Drawing a Half-Circle and Half-Ellipse (Word 2003)?

  • Thread starter Thread starter W. Watson
  • Start date Start date
W

W. Watson

Is there any easy was to draw the two objects above? I tried the 'arc' in
the basic shapes, but it's very tricky to manipulate. The little (yellow,
white, and green) circles never give me the control I expect.

Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
 
The arc is the way to go. To help you draw an exact half, draw a straight
line first. Start at the line and draw an arc (which is one-quarter of an
ellipse or, pressing Shift, circle), then drag the "free" yellow diamond to
the line. You don't need to use the white circles to size the object or the
green one to rotate; the size and rotation can be entered directly on the
Size tab of the Format AutoShape dialog.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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Suzanne said:
The arc is the way to go. To help you draw an exact half, draw a straight
line first. Start at the line and draw an arc (which is one-quarter of an
ellipse or, pressing Shift, circle), then drag the "free" yellow diamond to
the line. You don't need to use the white circles to size the object or the
green one to rotate; the size and rotation can be entered directly on the
Size tab of the Format AutoShape dialog.
Click to expand...
I drew a horizontal line about 2" long. I then used Shift-Arc and placed the
crosshair on the left end of the line, and moved across to the right end,
where I released it. That drew a slopping arc rising upward to the right. It
looks like it's about 1/4 of something close to an arc of a circle, but not
really a circle. I then dragged the left yellow diamond down to the left end
of the line and released the cursor. That caused the arc to be similar but
about 2/3rds the length as before. I then tried this again, and brought the
left diamond to the right end of the line, and got a large ellipse.

Isn't either end of the arc free?
 
I was using a vertical line. Start your arc at the line. When you finish the
arc, the other end will not be on the line (that is the "free" end). The arc
you create is by definition one quarter of an ellipse (or a circle if you're
pressing Shift when you draw it). You cannot make more than a quarter circle
no matter how far you drag it (you just make a larger arc). To make it into
a semicircle, you have to grab the diamond on the free end and drag it to
the line. If you want a horizontal semicircle, then you can use a horizontal
line, but you will be dragging up (or down) instead of right or left as I
was.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
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