.2 to find the tool named in the task.
  1. Want to draw a picture? Task 11.2 shows you how!

Figure 11.2. The tools on the tool box.


Step 3: Review
The first thing you should do when starting Paint is maximize the program window. You will often need to have all the areas of the screen showing, especially the tool box. Therefore, once you start Paint for the first time, be sure to display the View menu and make sure that the first three View menu options are checked.


Task 11.2: Drawing with the Pencil Tool

Step 1: Description
To begin drawing with Paint, select the pencil tool and use the mouse to draw lines on the drawing area. The pencil tool draws lines as you drag the mouse. You can use the color bar to select a line color for the lines and draw more lines of multiple colors.

Step 2: Action

1. Click the pencil tool.

2. Move the mouse cursor over the drawing area, and the cursor changes to a pencil (the same icon that's on the pencil tool).

3. Hold down the mouse button and move your mouse. Move the mouse all around the drawing area. Make all sorts of curves with the mouse. Notice that Paint keeps the pencil within the borders of the drawing area. Figure 11.3 shows what you can do when you really go crazy with the pencil tool.


Figure 11.3. The pencil tool lets you draw with a freehand style.

TIME SAVER:: Think of clicking the mouse button as being the same as putting the pencil on paper. When you hold down the mouse you can draw on the paper. When you let up with the button (raise the pencil), no drawing takes place.
4. The default color for the pencil drawing is black. Click over a different color on the color bar, such as red or green, and draw some more. The new lines will appear in the new color. Select additional colors and draw more lines to pretty the picture even more.

JUST A MINUTE: I said this would be fun, didn't I?


Step 3: Review
The pencil tool is the primary drawing tool for freehand lines and curves. The pencil draws lines in the selected color. The pencil tool draws as you drag the mouse across the drawing area.

TIME SAVER:: Every time you change a tool or color or draw a separate line, Paint saves the next group of changes to the drawing area. As with most Windows 95 accessory programs, Paint supports an Edit | Undo feature (Ctrl+Z or Alt+Backspace). You can undo up to three previous edit groups. Therefore, if you've just drawn three separate lines, you can remove each of those lines by selecting the Undo command three times.


Task 11.3: Using the Geometric Tools

Step 1: Description
Drawing with the pencil tool requires patience and skill when you want to draw perfect lines, curves, and shapes. Although the pencil is easy to use, the mouse is not the best freehand drawing device for drawing certain shapes. Paint supplies several tools on the tool box that you can use to draw squares, rectangles, curves, and circles of virtually any shape and size.

Step 2: Action

1. Erase the drawing by selecting File | New. When Paint displays the dialog box shown in Figure 11.4, click the No command button. Paint clears the drawing area so you can start a new document image.


Figure 11.4. Don't save your first masterpiece.

JUST A MINUTE: If you had loaded and made changes to an existing document image, the dialog box shown in Figure 11.4 would have asked if you wanted to save the changes to that particular file. You haven't saved the image that you created in the previous task, so the dialog box refers to the drawing as untitled in the dialog box because the drawing has no document filename.
2. Click the Line tool. Use the Line tool to draw straight lines.

A straight line is defined by two coordinates: the starting coordinate position and the end coordinate position. In order to draw a line, you must anchor the line's starting position and extend the line to its ending position. Paint automatically draws a straight line from the starting position to the end position. You can draw lines, using the Line tool, in any direction.

Windows Minute

Where's the Point?

Paint measures all drawing positions by coordinates or points. Suppose you draw a single dot in the center of the screen. The smallest dot you can draw is called a pixel (coming from the words picture element). A coordinate is defined by the number of pixels from the top edge of the screen to a point (your dot) and the number of pixels from the left edge of the screen to a point.

Every dot, line, and shape in the drawing area begins at a specific point and measures a certain number of coordinate points. The way that Paint indicates a dot's position is by a coordinate pair, which is two numbers separated by a comma, such as 137,82. The first number in a coordinate pair represents the number of pixels from the left edge of the drawing area, and the second number represents the number of pixels from the top edge of the drawing area. Every pixel inside the drawing area has its own unique coordinate pair measurement, just as every house has a unique address.

