Working with objects

Before you can work with an object, you must select it. You can select an individual object, multiple objects or all objects on a page. When you select an object, a selection rectangle appears around it.

The gray circle in the object’s lower-right corner is a resize handle.

The green circle above the object is a rotation handle.

The downward arrow in the object’s upper-right corner is a menu arrow. Press the menu arrow to display a menu of commands.

To select an object

1. Press Select.

2. Press the object you want to select.

   A selection rectangle appears around the object.

   Note 

   If you press an object and a lock symbol appears instead of the menu arrow, the object is locked. Depending on the type of lock, you might have to unlock the object before you can manipulate it.

To select multiple objects

1. Press Select.

2. Press the interactive screen and drag until a rectangle surrounds the objects you want to select.

   OR

   Hold down CTRL (Windows operating systems) or the COMMAND (⌘) key (OS X operating system software), and then press the objects you want to select.

   A selection rectangle appears around the selected objects.

   Note 

   If you draw a rectangle around multiple objects and some of the objects are locked, you select only the unlocked objects.

To select all objects on a page

1. Select Edit > Select All.

   A selection rectangle appears around all objects on the page.

   Note 

   If some of the objects are locked, you select only the unlocked objects.

To select all locked objects on the page

1. Select Edit > Select All Locked Notes.

   A selection rectangle appears around all locked objects on the page.

You can change an object’s properties. The properties you can change depend on the object you select. You can also select several objects and change their properties at the same time.

Changing the fill

You can change an object’s fill by selecting the object and then setting the fill in the Properties tab or by clicking Fill, setting the fill, and then selecting the object.

To change an object’s fill by first selecting the object

1. Select the object.

2. If the Properties tab isn’t visible, press Properties.

3. Press Fill Effects.

4. Select a fill style:

   Fill style	Procedure
   None (transparent)	Select No fill.
   Solid color	Select Solid fill. Do one of the following: Select one of the 40 colors in the palette. Press More, and then select a color in the dialog box. Press the eyedropper, and then select a color on the screen.
   Gradient of two colors	Select Gradient fill. For each color, do one of the following: Select one of the 40 colors in the palette. Press More, and then select a color in the dialog box. Press the eyedropper, and then select a color on the screen. Select an option in the Style drop-down list.
   Pattern	Select Pattern fill. Select a pattern. Press Foreground color, select a color in the dialog box, and then press OK. Press Background color, select a color in the dialog box, and then press OK.
   Picture	Select Image fill. Press Browse. A dialog box appears. Browse to and select the picture you want to use as a background, and then press Open. Note  If you insert a large picture, a dialog box may appear and prompt you to either reduce the picture’s file size or retain the picture’s file size. For more information, see Setting image optimization preferences. Select Keep image size to keep the picture’s size, regardless of whether the picture is larger or smaller than the object. OR Select Scale image to fit to resize the picture to fit the object.

5. Optionally, drag the Object transparency slider to the right to make the object transparent.

   Tip 

   You can also change an object’s properties using the property selectors on the toolbar.

To change an object’s fill by first pressing the Fill button

1. Press Fill, and then select a color.

2. Select the object.

3. Repeat step 2 for each object you want to apply the fill to.

Filling digital ink drawings

In addition to filling shapes, regular polygons and irregular polygons, you can fill areas enclosed by digital ink using the Fill button.

Notes 

• To fill an area, you must enclose it with a single digital ink path.

• You’re unable to fill an enclosed area if that area is part of a group (see Grouping objects).

• When you fill an enclosed area, the fill becomes a separate object, which you can move away from the original enclosed area. You can fill the enclosed area and move the resulting fill object multiple times.

Changing other properties

In addition to fill, you can change objects’ line style and text style.

To change an object’s line style

1. Select the object.

2. If the Properties tab isn’t visible, press Properties.

3. Press Line Style.

4. Change the object’s line style.

To change an object’s text style

1. Select the object.

2. If the Properties tab isn’t visible, press Properties.

3. Press Text Style.

4. Change the object’s text style (see Formatting text).

Saving tool settings

When you select a tool in the toolbar, you can change its default settings using the Properties tab and then save your changes by clicking Save Tool Properties.

