How Do I Draw A Half Circle

Download this keynote example.

http://www.setfreedenver.org/trassh/halfcircle.zip

1. Draw a circle.
2. Select the circle and copy.
3. Open Preview... under the file menu... New from Clipboard...this will copy the circle into Preview. Do a SAVE AS (pdf).
4. Import the circle pdf into keynote. Apply a mask to the circle. Doing this allows you to use a mask on the circle. Make a half circle with the mask.

5. Make an arrow...shorten the staff of the arrow. Rotate the end of the arrow to match the circle end. Select all and group.

If you have Photoshop, Illustrator or Freehand you can do this in one step.

I could do it, but didn't know how to explain it. So, I posted a video here.

http://idisk.mac.com/makentosh-Public/halfcirclearrow.mov

This is how you start with a circle and then use the Draw a Shape tool to draw a half-circle in front of it. Since it's drawn in Keynote, you can change the color and shape of the arrow by using the inspector. Be sure to save this in a separate "clip art" presentation so that you can start a collection of clip art you can use in Keynote, Pages, Numbers, AND iWeb.

Do it the way Kyn said...My approach was off the top of my head.

Thanks you! You answered my question. The video was great!!

Too bad it's so hard to do in Pages...

Thanks,
John B
7th & 8th Grade Math & Yearbook Guy
Randy Smith Middle School
Fairbanks, AK

It's not really different from Keynote. Just turn on the alignment guides in Pages' preferences and it works pretty much the same way.

By the way, you could also just EDIT the circle and remove the bottom point, then turn the two side nodes into corner nodes (can't remember the key command, but I know this is possible). That way you don't have to trace a circle, it will have already been correct having started as a real circle.

That will create a half circle, but you won't be able to put an arrow on it (as it's still a closed shape). What I'd like to see in Keynote is some way to "cut" a segment as that would make this a lot easier, but there's not a way to do that yet that I know of.

What would be even better would be for the Shapes palette to have an arc tool, similar to that found in most drawing programs. This would enable drawing arcs or full circles, ellipses, etc. Seems like another suggestion for the Keynote Feedback Forum is in order. http://www.apple.com./feedback/keynote.html