To create a top-notch document or presentation, you need to not only draw the details precisely, but also keep an eye on the document pages as a whole. To help you out, LayOut has the Zoom Tool () and Pan Tool (). You find these tools on the View menu. Because you'll likely use them often, they're also accessible with your mouse.

Most applications have a few editing commands in common (copy, cut, paste, undo, and delete), and LayOut is definitely part of that crowd. Moreover, the way these commands work is similar to, if not the same as, other applications. In the following sections, you find a quick introduction to LayOut’s editing commands.

In LayOut, whenever you click a color swatch (like the swatches in the Shape Style panel) or select Window > Colors, LayOut transports you to the Colors panel, where you have a half dozen ways to choose and organize the colors for your LayOut document. Tip: If you need to match your document colors to your company’s or client’s branding or just want to use colors consistently across documents, the Colors panel options enable you to choose those colors precisely and even save color swatches for later use.

You can mask out a portion of a model or image by creating a clipping mask. When you create a clipping mask, you see only the portion of the model or image that appears within a shape. To create a clipping mask, follow these steps:

In LayOut, you can bend lines and shapes - no telekinetic powers required! All you need is LayOut's path editor. Okay, that might be a tiny fib. You need the path editor and a little knowledge about editing vector graphics and Bézier curves. After you know the tricks, however, bending lines and shapes is easy, and this article explains all the basics to help you get started.

Do your shapes seem a little empty inside? To help your ideas stand out on-screen, use LayOut's Fill features to add a pop of color, and use the Pattern features to create hatches, which symbolize materials in architectural drawings, as shown in the following figure.

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported Models In LayOut, you can customize the color, width, style, and end points for lines, arcs, and freehand lines as well as strokes on shapes, text boxes, dimensions, labels, inserted images, and SketchUp model entities. You find all these options in the Stroke settings on the Shape Style panel.

LayOut's Split and Join tools have something in common with the typical love interests in a pop music album. The Split tool tears shapes apart, and the Join tool brings them back together. Fortunately, in LayOut, splitting and joining shapes involves very little drama. To split a line or shape,

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported Models Need a hexagon shape to show off a model of your bee-keeping facilities? Want a pentagon icon to illustrate a five-phase development plan? LayOut’s Polygon tool enables you to draw a polygon with any number of sides.

Tip: Inserted SketchUp files can now contain Dashed Lines, to learn more about managing those new line types with inserted files, see Working with SketchUp Dashes in Imported Models Want to make your LayOut document a little more well-rounded? Perhaps a circle or ellipse can help.