Ellipse Objects

Ellipse objects allow you to add circles, ovals, or other elliptical shapes to your page. You can use the Vertex Editor to create arcs and pie shapes, pie pieces, wedges, fans, shells, “Pac-Men,” etc. out of ellipse objects.

Ellipse objects can be an important part of your page design. You can use them to add buttons. You can apply fill shading components, such as gradient fills to make marbles, or image fills to create a “periscope” effect. By applying the rotate and skew transformations, you can make a variety of unusual shapes.

Drawing a Pie Shape

1. With the page open in the Work Window on which you want to draw a pie shape, draw a circle. For more information, see New Objects.
2. Click the Edit Vertices button: in the Components Bar.

   The mouse pointer will become a crosshairs, and the ellipse object will display two small control points at the top left and bottom right corners. Two tiny “x’s” will appear at the 3 o’clock position on the circle.

   Click the outermost “x” on the circle.

3. Click the outermost “x” and drag it in a counter-clockwise direction around the circumference of the circle.

   Drag the mouse counterclockwise along the circumference.

4. Release the mouse at a desired point on the circumference.

   The circle will be redrawn as a pie-shape.

   The circle will be redrawn as a pie shape.

Click and drag the “x’s” and control points in various directions to experiment making other shapes, including pie pieces, wedges, teardrops, fans, watermelon slices, or shells.