The status bar always displays the starting coordinate position of every dot, line, or shape that you draw. If you draw with one of the geometric tools, the status bar also lists the length (for lines and other shapes) and height (for geometric shapes that have height) of that item, in pixels.

3. Get used to reading coordinate pair numbers in the status bar. Move the mouse around the drawing area (do not press a mouse button yet) and watch the pair of numbers at the right of the status bar change. As mentioned in the Windows Minute, the first number represents the number of pixels from the left edge of the drawing area, and the second number represents the number of pixels from the top of the drawing area.

Position the mouse cursor at position 118,75 (or as close to that position as you can). This will be the line's anchor position. If you were to begin drawing there, the first point in that drawing would begin 118 pixels from the left of the drawing area and 75 pixels from the top edge of the drawing area. Click and hold the mouse button and drag the mouse down and to the right to the point located at 420,245. Figure 11.5 shows the resulting line that should appear on your screen. The Status bar will show where your mouse pointer ends up.

JUST A MINUTE: Don't worry if you cannot place the line at the exact coordinates listed in this hour. Get fairly close and your drawings will look like the figures.


Figure 11.5. You drew a line without pain!

4. Draw two more lines. Remember to anchor the beginning of the line by clicking (and holding) the mouse button before moving the mouse in the direction of the line you want to draw. As you drag the mouse, check out the far left side of the status bar. As you drag the mouse, Paint indicates with a second coordinate pair exactly how far from the line's anchor position (in pixels) the line is.

5. Select a different color and draw another line. Paint draws that line in the new color.

TIME SAVER:: Now that you've selected the Line tool, look at the area below the tool box. You'll see five lines, with each line growing thicker than the one before. By clicking on a thick line, the next line you draw with the Line tool appears on the drawing area in the new thickness. You can change the thickness, using this line size list, for any of the geometric shapes.
6. Click over the thickest line in the list of line sizes. Draw a couple of lines to see the thicker lines. If you change colors before drawing, the thicker lines will appear in the new color.

7. The rest of the geometric shapes are as easy to draw as the lines are. Select File | New to clear the drawing area. Don't save any changes.

8. Click on the Line tool to change the line thickness size to the middle line thickness (the third thickness size).

CAUTION: Always change the Line tool's thickness before selecting one of the geometric drawing tools. The Line tool's line size determines the line thickness for all the geometric tools.
9. Select the Rectangle tool. Rectangles, like lines, are determined by their starting anchor position and the rectangle's opposite corner's position. Begin drawing a rectangle at coordinates 190,75. After anchoring the rectangle with the mouse button, drag the mouse until it rests at 385,270. The status line indicator will show 200,200, meaning that the rectangle is 200 pixels by 200 pixels. When you release the mouse you will have drawn a perfect square.

TIME SAVER:: Drawing a perfect square is not always easy because you have to pay close attention to the coordinates. Paint offers a better way to draw perfect squares. Hold down the Shift key while dragging the mouse, and the rectangle always appears as a square.
10. The three rectangles below the tool box do not represent the line thickness of the rectangles. They determine how Paint draws rectangles. When you click the top rectangle (the default), all of the drawing area that appears beneath the next rectangle that you draw shows through. Therefore, if you draw a rectangle over other pictures, you see the other pictures coming through the inside of the new rectangle. If you click the second rectangle below the tool box, the rectangle's center will overwrite any existing art. As a result, all rectangles you draw will have a blank center, no matter what art the rectangle overwrites. If you select the third rectangle, Paint does not draw a rectangular outline but does draw the interior of the rectangle in the same color you've set for the interior (the default interior color is white).

Keep the first rectangle selected and draw a rectangle from coordinates 120, 35 to 340, 150. The existing rectangle shows through the new one.

Click the second rectangle selection beneath the tool box and draw a rectangle from 40, 145 to 250, 170. This rectangle overwrites lines from the other rectangles (the white area is all you see inside the new rectangle) as shown in Figure 11.6.

