Flash drawing and painting tools

Flash provides various tools for drawing freeform or precise lines, shapes, and paths, and for painting filled objects.

• To draw freeform lines and shapes as if drawing with a real pencil, you use the Pencil tool. See Drawing with the Pencil tool.
• To draw precise paths as straight or curved lines, you use the Pen tool. See Using the Pen tool.
• To draw basic geometric shapes, you use the Line, Oval, and Rectangle tools. See Drawing straight lines, ovals, and rectangles.
• To draw polygons and stars, you use the PolyStar tool. See Drawing polygons and stars.
• To create brushlike strokes as if painting with a brush, you use the Brush tool. See Painting with the Brush tool.

When you use most Flash tools, the Property inspector changes to present the settings associated with that tool. For example, if you select the Text tool, the Property inspector displays text properties, making it easy to select the text attributes you want. For more information on the Property inspector, see Using panels and the Property inspector.

When you use a drawing or painting tool to create an object, the tool applies the current stroke and fill attributes to the object. To change the stroke and fill attributes of existing objects, you can use the Paint Bucket and Ink Bottle tools in the toolbar or the Property inspector. See Using the Stroke Color and Fill Color controls in the toolbar or Using the Stroke Color and Fill Color controls in the Property inspector.

You can reshape lines and shape outlines in a variety of ways after you create them. Fills and strokes are treated as separate objects. You can select fills and strokes separately to move or modify them. See Reshaping lines and shape outlines.

You can use snapping to automatically align elements with each other and with the drawing grid or guides. See Snapping and About the main toolbar and edit bar.

You can customize the toolbar to change the display of tools. See Customizing the toolbar.