Wikipedia:How to draw a diagram with Dia

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This tutorial aims to instruct a beginner on the basic principles of vector graphics. There are several important vector graphics programs about that allow you to do very fancy things but this tutorial is not going to use them. Instead you will be shown how to use the drawing tools that come with Dia, a GTK+ based diagram creation program.

[edit] Getting Started

Start the app with:

dia

Click on File/New. You are now ready to populate your diagram.

Notice the main window layout:

+-------------------------+
|          Menu.          |
+-------------------------+
|Pointer and basic shapes |
+-------------------------+
|   Style/shape library   |
+-------------------------+
|Shapes for chosen library|
+-------------------------+
|  Colors and line width  |
+-------+-----------+-----+
| first |line style | last|
| arrow |           |arrow|
+-------+-----------+-----+
Image:Dia toolbox.png

Using a combination of these tools you can make any shape you desire.

Like The Gimp, Dia depends heavily on a menu on the right mouse button inside the diagram. That menu contains all the diagram-specific actions and a few other things, so you almost never have to find the menu on the toolbox.

[edit] Limitations

Dia's SVG output is currently buggy and may not produce the desired outcome, please preview svg images before uploading them. Some problems may be fixed by importing dia svg output to inkscape

See also: Wikipedia:Graphics tutorials

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