TIME SAVER:: If you want to draw a rectangle in a different color, click the left mouse button over the new color. If you want to fill the inside of the rectangle with a different color, click a new color with the right mouse button. The two-color pattern shown at the left of the color bar indicates the outline and interior colors of rectangles and other shapes. You can also use the two colors to draw lines. When you anchor and draw a line using the left mouse button, Paint draws the line in the outline color. If, instead, you draw the line using the right mouse button to anchor the line, Paint draws using the interior color.


Figure 11.6. The rectangle selection determines how the rectangle overwrites other art.


11. Select the third rectangle below the tool box and then select an alternate interior color such as red (using the right mouse button over the color box). Draw a small rectangle from 255, 130 to 330, 210. As shown in Figure 11.7, Paint draws the rectangle, without an outline, overwriting the other rectangles beneath the new one.

12. Now that you understand the rectangle, you also understand the other geometric tools. Click the Ellipse tool to draw ovals (or if you press Shift while dragging, you can draw perfect circles). Click the Rounded Rectangle tool to draw rounded rectangles (or rounded squares if you press Shift while dragging).
Click the top rectangle selection (to draw see-through shapes) and click the Ellipse to draw circles. Click the Rounded Rectangle tool and draw rounded rectangles. Fill your drawing area with all kinds of shapes to get the feel of the tools.

13. A blank drawing area will help you learn how to use the Polygon and Curve tools, so select File | New (don't save) to clear your drawing area.


Figure 11.7. Including an OLE object inside WordPad.


14. Select the Polygon tool. The Polygon is a tool that draws an enclosed figure with as many sides as you want to give the figure. Once you anchor the polygon with the mouse, drag the mouse left or right and click the mouse. Drag the mouse once again to continue the polygon. Every time you want to change directions, click the mouse once more. When you are finished, double-click the mouse, and Paint completes the polygon for you by connecting your final line with the first point you drew. As Figure 11.8 shows, polygons can look fairly wild.


Figure 11.8. A polygon is an enclosed shape with any number of sides.


15. Clear your drawing area once again. The Curve tool is one of the neatest but strangest tools in the tool box. Click on the Curve tool (after adjusting the line thickness and color if you wish to do so).

Draw a straight line by dragging the mouse. Once you release the line, click the mouse button somewhere just outside the line and drag the mouse around in circles. As you drag the mouse, Paint adjusts the curve to follow the mouse. When you see the curve that you want, release the mouse so that Paint can stabilize the curve.

TIME SAVER:: If you hold Shift while drawing the curve's starting line, Paint draws a perfectly horizontal or vertical line.
16. The Eraser/Color Eraser tool erases whatever appears on the drawing area. The Eraser/Color Eraser tool comes in four sizes to give you a small eraser that erases small areas to larger erasers that erase larger areas at one time. When you select the Eraser/Color Eraser tool, you can also select an eraser thickness. (The color you choose has no bearing on the eraser's use.) Select the Eraser/Color Eraser tool now and drag it over parts of your drawing to erase lines you've drawn.
17. Clear your drawing area for the next task.


Step 3: Review
The geometric tools generally require that you select a line width, a drawing style (such as rectangles that hide or don't hide their backgrounds), an exterior and interior color, and then draw the shape. You draw most of the shapes by anchoring their initial position, and then dragging the mouse to extend the shape across the screen. If you make a mistake, you can use the Eraser/Color Eraser tool to correct the problem.


Task 11.4: Colorizing Black and White Art

Step 1: Description
As you learned in Task 11.3, you can add color to drawings while you draw the geometric shapes. Paint also supports several coloring tools that let you add or change colors.

Step 2: Action

1. Draw a black rectangle (with a white center) in the center of your screen.

2. Select the Fill with Color tool. The Fill with Color tool acts like a paint can that you pour onto the drawing area. The selected color fills the drawing area until lines stop the paint flow. The paint stops on a line. Therefore, if you click the Fill with Color tool inside any shape, the shape's interior fills with the selected color.

