The Styles & Clip Art Palette
Artboard ships with an outstanding Library of over 1700 uniques styles and editable vector clip art! Plus, any styles and graphics you create can be added to the user's Library. These are accessible to you from the Styles & Clip Art palette while you draw.
While styles and clip art are both present in the Styles & Clip Art palette, the palette is smart about the type of tool you have active. Choose your tool, then choose a style to apply to that tool while it is active. Items that can be used with the active tool are enabled and highlighted, disabled items are subtly grayed-out. For example, when you draw a shape the stroke and fill styles are enabled. Clip art are enabled when the Clip Art Stamp tool is being used. All styles and clip art are enabled while the Select tool is active.
Show Hide Recognizing How Items Look in the Palette:
Artboard delivers with hundreds of styles and clip art items combined together in the Artboard Collection. Items are organized into categories accessible from the Library drop-down menu. You can tell an item's type by its appearance in the palette:
- Path styles are shown with a curved stroke
- Fill styles are shown in a square
- Clip art look just like their graphic
Hover your cursor over any item and its name and type (style or clip art) will appear in the tooltip.
HINT: clip art may need ungrouped to edit after you place them in your drawing.
Show Hide To Draw with Existing Styles:
- Open the Styles & Clip Art palette.
- Choose a drawing tool from the Tools palette.
- Choose a stroke or fill style from the Styles & Clip Art palette (note, clip art will be visible but not selectable).
- Start drawing.
- Continue drawing (subsequent objects have the same style properties until they are changed).
To change styles, click once onto a different style in the Styles & Clip Art palette and continue drawing. See The Styles & Clip Art Palette for more information about drawing with extensive built-in styles.
Show Hide To Browse Collections and Categories:
- From the Styles & Clip Art palette toolbar, choose the Library icon for a drop-down list of collections and categories.
- Use the forward and back buttons to navigate through previously visited categories.
- Search for styles and clip art from the search bar.
HINT: Search results are returned for the currently selected category. If you want to search the entire Collection, make sure "Artboard Collection" is chosen from the drop-down menu.
Show Hide To Apply a Different Library Style to an Existing Object:
Do one of the following:
- With the object selected, double-click a stroke or fill style from the Styles & Clip Art palette.
- Press the cursor onto a style from Styles & Clip Art palette and drag it onto and existing object, release.
HINT: An alert pops up to confirm you intended the change. This alert can be turned off and reset in the Artboard > Preferences… menu.
Show Hide To Add Clip Art to Your Drawing:
Do one of the following:
- Choose the Select [s] tool from the Tools palette then drag-and-drop clip art from the Styles & Clip Art palette directly onto your drawing canvas (note, you can also drag clip art directly from the Library Manager).
- Choose the Clip Art Stamp tool, choose a clip art from the palette then click one or more times onto the drawing canvas to place the clip (note, while the Clip Art Stamp tool is active, all clip art is enabled in the palette).
Show Hide To Edit Clip Art:
All clip art in the Mapdiva built-in collection, with the exception of country flags, are fully editable vector objects. Many clip art are made up of groups of objects which need ungrouped one or more times to edit them.
- Add clip art to your drawing.
- Choose the Select [s] tool and select to edit the clip art.
- As needed (if the clip art is a group) ungroup the objects by doing one of the following:
- Choose Graphic > Ungroup from the main menu (repeat as needed).
- Right-click and choose Ungroup from the context menu.
HINT: Some clip art may have groups within groups. Text may be edited within a group without ungrouping. Styles may by picked up with the Style Dropper tool without ungrouping.
Show Hide To Add Your Own Clip Art to the Library Manager:
Clip art are a great way to reuse elements of your drawings in other works. Any graphic you draw can be saved as your own clip art in Artboard. If your graphic is made up of two or more objects, those objects must be grouped if it is to be saved as a single clip art.
- Create your graphic(s) and group the objects as necessary.
- Select one or more separate graphics (each separate graphic or group will be added as an individual clip art).
- Do one of the following:
- Choose Graphic > Add Clip Art to Library from the main menu.
- If available, click the Add Clip Art icon from the toolbar (note, the Add Clip Art icon can be added to the toolbar by customizing the toolbar).
- Use the CMND-Y keyboard shortcut.
The clip art is automatically added to the Library Manager and is available immediately under "My Library" from the Styles & Clip Art Palette.
For more information about organizing your own clip art and styles, see The Library Manager.