Wikipedia talk:Historical archive/How to draw a diagram with Microsoft Word

The reason for this is because programs like Coral Draw cost lots and lots of money to buy and so are not likely to be owned by novices, whereas Microsoft Word is found on most computers, at home, school or place of business.

> Microsoft office costs A LOT of $$$, this is wrong. You better make pages for GIMP or openoffice.org

Better yet, you could. It's hard to give orders to an army of volunteers. ;-) -- Stephen Gilbert

Thank you Stephan for editing the blood boiling "reason". I personally couldn't edit it myself because I might vandalize an article that help users use Microsoft software.

Yes thanks Stephen, it reads a lot better.

Mostafa, could you do us a favour and sign you name after a comment on a talk page, saves me having to go through previous versions to see who said what, if you type ~~~~ the software will sign for you,{saves typing} As for GIMP, I might write a how to page in the future, but GIMP is a raster not vector program so it's a different type of article.I'm not familiar with open office so I can't write such a page, but if you do I'll be happy to copyedit. Theresa knott 15:33 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Glad to be of service, folks. Mostafa, just for the record, the GIMP seems to be the image editor of choice for many Wikipedians; see for example Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:How to reduce colors for saving a JPEG as PNG for some GIMP bias. ;-) -- Stephen Gilbert

Sorry for not signing my name. Well here is a quick clone to your article TheresaHow to draw a diagram with OpenOffice.org Write :) Thanks for the comment Stephen --Mostafa Hussein

A nice start, can you join objects together, rotate them etc etc? Theresa knott 19:41 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Isn't using Word to draw pictures rather like using Excel to write essays? If you really want to discuss using non-drawing-tool-software to draw with, I would have thought Powerpoint was a better choice. I might try a How to balance your finances using calc.exe and Notepad article.  :) charlieF

Not really, since Theresa has produced some very nice drawings for Wikipedia using Word's drawing tools. Thanks Theresa! -- Stephen Gilbert

Thanks Stephen.The reason I chose Word over some other non-drawing-tool-software was because I can use Word to produce diagrams. Had I tried to write How to draw a diagram with Microsoft Powererpoint It would have been a pretty abismal tutorial seeing as I've never used it Theresa knott 19:41 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Both pages were removed. Sorry, that was some pretty good hard work. Nice working with you guys. I will have to go --Mostafa Hussein

Come now, no need to leave over such a minor issue! Both tutorials are safe and sound in a new location: Wikipedia:How to draw a diagram with Microsoft Word and Wikipedia:How to draw a diagram with OpenOffice.org Writer. -- Stephen Gilbert

Why remove them? It's knowledge. It's actually useful knowledge, which is more than can be said for a great many Wilkipedia entries. Tannin 16:39 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

At least they should be moved to Meta. Someone has spent many hours on this -- Chris Q 16:44 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

This entry was removed - wikipedia is not a software tutorial! --Magnus Manske 16:25 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia does have a wide variety of howtos, though. I've moved the article to Wikipedia:How to draw a diagram with Microsoft Word, since it is useful information for Wikipedians. -- Stephen Gilbert 16:56 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

The reason I wrote the tutorial in the first place was becuase a lot of the scientific and technical pages on Wikipedia are abismally short of diagrams. Take chromatography as an example. No diagram of the apparatus, no rainbows on paper.To quote a cliche -A picture is worth a thousand words!

I will be turning my attention to that page soon but I can catch 'em all. I use Word to create diagrams because I draw them at work, so I can't use "proper" software. If other people can learn from a tutorial, they too can sneakily draw diagrams at quite times during the working day, and pepper wikipedia with artwork, and that has got to be a good thing Theresa knott 19:41 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Inkscape

Hello,

Should alternative programs that produce SVG output be mentioned here, at least in passing? Scalable graphics are great, and as far as i know not supported by MS word. Perhaps programs such as inkscape should be added to the page? It solves the $$ problem completely (unlike word), and produces nicer drawings. User A1 10:44, 3 June 2007 (UTC)