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26 Mar 2008: OpenOffice 2.4 released with some improvements in useability for Draw.

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• OpenOffice
• SVG Import Filter

Open Office Draw

I found it easier to understand what Draw was all about by considering the things I wouldn't use it for rather than go through all it's capabilities.

So, I would not use it for Computer Aided Design or for creating Scaleable Vector Graphics, whilst it is capable of dealing with both of these in a rudimentary fashion, there are better products out there. I would use it for Diagramming, Flowcharting and Organisation Charts where it comes up against Microsoft Visio, because it does a very comprehensive job.

Supported Formats

Open Office Draw supports a wide range of formats as well as its own open formats. It scored good points by being able to read files imported from an old version of Micrografx Flowcharter that had long passed its sell by date.
Using Draw I was able to import the flow diagrams I had using WMF, and then save in .odg format, which is the default format used by OpenOffice to save vector graphics files. Concerning file formats I was keen to see how well Draw supported the W3C standard for SVG (Scaleable Vector Graphics) 1.1 Specification. In fact there is a new import filter which works very well and an export filter which I have to get round to testing out. These filters require a Java 5.0 environment and you have to download and use the Tools / Package Manager to install. I was impressed by the new SVG import filter and also like the fact that the export to PDF format is really excellent. It seems a great pity that OpenOffice was not built with full SVG support from the beginning rather than being reliant on installing extensions.

Diagramming

Draw supports layers so that if you are creating a complex diagram you can show as an example all the hardware items on one layer and the electrical wiring circuit on another layer. The layers are transparent so that you can see the interaction of both layers when they are superimposed on to one diagram. You can also arrange for which layers are at the front or back. It has a good range of basic shapes and connectors with or without arrows for the usual types of diagrams. However, it is possible to add custom shapes and connectors by adding these to the Gallery - see next section.

Vector Drawing

There are basic shapes including rectangles, triangles, ellipses, hexagons that you can select and drag them to the drawing. Each of these have handles that can be used to drag to the desired shape. This reminds me a lot of how serif DrawPlus works. When you right click on a shape a dialogue window is shown where you can set colours, gradients, hatching, transparency and shadings. This is very easy to use and I liked the way the controls worked; certainly not as clumsy as those found in Inkscape.

Using the Gallery

The gallery is used to hold the supplied themes and clipart held in C:\Program files\openofficeorg\presets\gallery. You can set your own gallery items in C:\documents and settings\user\application data\openoffice.org\user\gallery. By now there are a large number of samples on the net covering most subjects including electronic symbols, furniture and fittings. The file storage system for gallery is a bit quaint :- there is a .thm, .sdg and .sdv all referred to as storage files for Gallery. You can create a new theme file using the GUI, and update an existing theme file by changing titles, inserting and deleting clipart. You can toggle the gallery on or off using the Tools/Gallery menu item.

Draw Templates

If you want to make greeting cards then there are a number of ready made templates that you can use in Draw. This was about the only use I had for Microsoft Publisher and it is nice to see that this is so easy to use in Draw.