Google Drawing

Drawing is Google's cloud based drawing application. It is part of the GSuite.

What is Google Drawing?

Google Drawing is a cloud based drawing app from Google.

Google Drawing is a stand alone app, but is also embedded into other apps in the GSuite. Drawing is a powerful tool for creating graphics, including .SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) files.

What can I do with Drawing?

Drawing is great for creating graphics, designs, mind maps, flow charts and logos. It is also useful for single-page documents with lots of design elements. Drawings can be pasted into Slides and other GDrive apps for greater flexibility, or downloaded as stand alone files. Once downloaded, however, drawings can not be edited.

Working with Drawing

Setting up Drawing

When creating a new Drawing, the default setting is for display on a screen (ratio of 4:3, 16:9 or 16:10). By selecting File > Page Setup you can select Custom and modify the page size to be more appropriate for printing.

Checkerboard

The background of the Drawing appears like a grey and white checkerboard. In computer graphics programs, this indicates transparency.

Building an Image

You can build an image in Drawings by using shapes, lines, wordart and text elements. Here are a few common tasks and procedures to employ when creating graphics.

Adding (perfect) Shapes

You can add a perfect shape by holding down the shift key on the keyboard as you draw the shape. This is particularly useful when drawing circles.

Aligning Shapes

You can align shapes and other elements with the page, or other shapes. Look out for the alignment lines appearing on the drawing.

Group & Recolouring Shapes

Press Shift and either click on the shapes you would like to join together or drag a marquee around them. Go to Arrange > Group

Click on the shape and choose the colours from the menu bar. You can change the colour of both the fill and the line.

Quick Copy Shapes

To quickly copy a shape, press down Option (on Macs) or Ctrl (on Windows) and drag the copy to a new location.

Connecting Shapes

You can connect shapes together with lines and arrows to create mind maps.

Click on the shape and choose the colours from the menu bar. You can change the colour of both the fill and the line.

Working with custom colours

You can create your own colours and transparency on shapes by clicking Custom in the colour window. You can adjust colours with the slider, or paste in HEX values.

You can search online for HEX colour values and colour pallets.

Two good websites are color-hex.com and color.adobe.com.

Downloading

The drawing can be downloaded in a number of common formats. Go to File > Download and choose the format. PNG files are recommended for most online and offline graphics.

PNG files maintain transparency and are good for most designs.

PDF files are good for compatibility and professional printing.

Once downloaded, files cannot be edited in Google Drawings - so keep your online version!

CreditsHeader image created by makyzz - www.freepik.com and used under licence. Icons used under licence from nounproject.com. Screenshots ©2018 Google LLC, used with permission. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google LLC.

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