CAUTION: If you click the Fill with Color tool anywhere on the screen that is not completely enclosed, the paint color will completely fill the drawing area.
3. Click one of the shades of red in the color box.

4. Select the Fill with Color tool.

5. Point to the inside of the rectangle and click the mouse button. Paint fills the interior of the rectangle with the color red.

6. Select a blue color.

7. Click the Fill with Color tool anywhere outside the rectangle. The Fill with Color tool fills the portion of the screen not taken up by the rectangle.

8. The Pick Color tool copies colors from one object to another. Click the Pick Color tool and click over the red interior of the rectangle. Paint instantly changes the mouse cursor to the Fill with Color tool once again because the Fill with Color tool was the tool you used before selecting the Pick Color tool. Click over the outside of the rectangle now and the outside becomes red as well.

JUST A MINUTE: The Pick Color tool always reverts back to the most recently used tool.
9. Select File | New to start a new drawing.

The Brush tool acts like a calligraphy pen. When you select the Brush tool, Paint displays the brush selection area beneath the tool box. Figure 11.9 shows the brush selection area that contains the 12 kinds of brushes. When you select a brush shape, Paint uses that shape to brush colors on the drawing area. You can draw with a slanted brush head or a pinpoint brush head.

10. Practice drawing with the various brush shapes. Draw a face with lots of detail; you might draw the next Mona Lisa.

11. Save your face by selecting File | Save and enter the name Face. Paint always adds the .BMP extension to your document images. You'll use the face picture in this hour's final task.

11. The Airbrush tool acts like a spray can. Select a color, and then you can spray graffiti all over your drawing area's face. The Airbrush tool has three spray sizes that determine the size of the spray. Clear the drawing area, but don't save the changes, because you don't want to save the graffiti over the face you saved in the previous step.


Figure 11.9. There are 12 brush shapes you can use.


Step 3: Review
You can add color while drawing and after completing a drawing. The Fill with Color tool is nice for putting colors within shapes, but you must make sure those shapes are fully enclosed or the paint will overwrite the shape and fill the rest of the drawing area. The Airbrush is fun to use because it acts like a real spray can of paint. By spraying the Airbrush over the drawing area quickly, you can apply a light streak of spray paint. The more slowly you move the Airbrush, the more paint goes on the drawing area making a darker spray.

JUST A MINUTE: Although Paint can only create bitmap files with the .BMP filename extension, the Paint program can read both bitmap and PC Paintbrush files. PC Paintbrush filenames end with the PCX filename extension. If you read a PCX file and save the file, Paint saves the file in the bitmap file format.

TIME SAVER:: Want to create your own desktop wallpaper? Use Paint! All desktop wallpaper images must appear in the bitmap format with the .BMP extension and those are exactly the kinds of files that Paint creates. Therefore, you can create a bitmap image with your company's logo and use the image for your desktop's wallpaper. See Hour 3, "Understanding the My Computer Window," if you need to review the procedure for changing your desktop wallpaper.

TIME SAVER:: In addition to the desktop wallpaper, you can also create your own startup logo. The startup logo is the logo you see while Windows 95 starts. Create a Paint image and save the image under the name LOGOS.SYS in the Windows directory. Windows 95 will subsequently use this file when you start Windows 95 in the future. You can also display a shutdown graphic image that appears when you shut down Windows 95. Name the shutdown Paint image LOGOW.SYS and you'll see your image when you shut down Windows 95 before you turn off your computer.


Task 11.5: Adding Text to Drawings

Step 1: Description
Drawings often have titles. Graphs often have explanations. Maps often have legends. Pictures that you draw often need text in addition to the graphics that you draw. The Text tool lets you add text using any font and font size available within Windows 95. You can control how the text covers or exposes any art beneath the text. The Text tool works somewhat differently from the drawing tools because you first have to create a text box where you type the text.

Step 2: Action

1. Click the Text tool.

2. Determine approximately how large an area that you want the text box to consume and drag the text frame (the dotted rectangle that appears) until the text frame spans the width and height you want for your text.

