Draw and fill a trapezoid

[Jim H]

I'm rather an amateur but have been using Xara P&GD for a few years. One thing has always stumped me. How to draw and then fill a trapezoid. Draw four straight lines, two of them parallel, connecting/joining line ends to create the trapezoid; then filling with a color. Every time I draw what I think is a good trapezoid and try to fill it, the whole screen goes to the fill color.

[MVMusic]

Create a rectangle, then convert it to editable shapes and withe the shape tool, select the top left and right control points and adjust them individually by using the left and right arrow keys. Then you can fill it with the color you want.

[ss-kalm]

How are you adding the fill colour? Xara will fill closed shapes automatically. So it should fill when you add the last side, and then you can change it to whatever you want.

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics Jim H.

[mikeymopar]

hmmm...i think i see what you're saying. it's just the way an object is treated if it has a transparent center; there is no "physical" center area to color. as @ss-kalm stated, once the shape is closed it will automatically fill it in IF there is a color already selected as a default on your color tool bar. if there isn't a color then it'll be a transparent center obviously and also is not a part of the shape. notice that when the fill is transparent, when you click in the middle of your shape made with just lines you can't actually select the shape. so dragging a color to the center is going to change the entire page background color as you are seeing. you need to click on the lines somewhere to select the shape and then just click on a color to fill it in. once the center is colored and "defined" then you can drag (or eyedropper) a color to the shape itself.

and just to be clear, that's for any object that only consists of solely a perimeter whether it's made by joining several lines or even by using the rectangle, ellipse, quick shape tool too

[wizard509]

Just to add, once the shape is closed and selected you can right click on any color of the color bar and select fill, or right click on the color editor and select fill color. The color editor will look kinda odd at this point but click on it anyway and it will change.

[Jim H]

I'm rather an amateur but have been using Xara P&GD for a few years. One thing has always stumped me. How to draw and then fill a trapezoid. Draw four straight lines, two of them parallel, connecting/joining line ends to create the trapezoid; then filling with a color. Every time I draw what I think is a good trapezoid and try to fill it, the whole screen goes to the fill color.

Thank you all- My main problem is that I didn't have a color selected- duh! I was creating a trapezoid by drawing four lines and connecting the last one and was not able to fill. Then MVMusic described how to create a trapezoid using the rectangle tool/editable shapes/shape tool. This is a new way I was not familiar with. Thanks also to ss-Kalm, Mickeymopar and wizard509 for their input. Great help. I'm on my way now!

[Christine Farrelly]

You don't actually need to convert to shapes, just double click to get the rotation handles and use the skew option or adjust the skew angle in the InfoBar.

Christine

[mikeymopar]

You don't actually need to convert to shapes, just double click to get the rotation handles and use the skew option or adjust the skew angle in the InfoBar.

Christine

very true, it doesn't need to be converted to an editable shape, and not to get nit-picky but.......
double clicking to get the skew handles and sliding them or adjusting the skew in the info bar just yields a parallelogram
for a trapezoid you gotta either join lines -or- draw a rectangle and do as @MVMusic posted

sorry, just my inner math geek channeling here
everybody does have the right idea though

[Acorn]

I like these challenges:

1. Create a box.
2. Parallelogram: Skew it. (there is a Skew angle box).
3. Clone it.
4. Flip it horizontally.
5. Trapezoid/general trapezium: Skew this one if not after an isosceles trapezium.
6. Align both on their bases.
7. Select both.
8. Add shapes.
9. Recolour.

A very quick set of operations that takes longer to document than perform.
Stop at Step 2 for a Parallelogram, omit Step 5 for an isosceles trapezium.

In UK, a trapezoid has no parallel sides, so there will be US/UK ambiguities in my description.

For a Rhombus, you start with a Square and skew.

Acorn