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[Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:06 am
by Piet1952
Sorry if I overlooked a solution for this.
I am trying create a line with arrows in it, it needs to have small arrows in it , because there are many lines beside each other.
Also it would be good to have it inserting more arrows as the line gets longer.
Any ideas?

Thanks, Piet.

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:13 am
by Hagar Delest
Hi and welcome to the forum!

I don't think there is a way to do it directly. Personally, I create small lines, as short as possible, to keep only the end arrow and duplicate them, move them above the main line and group the whole thing. NB: I understand that you want arrows not only at the end of the line but also in the middle.

Don't forget to use Shift + click when resizing the small lines, it keeps the initial direction of the line.

Please add '[Solved]' at the beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:37 am
by Piet1952
Thanks Hagar Delest,
that may work, I will try it.
Would it be possible to have a line, say a vertical line with the letter v in this, and copy this a number of times in a line,
and then save this as a line?
Or would that created line then, if you would put it horizontal would the letter v then turn automatically to cross the line?
Just a thought from a solution seeker.

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 2:04 pm
by Hagar Delest
Don't mix characters with graphical objects, you'll have problems with spacing/font size/centering/...

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:20 pm
by Piet1952
I only found this article late tonight, and see if I can do something with this tomorrow,
it is a older source, anything I have to be careful with due to the version OO change?
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/ ... nd_cr.html

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:26 pm
by Hagar Delest
You can try, the version doesn't matter.

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:53 pm
by acknak
Piet1952 wrote:I only found this article late tonight, and see if I can do something with this tomorrow ...
You can make custom shapes but they can still be placed only at the ends of a line; it won't help with your basic problem. You can't do anything with the custom shapes that you couldn't also do with the standard shapes.

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:57 pm
by RoryOF
There is an extension containing arrows. Whether these will suit your purpose I cannot say.
Arrows extension

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 1:11 am
by Piet1952
Ok, thanks for your reply's
I think the way to work is the first reply:

I don't think there is a way to do it directly. Personally, I create small lines, as short as possible, to keep only the end arrow and duplicate them, move them above the main line and group the whole thing. NB: I understand that you want arrows not only at the end of the line but also in the middle.

Don't forget to use Shift + click when resizing the small lines, it keeps the initial direction of the line.


Just this: the lines I am using are all the same size, different colors, and different styles,
can i make the custom arrows smaller, so they are just seen like little hairs, as a figure of speech?
Thanks again, Piet

Re: Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 1:28 am
by Hagar Delest
Of course you can, check the properties of the line, you can control the size of the arrows.

Re: [SOLVED]Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 4:30 am
by Piet1952
Thanks for the help!

Re: [Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 5:45 pm
by alg
You can modify all defaults for object creation when setting values without having an object selected. E.g. with no object selected, choose the 'line' dialog. Select line width, arrow style and all you need as wanted. After leaving with OK this will be the defaults for drawing new objects. This also works e.g. with choosing fill style when no object is selected.
Then double-click on the line tool to start drawing lines. Each object generator button can be used with double-click if you do not only want to create a single object, but continued ones. In the line example, you can then draw as many lines as you want until you select another drawing tool.

HTH!

Re: [Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 7:35 pm
by acknak
As I understood the question, the problem is not drawing lines with arrows at the end(s), but lines with arrows distributed throughout the length of the line--as used in logic or piping diagrams to indicate direction of flow.

With Draw, you can either snap together lines with arrows end-to-end, or add/place the interior arrows by hand.

Re: [Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:47 pm
by alg
Upps, okay, sorry, I did not understand it. For drawing something like 'patterned' lines there is no direct support. But this is a nice idea for a feature. Is this in some form offered by other programs, and when yes, how? I'm thinking about how this could be offered intuitively. Maybe as some extension to the LineStyle...?

Re: [Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:10 pm
by Lolo
Here is an easy way to change the size of the arrow end without changing the size of the line:
When the points are edited, do a right click on the line, and click on the top entry "line".
It opens a window where you can change separatly both the size of the line and the arrow.
Hope that helps you guys.

Re: [Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 11:48 pm
by OldManRiver
All,

I see all this stuff about lines and arrows, but the capability doesn't even exist anywhere in the App.

There is no "Insert Line" option of any "Arrow" toolbar, nor any insert from the "Lines" toolbar.

Where are you all in la la land? Am I missing a plugin here?

OMR

Re: [Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 8:56 am
by Hagar Delest
It's a very basic feature of Draw! Make sure the View>Toolbars>Drawing entry is checked. Then at bottom of the screen you should see the icons to create lines. Once the line is done, right click it to access the arrow options.

NB: latest version is Apache OpenOffice 3.4. If you want to install it, see: [Ubuntu] Installing OOo on Debian and Co.

Re: [Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 1:18 pm
by acknak
Also in the Drawing toolbar, there are button-menus with several varieties of lines with arrowheads and block arrows.

Draw doesn't use an explicit "insert thing" interface. Instead, you just click on the drawing tool you want to use and click+drag in the drawing area.

Re: [Solved] Drawing a line with arrow heads

Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 12:24 pm
by alg
I found a way now. Create the polygon you want, set a line style as you want (e.g. 1 cm line parts, 0.5 cm gap). You need an arrow at one end, else the 'convert to Contour is not available. Use it. You get a group, ungroup it and delete the polygon which was created for the arrow. Select the polygon, use 'Split' from the context menu (not 'Break', this may create more lines than wanted for this purpose when using beziers). You now have a single object for each line segment, all selected. Set arrow at all of them as needed.