When you save your changes to a tool’s default settings, the tool’s button displays those changes:

To restore the default settings, see Customizing the toolbar.

You can change the position of an object by moving it to another area of the existing page or to another page. You can also align objects and change the order of stacked objects.

You can use the Alignment Tools add-on to align and distribute objects on a page. You can align selected objects on the bottom, left, right, top, vertically or horizontally. You can also align stacked objects vertically or horizontally.

If you want, you can display guidelines on a page to assist you in manually aligning objects with other objects, as well as the page’s vertical and horizontal centers. You can also set objects to align automatically with these guidelines when you move the objects on a page.

To align objects on a page

1. Select the objects you want to align.

2. Press Add-ons on the toolbar to display the Alignment Tools buttons.

3. Press an alignment button:

   Button	Name	Select this button to:
   	Align bottom	Align selected objects along their bottom edge.
   	Align left	Align selected objects along their left edge.
   	Align middle X	Align selected objects vertically through the middle of the objects.
   	Align middle Y	Align selected objects horizontally through the middle of the objects.
   	Align right	Align selected objects along their right edge.
   	Align top	Align selected objects along their top edge.
   	Stack horizontally	Align selected stacked objects horizontally.
   	Stack vertically	Align selected stacked objects vertically.

To display guidelines

1. Select View > Alignment.

   A dialog box appears.

2. Select check boxes to specify which guidelines you want to display:

   Check box	Select this check box to:
   Show guides for active objects	Display a guideline when you move an object into alignment with another object.
   Show vertical page center guide	Display a guideline when you move an object into alignment with the page’s vertical center.
   Show horizontal page center guide	Display a guideline when you move an object into alignment with the page’s horizontal center.
   Snap objects to guides	Automatically align objects to guidelines when you move the objects on a page.

3. If you want to change the color of the guidelines, press the colored bar to the left of Guide color, and then select a color.

4. Press OK.

If objects overlap on a page, you can rearrange the order of the stack (that is, you can control which objects appear in front of others).

To move an object to the front of the stack

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s menu arrow, and then select Order > Bring to Front.

To move an object to the back of the stack

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s menu arrow, and then select Order > Send to Back.

To move an object one place forward in the stack

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s menu arrow, and then select Order > Bring Forward.

To move an object one place backward in the stack

1. Select the object.

2. Select the object’s menu arrow, and then select Order > Send Backward.

You can cut, copy and paste objects—including text, pictures, straight lines, arcs and shapes—in a .notebook file.

To cut and paste an object

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s menu arrow, and then select Cut.

   Tip 

   Alternatively, you can press Cut if you added this button to the toolbar.

3. If you want to paste the object onto a different page, display that page.

4. Press Paste.

To copy and paste an object

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s menu arrow, and then select Copy.

   Tip 

   Alternatively, you can press Copy if you added this button to the toolbar (see Customizing the toolbar).

3. If you want to paste the item onto a different page, display that page.

4. Press Paste.

You can use a mask to crop images. The mask hides the section of the image you crop out instead of deleting it. This enables you to edit the mask if you want to crop a different section of the image. You can also unmask the image to restore the original image.

To crop an image with a mask

1. Select the image.

2. Press the image’s menu arrow, and then select Mask.

   A cropping mask appears on the image. Cropped out sections of the image are shaded gray.

   

3. Drag the image until the section of the image you want to keep appears in the cropping mask.

4. Optionally, press one of the cropping mask’s eight resize handles (the white circles), and then drag it to increase or reduce the cropping mask’s size.

5. Press anywhere outside of the image to crop it.

To edit the mask

1. Select the image.

2. Press the image’s menu arrow, and then select Edit Mask.

   A cropping mask appears on the image. Cropped out sections of the image are shaded gray.