JUST A MINUTE: If the text frame is not the correct size, you can adjust it later.
For this task, draw a text frame that's about 165 pixels wide by 80 pixels in height (as described at the right of the status bar). A font dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 11.10.


Figure 11.10. Paint needs to know the font's name, size, and appearance.


3. For this example, select the Algerian font name, if Algerian is on your system. If you cannot find the Algerian font in the dropdown listbox, select a different font name. Increase the size of the font to 26 points. Do not boldface, italicize, or underline the font.

4. Click the mouse button anywhere within the text frame and type The Rain in Spain. (The Algerian font produces only uppercase letters.)

5. If you want to, you can adjust the font settings. For now, close the Fonts dialog box.

TIME SAVER:: As long as the text appears inside the text box, you can change the color of the text by clicking over a color in the color box.
6. The first of the two text selection boxes under the tool box lets you change the color of both the text letters and the background within the text box by clicking over a color on the color box with the right mouse button. The second text selection box affects only the text color and lets any art on the background remain visible. As long as the text frame still remains on the screen, you can modify the text frame size (by dragging an edge or corner of the text frame), color, and font information, as well as the text inside the frame.
Click the top text selection box and change both the text and the background colors. Then click anywhere outside the text frame. Paint anchors the text in its place, and you can no longer make changes to the text style or size.


Step 3: Review
The text tool requires that you create a text frame first. The text frame lets you select colors and font information for all text appearing inside the text frame. Any other text outside the text frame stays the same.


Task 11.6: Looking at Different Editing Views

Step 1: Description
There are several ways to add the finishing touches to your drawings. The Magnifier tool zooms images so that the pixels are larger and easier to change on an individual scale. If you want to see the drawing maximized to full screen, you can also request that Paint display the drawing without the menu bar and other Paint tool areas so you'll know what the actual figure looks like in its complete expanded size.

Step 2: Action

1. With the text still on your drawing area, click the Magnifier tool.

2. The mouse cursor becomes a large square when you move it over the drawing area. Move the mouse cursor to the lower-right portion of your text and click the mouse button. Paint magnifies the area covered by the mouse cursor square so you can edit individual pixels as shown in Figure 11.11. The Thumbnail dialog box shows the magnified area's regular size.


Figure 11.11. If you need more precision, magnify parts of the drawing.

TIME SAVER:: The Magnifier tool comes in four sizes, which you can choose by selecting a size beneath the tool box before magnifying part of the image.
3. Select the Pencil tool. All of the drawing and geometric tools work while you've magnified part of the drawing, but the pencil tool lets you edit one pixel at a time by clicking the mouse over parts of the screen. Change the color of several pixels. To erase pixels, you can use the Eraser/Color Eraser tool or change the pencil color to the same color as the background.

When you are through editing in the magnified mode, click the Magnifier tool once again, and the drawing reverts to its original size where you can look at your edits from farther out.

Windows Minute

Alternate Magnifying Techniques

Select View | Zoom to work with a more powerful magnifying editor. Select the Large Size command to magnify the drawing (use the scroll bars to find the part of the drawing you want to edit). Once you've scrolled to the magnified location that you want to edit, select the View | Zoom | Show Thumbnail command. Paint displays a miniaturized version of the magnified area's full-screen view so that as you make precision adjustments inside the magnified area, you instantly see the results of those pinpoint changes inside the thumbnail inset.

Try editing a portion of your current image using the View | Zoom Large Size command to see the results. Although the screen requires several menu selections to get the thumbnail, you get better feedback than if you only use the Magnifier tool.

5. Paint supports a full-screen view of the drawing area that works a lot like a Print Preview in a text editor or word processor (see Hour 10, "Compose Using Writing Tools"). Select View | View Bitmap (Ctrl+F) to display the entire drawing area on a maximized screen. A mouse click returns you to the normal drawing area size.

