Using Curve Tool to draw lines, arrows and objects
March 22nd, 2006
Among simple drawing tools that are available in PowerPoint, Curve Tool is especially useful for drawing curved lines, arrows and irregular closed objects. Because of its general utility, it should be always available for immediate action in bottom toolbar in PowerPoint as a separate button. Refer to Essential Drawing Tools I and Setting up Your Personal Workspace previous articles for more information on how to place this tools icon in the bottom drawing bar.
In contrast to Freeform and Scribble tools, which also allow drawing curved lines and objects, the Curve tool lets you draw them in a more elegant way. By definition, line fragments (segments) between edit points are curved and this allows you to connect separate objects on the slide in a more creative way. Once the curved line or arrow is finished, using Edit Points dialog box, as we will show later, you can change the line curvature, make some segments within the curved line straight and other curved. Drawing curved lines and arrows is particularly useful when making a molecular biology signaling pathway slide. Here we demonstrate how to draw a simple curved line and arrow consisting of two segments (three editing points).
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