Drawing flow and dimension lines
You can draw flow lines in flowcharts and organizational charts to connect chart shapes. Objects stay connected by these lines even when you move one or both objects. For information about drawing flowchart shapes, see “Drawing predefined shapes.”
You can draw callout lines that label and draw attention to objects.
You can also draw dimension lines to indicate the distance between two points in a drawing or the size of objects. By default, dimension lines and the measurements shown on the lines change when you change an object’s size.
You can set how dimension lines are displayed. For example, you can specify dimension units, style, and precision as well as add a prefix or suffix to the dimension text. You can also set default values for all new dimension lines that you create.
Dimension lines can show the sizes of parts of an object.
To be able to use flow, callout, and dimension lines with precision, you need to snap them to specific nodes in objects. For more information about snapping and snapping modes, see “Snapping objects.”
To draw a flow line between two or more objects |  |
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Angled connector
 — to create a flow line containing right angles. The flow line can be a sequence of vertical or horizontal segments, or both. |
— to create a straight flow line at any angle|
You can also
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Move a segment in a flow line containing right angles
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Using the Shape tool
 , select a flow line, and drag the node that you want to move. |
To draw a callout | |
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on the property bar.|
A text cursor
 is displayed at the end of the callout line, indicating where to type a label for the object. |
To draw a dimension line | |
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Vertical dimension tool
 — to create a vertical dimension line that measures the vertical distance between any two nodes (along the y-axis) |
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Horizontal dimension tool
 — to create a horizontal dimension line that measures the horizontal distance between any two nodes (along the x-axis) |
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Slanted dimension tool
 — to create a slanted dimension line that measures the length of slanted line segments |
— to create a vertical or horizontal dimension line
on the property bar. Click where you want the two lines that measure the angle to intersect. Click where you want the first line to end, and click where you want the second line to end. Click where you want the angle’s label to appear.To set how the dimension units are displayed | |
on the property bar is enabled.
on the property bar, and click a text position.
Format text. Choose a font style from the Font list box, and type a value in the Size box.To set default properties for new dimension lines | |