6. If you want to copy or delete only a small portion of your drawing area, use the two selection tools (the Free-Form Select and the simple Select tools at the top of the tool box). The selection tools do not draw anything, but they select parts of your drawings. The Select tool selects a rectangular area while the Free-Form Select selects any area you outline by dragging the mouse. Once you select, by dragging an area of your drawing, you can copy, move, or cut that selected part of the drawing area.

7. Clear your drawing area.

TIME SAVER:: If you want to make several copies of part of a drawing, select that drawing part, issue the Edit | Copy command to copy that selected area to the Clipboard, and then issue the Edit | Paste command to paste a copy of the selected drawing to Paint. You then can move the pasted copy to the location where you want the copy.


Step 3: Review
The viewing tools provided by Paint, including the View command on the menu bar, all provide you with different ways to look at your drawing. The Magnifier tool and the Zoom command let you edit the pinpoint pixels of your drawing if you need that much accuracy. Only when you see your drawing in its fully maximized state, do you know exactly how the drawing looks in its entirety.

The Paint Pros Modify Their Art

There are many advanced editing features available inside Paint that you'll want to study once you've mastered the basic drawing tools described in the previous tasks. You already know enough to draw virtually anything you'll ever want to draw; the Image menu, however, contains additional commands that go far beyond the fundamental drawing capabilities offered by the tool box.

The Image | Flip/Rotate command lets you rotate the drawing area. The Flip and Rotate dialog box, shown in Figure 11.12, lets you determine whether or not you want to completely reverse the image horizontally, vertically, or by a specific number of degrees.

Figure 11.12. The Flip and Rotate dialog box controls the direction and amount of rotation.


The Image | Stretch/Skew command produces a dialog box that lets you stretch the entire drawing area (or the selected area) by a certain number of degrees. By skewing or stretching an image, you can add snowy and wavy special effects to your artwork.

Artists understand better than computer book authors what color inversion is all about. All colors have complementary colors. (The red compliments the blue by telling blue how nice he looks, or something like that!) A complementary color is an offsetting color that is a color's opposite in the color spectrum; white's complement is black, for example. Artists and designers use color charts and color wheels to determine complementary colors when they need to produce offsetting colors in a painting or a room. Paint will complement all colors in the drawing area or within the selected area if you select Image | Invert Colors.

The Image | Attributes menu command lets you change the size of a drawing area. Image | Attributes displays the Attributes dialog box shown in Figure 11.13. The Attributes dialog box determines how large (you specify either in inches, centimeters, or pixels depending on the option you select) you want the drawing area to be. In effect, the Attributes dialog determines the size of your drawing paper. If you want to draw in shades of black and white (as you would do if you were going to print the image on a black and white printer) you would want to create the drawing in black and white and shades of gray, so you'll know on the screen what the drawing will look like when printed.

Figure 11.13. The Attributes dialog box lets you adjust the drawing area and measurements.


The Image | Clear Image command works just like the File | New command except that File | New resets interior and background color selections while Image | Clear Image erases the current drawing area without resetting the colors.

One of the most important aspects of the Paint program is its OLE capability. By being OLE-compatible, you can insert images directly into other OLE-compatible programs and edit those images directly from the other program using the Paint menus and tools. Task 11.7 shows you how to work with Paint's OLE capabilities.


Task 11.7: Combining Paint with Other Applications

Step 1: Description
This task embeds the face image into a new WordPad document. WordPad, like most word processors written for the Windows 95 environment, supports OLE, which offers in-place editing of images even when you're not running the Paint program.

Step 2: Action

1. Select File | Open command and type Face to load the face image you created earlier in this hour.

2. Press the Free-Form Select tool and select the face image. Anchor the mouse immediately above and to the left of the face on the drawing area and drag the selected area down and to the right until you've selected the entire face.

3. Select Edit | Copy to copy the selected face to the Windows 95 Clipboard. The Clipboard can hold all kinds of documents including art images. Exit the Paint program (by selecting File | Exit).