3. Drag the image until the section of the image you want to keep appears in the cropping mask.

4. Optionally, press one of the cropping mask’s eight resize handles (the white circles), and then drag it to increase or reduce the cropping mask’s size.

5. Press anywhere outside of the image to crop it.

To restore the image

1. Select the image.

2. Press the image’s menu arrow, and then select Unmask.

   The original image is restored.

You can create a duplicate of an object by using the Clone command, or you can create multiple copies of an object using the Infinite Cloner command.

To clone an object

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s menu arrow, and then select Clone.

   A duplicate object appears on the page.

To clone an object using the Infinite Cloner

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s menu arrow, and then select Infinite Cloner.

3. Select the object again.

   An infinity symbol appears instead of the object’s menu arrow.

4. Drag the object to another position on the page.

5. Repeat step 4 as many times as you want.

6. When you finish cloning the object, select the original object.

7. Press the infinity symbol, and then clear the selection of Infinite Cloner.

You can resize objects on a page by using the resize handle or the scale gesture (if your interactive product supports multitouch gestures).

To resize an object using the resize handle

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s resize handle (the gray circle), and then drag it to increase or reduce the object’s size.

   Note 

   To keep the shape’s original height-to-width ratio, hold down SHIFT while you drag the resize handle (Windows operating system only).

To resize multiple objects using the resize handle

1. Group the objects (see Grouping objects), and then select the group.

   A selection rectangle appears around the group.

2. Press the resize handle in the lower-right corner of the selection rectangle.

3. Drag the resize handle to increase or reduce the size of the objects.

To resize or scale an object from its center using gestures

1. Select the object.

2. Using one finger on each hand, press the screen at opposite ends of the object.

3. Drag your fingers in opposite directions to increase the object’s size.

   

   OR

   Drag your fingers toward each other to decrease the object’s size.

   

To resize an object from its corner or side using gestures

1. Select the object.

2. Using one finger on each hand, press the screen at the corner or side you want to resize the object from.

3. Drag your fingers in opposite directions to increase the object’s size.

   OR

   Drag your fingers toward each other to decrease the object’s size.

To resize multiple objects using gestures

1. Select the objects.

2. Using one finger on each hand, press the screen at opposite ends of one of the objects.

3. Drag your fingers in opposite directions to increase the objects’ size.

   OR

   Drag your fingers toward each other to decrease the objects’ size.

   Note 

   The objects resize from their centers regardless of where you press the screen.

To flip multiple objects

1. Select the objects.

2. Press the menu arrow on any one of the selected objects, and then select Flip > Up/Down or Flip > Left/Right.

You can create a group of objects, which lets you interact with all grouped items at the same time. After you create a group, you can select, move, rotate or resize the group as if it were an individual object. However, if you want to interact with an individual object in a group, you must ungroup the objects first.

You can group and ungroup objects manually using the menu or the shake gesture.

To group objects using the menu

1. Select the objects.

2. Press the menu arrow of any one of the selected objects, and then select Group > Group.

To ungroup objects using the menu

1. Select the group.

2. Press the group’s menu arrow, and then select Group > Ungroup.

To group objects with the shake gesture

1. Quickly shake your finger over the objects three times.

   

To ungroup objects with the shake gesture

1. Quickly shake your finger over the group three times.

   

If you write or draw multiple lines, SMART Notebook software automatically combines the lines into a single object. For example, if you write the letters of a word, SMART Notebook software combines the individual letters, enabling you to interact with the whole word. If you want to write words on the same line but don’t want them combined, leave a large gap between them, use different pens, or briefly put the pen in the pen tray before writing another word (interactive whiteboards only).

If SMART Notebook software combined lines that you want to manipulate individually, ungroup the lines as described above.

Although you can erase digital ink, you’re unable to erase some types of objects, including text, shapes, straight lines, arcs and pictures. To remove these types of objects from a page, you must delete them.

To delete an object

1. Select the object.

2. Press the object’s menu arrow, and then select Delete.