Computer Scrapbooking: Using Draw's Slice Command for Scrapbooking

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Windows Draw 6 or CompletePublisher'99

Putting a Photograph into Text

This tutorial goes through the steps using Micrografx Windows Draw 6, or, Sierra's CompletePublisher'99 for putting a digital photograph inside the letters of a word. This is a great technique for scrapbooking with lots of possible applications! For simplicity's sake, both programs are referred to in the tutorial as "Draw".

Editors Note: Originally published as Micrografx Windows Draw 6, the current version of this program is published by Sierra as CompletePublisher'99. For all practical purposes, they're the same program.

The steps for doing this are more advanced and rely on two techniques covered in earlier tutorials:

1. Cropping digital photographs using "Slice".

2. Turning text into graphic shapes.

You need to be familiar with both of those procedures in order to follow along with this tutorial. All of the steps for importing a digital photograph, doing a basic "slice", and turning text into graphic shapes are covered in those tutorials and are not covered here again.

To follow along you'll need to have:

- Either Micrografx Windows Draw 6 or Sierra's CompletePublisher'99.

- A digital photograph to slice. This can be a photograph you have scanned, taken with a digital camera, or from a computer disk with your photographs that you got from a photo lab.

Let's get started!

1. Start Draw and create a new blank page.

2. Import a digital photograph into your page.

3. Create a text block with the word "CAT" in it. Change the font face to Arial Black and size the text to 140 points.

4. Using the Object Properties window, change the text so that it has no fill color and has a black 4 point outline for the letters.

5. Turn the text into shapes and then ungroup the letters so that there are 3 individual graphics.

6. Select all 3 of the letters and position them so they are on top of the photograph.

A quick "Slice" review:

If you recall from the Slice tutorial, Draw uses 2 objects when doing a Slice. One is the cookie dough (photograph) and the other is the cookie cutter (the graphic shape).

If you try to do a Slice with more than 2 objects selected, Draw will give you an error message. Why? With more than 2 objects selected, Draw doesn't know which is being used as the dough and which is being used as the cutter.

That's the reason why we ungroup the letters in the word. When grouped together, Draw doesn't know what to slice or what to slice it with. By ungrouping the letters we can select the photograph and one letter, do a Slice, then select the photograph again along with the next letter, do a Slice, and so on. (When you were doing Slices in the Slicing tutorial you may have wondered why Draw left the extra dough behind after doing a slice. This is a good reason!)

7. We're going to do one more trick here to help enhance you're finished letters! Before we start slicing, select all 3 of the letters (just the letters and not the photograph).

8. With all 3 letters selected, go the Edit menu and select the Copy command.

9. Go back to the Edit menu and select the Paste command. A copy of the letters is pasted onto your page.

10. With the copy of the letters still selected, go to the Tools menu and select the Group command. We're going to use this group set of letters later! For now just drag them off to the side and out of the way.

11. OK, now lets get back to Slicing! Click on the photograph to select it and while holding down the Shift key, click on the letter "C".

12. From the Tools menu select the Slice Object command. When you do, the "C" shape is cut into the photograph. It looks like the "C" just disappeared and nothing happened, but trust me, it did!

13. Now lets click on the photograph again and shift click on the "A". Go back to the Tools menu and select Slice Object again. When you do the "A" is cut into the photo.

14. Select the photograph one more time, shift click on the "T", go back to the Tools menu and select the Slice Object command one last time!

15. Click on the photograph somewhere outside of where the letters used to be and then press the Delete key. When you do, the leftover photograph from around the letters is deleted.

16. There's still one more extra piece of the photograph left. That's the piece inside of the "A". It's been cut but we still need to delete it. So, click in the area where the cutout for the "A" is supposed to be. (You should see only a small selected object, not the entire "A".) When you're sure you have only the little area selected, press the Delete key.

Congratulations, you now have a photograph sliced into the word CAT! As nice as that is, there's still one more thing we can do to enhance this. Are you ready?

17. Select the three photograph letters, go to the Tools menu and select the Group command. Grouped together, we can reposition them anywhere on the page without changing their relative positions to each other.

18. OK, remember the extra set of letters we made? Click on that group of letters, go to the Draw menu and select the Bring to Front Command.

19. With the outline letter shapes still selected, shift click on the group of photo letters so that both groups are selected.

20. From the Draw menu, go to the Align Objects command and select Center. This will align the left to right centers of both object groups.

21. With both object groups still selected, go back to the Draw menu, go to the Align Objects command and select Middle. This will align the top to bottom middles of both object groups.

22. Now you have your photograph inside the word CAT and each letter has a nice sharp outline around it! The outline will cover any jagged edges that might otherwise show up from the edges of the photo letters.

23. Finally, with both letter groups selected, select the Group command from the Draw menu. This will make a single group of the photo letters and the outlines that you can place anywhere on your page without anything getting out of alignment.

There are so many ways you can use this technique to add custom elements to your scrapbook pages! Besides photographs of people, you can use things like scenic photographs or textures. Another great idea would be to use a scan of a map to use inside of the letters for a travel page! There's also lots of different ways that you can use outlines around the letters to create all kinds of special effects! Just use your imagination and have fun!