4. Start the WordPad program. Type the following, and press Enter twice: 
Here is what I look like in the mornings:
5. Select Edit | Paste (Ctrl+V) to paste the Windows 95 Clipboard (the face image) into the WordPad document at the cursor's position. After a brief pause WordPad displays both your text and image together as shown in Figure 11.14.

The eight tabs on the face's outline form the image's resizing handles with which you can expand or shrink the size of the picture, by dragging a handle with the mouse, while inside WordPad.


Figure 11.14. You can embed Paint images into WordPad documents.


6. Press the right arrow to move the text cursor to the right of the image. The resizing handles and frame will disappear.

7. Press Enter to send the cursor to the next line. Type the following text, and press Enter once: 
I hope I look better by the afternoon!
8. This combination of text and graphics is impressive, but the OLE capabilities extend even farther. If you want to make changes to the face, double-click over the face's image. WordPad's environment instantly changes, menus and all, so you are instantly working within Paint, and the face image is surrounded by editing borders. You now can make any kind of modification you want using Paint's commands and tools. When you are finished, click over the text area of the document to return to WordPad once again.


Step 3: Review
OLE capabilities mean that you have the ability to perform in-place editing of your Paint images that you embed in textual documents. Both Paint and WordPad support OLE (described in the previous hour), so they both work together to combine text and art.

Summary

This hour taught you how to draw using the Paint program. Paint, a 32-bit application, supports all of the Windows 95 environment, including full OLE support. The drawing tools provided by Paint rival many of the drawing tools supplied in art programs that sell for several hundred dollars.

Paint includes geometric tools that help you draw perfect shapes. You can color the shape outlines, as well as their interiors with Paint's coloring tools. The menu bar provides commands that resize, reshape, invert, and stretch your drawn images. If you want precision editing, you can have it by zeroing in on the fine details of your drawing using the Magnifier tool.

As you become more familiar with Windows 95, especially after you learn how to manage the multimedia power in Part IV, you will learn how to embed all kinds of documents, such as sound and motion pictures, into your WordPad and Paint files. By utilizing the OLE capabilities you learned in this hour, you are mastering the fundamental programming principles that help make your Windows 95 applications work together almost seamlessly.

Workshop

Term Review

anchor position The starting coordinate pair of lines and other geometric shapes.

coordinate A pixel position on the screen defined by a coordinate pair.

coordinate pair A pair of numbers in which the first represents the number of pixels from the left edge of the drawing area of an image, and the second represents the number of pixels from the top edge of the drawing area. In Paint, the coordinates appear on the Status bar.

pixel Stands for picture element. A pixel is the smallest addressable dot on your screen.

point Another name for coordinate.

startup logo The image you see when Windows 95 loads.

text frame A rectangular area in which you type or modify the text.

tool box Paint's collection of drawing, coloring, and painting tools.

tools The individual drawing, painting, and coloring tools represented by icons on the tool box.

Q&A

Q Will modifying a text frame's colors affect other text that I've already placed on the drawing area?
A No. The text frame encloses a special text area in which you modify only that area's font size, style, and colors. If you anchor text and click outside that text's text frame, you must erase the text and replace it with text that's a different font, size, or color if you want to change text that's outside of a text frame.

Q Why would I want to combine both text and graphics in my word processor?
A Often you'll write reports or send letters that can be spiced up nicely by artwork. One of the most common forms of artwork on letters is a letterhead, used by virtually every business in the world. If you want to write a letter using a letterhead, first create that letterhead logo inside Paint, and then insert that letterhead at the top of every business letter that you write. Your clients will think you pay a professional typesetting company to print your letterheads!

Q I'm no artist, so why should I learn Paint?
A As just stated, there are many applications that combine text and graphics. In the world of communications, which ranges from business to politics, pictures can convey the same meaning as thousands of words can. Graphics catch people's attention more quickly than text. When you combine the details that text provides with the attention-grabbing effect of graphics, you're sure to have an audience.
There are many other graphic reasons to master Paint as well. You might want to use Paint to produce these graphic publications:
Perhaps the best reason to learn to use Paint: Hey, as this hour's introduction stated, it's fun!

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