Sketching

The Sketcher is a fully featured drawing and illustration plug-in for The Text Editor which allows you to create precisely editable graphics using lines, shapes, fills and customisable text.

Note that:

• Sketching can be done on a tablet using fingertip tap, swipe and draw gestures, or using a computer mouse.
• Elements remain independently editable and selections can be temporarily stored for re-use in other sketches (see Templates bar in the Features of the Sketcher section)
• Sketches can be stand-alone illustrations, but the sketcher can also be used to annotate existing images
• Copy-pasting a sketch will create a separate version, and editing the copy will not affect the original sketch

Opening the Sketcher

To begin using the sketcher to make a sketch, you must be in a document text field with the Text Editor open for editing. Open the Sketcher either:

• from the Insert menu of the Text Editor, choosing Insert Sketch from the drop-down

• click the Insert Sketch icon in the plug-ins segment of the bottom toolbar.

A Sketch dialog window will open.

Annotating an existing image

To annotate an existing image:

1. Click on the image in the Text Editor, so that it becomes highlighted and a sub-menu pops up
2. In that sub-menu, click on the Sketcher icon:

Features of the Sketcher

The Sketcher window contains:

1. On the left-side, a range of drawing tools.

1. On the right-side, settings that can be applied to objects in the sketch – the options appear when an object is selected.

1. Fragments of sketches can be selected and saved in the Templates bar on the far right of the sketcher. To do this, select an object with the mouse tool (very top-left tool), and click Save selection in the Templates bar. This object can then be re-used in any other diagram or image annotation during the current editing session, but they will not persist when the browser is closed and re-opened.