Using libraries

You can store frequently used objects or groups of objects (including bitmap objects) in a library as symbols. You can then paste these symbols onto your page.

After you paste a symbol from the library onto a graphics page, it can be moved, re-sized, re-shaped, brought to the front, and its properties can be edited, just like any other type of object.

You can define Metadata for a pasted symbol and on the separate animation points that make up that symbol. Each of these animation points will have different ANs. Access to this metadata is obtained through its corresponding AN.

You can paste a symbol from the library to the page:

• As an unlinked symbol; the pasted symbol is not updated with changes to the symbol in the library.
• As a linked symbol; the symbol on the page is updated when the symbol in the library is changed (to alter the properties of a symbol in the library, open the library and edit it in the library). If you edit the symbol from the page and then change the source symbol in the library, the pasted symbol changes. For example, if you double the size of a pasted symbol, then double the size of the symbol in the library, the pasted symbol doubles again. You can cut the link to the library by using the Edit | Cut Link command.

When you save an object in a library, the current properties of that object are saved with it. When you paste it as a symbol to a graphics page, they are used as defaults for the symbol. Pasted symbols have different Appearance properties to those of normal objects: you can only specify a visibility property.

When a symbol is pasted onto a page, the objects that form the symbol cannot be accessed from the page by double-clicking the symbol. To display the properties of these objects, hold the Control (CTRL) key down and double-click the specific object. Alternatively, you can select Goto Object from the Tools | the group, and click OK. However, if the link to the library is retained, most of these properties are read-only.

A symbol would be useful, for example, if you have defined a command button with a particular security classification, and you need to use it on quite a few graphics pages. You could save it as a symbol, and each time you want to use the button, paste it from the library. Each time it is pasted, it will have the same properties.