Introduction

Welcome to OmniGraffle 2 for iPad!

Thanks for taking the next big leap in advancement on your path to being an awesome designer. OmniGraffle 2 for iPad is packed with a ton of new goodies, including a straight up redesign for iOS 8.

This new iteration of OmniGraffle has been optimized for iOS 8, and the user interface has—once again—gone through a massive transformation.

And finally, there’s a new place in Omni’s family: Stenciltown. Stenciltown is where you can safely find and download new stencils for use with OmniGraffle.

Created with love,

The Omni Group

How This Documentation is Organized

This wonderful manual that you have before you (either in OmniGraffle itself, online, or in iBooks on your Mac or iOS device—or both) has been assembled in such a way that you’re provided with a complete tour of OmniGraffle.

You’ll start out with an overview of OmniGraffle’s interface. Don’t skip over this chapter, as you’ll find many nuggets of information and fine details about OmniGraffle that you might otherwise miss. And, if you do decide to skip this chapter and later find yourself wondering, “Hey, what’s that doohickey do?”, you can always come back here to discover what it’s all about.

To help guide you through the documentation and better learn all the things you need to know about OmniGraffle, here’s a list of all of the chapters in this book:

Chapter 1, Getting Synced

Whether you are just using OmniGraffle on your iPad, or if you’re using it alongside OmniGraffle for Mac, it’s important for you to keep a backup of your illustrations and diagrams in the cloud. OmniGraffle uses our own cloud service, called OmniPresence, to synchronize files with your free Omni Sync Server account or to another WebDAV server of your choosing. Once synchronized, you can access the things you draw in OmniGraffle on your iPad over on your Mac and vice versa. It’s pretty cool; you should check it out.

This first chapter walks you through the process of setting up a cloud account in OmniGraffle on your iPad.

Chapter 2, Getting Started with OmniGraffle

The first chapter dives right in and gives you a top-down overview of OmniGraffle’s user interface. You’ll learn about the Resource Browser, Toolbar, Sidebar, the Inspectors and, of course, the Canvas. Nothing too deep; just the basics to get you rolling.

Chapter 3, Using the Inspectors

Once you’ve learned about the Tools, you can use the Inspectors to examine the things you draw and modify their properties. Chapter 3 also examines the Stencils built into OmniGraffle and introduces you to Stenciltown.

Chapter 4, Drawing Basics

Here you’ll learn some of the basic ways to draw and create objects on the canvas. You will learn how to create, select, resize, and move shapes, how to group and ungroup objects, how to connect objects with lines—including how to adjust the connecting lines and endpoints—and how to add color to your objects using the Fill inspector.

Chapter 5, Getting Help

There’s no shame in admitting that you need help. In fact, that’s what we’re here for. If you ever get stuck when working on something in OmniGraffle, or if you have a problem with the app’s license, or you just want to tell our Support Humans and the DocWranglers what an awesome job they’re doing, feel free to get in touch. This chapter points you to all of the resources we have available: Support Humans, Support Articles, Videos, and Documentation.

Using This Book

One of the beauties of having OmniGraffle’s documentation available in electronic form is that it’s always available whenever you need it. We have put all of the documentation on our website where it can be searched and bookmarked. And we’re continuing the ongoing trend of creating EPUB versions of the documentation and making them freely available on the iBooks Store.

What’s New in OmniGraffle 2 for iPad

OmniGraffle 2 has new and re-designed features to make drawing and graffling even easier. If you’ve been a long-time OmniGraffle user, it won’t take long before you notice some changes.

Some new features you’ll find in OmniGraffle 2 include (but certainly aren’t limited to):

• In-App Purchase—Several Pro features, such as Visio® support, shape combinations, tables, and more, have been moved into an In-App Purchase bundle.
• Stencil Searching—You can now search for user-submitted stencils at our own repository: Stenciltown.
• User Interface—Interface changes have been made to bring OmniGraffle up to date with iOS 8. A new Canvases sidebar has been added, as well as the ability to hide interface controls completely.
• Shape Combinations (Pro)—Combine two or more objects on the Canvas to create custom shapes. (This is included with the Pro In-App Purchase.)
• Visio Support (Pro)—Import and export illustrations and diagrams for Microsoft® Visio®, including Visio 2013. (This is included with the Pro In-App Purchase.)
• OmniOutliner Support—Import and Export support for OmniOutliner files.
• Inspectors—New fill, stroke, and shadow styles have been added.
• AirDrop—Easily AirDrop files between iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite (v10.10) clients.
• Drawing Tools—Manipulate vertex points on shapes with the Freehand Tool, and convert them to Bézier points.
• Templates—When you create a new document, you are presented with a list of available templates which you can start from. Easily turn an existing document into a template or create one from scratch.
• Folders—Have a lot of illustrations and diagrams on your iPad? Organize them with folders, and if you’re syncing with OmniPresence, the same folders and files are visible on your Mac.

These new features, combined with file synchronization with OmniPresence and Omni Sync Server, make this an incredible update worthy of a whole number.

Tell Us What You Think

We’re constantly working on updates for our documentation. Whether it’s CSS work, correcting the occasional typo (yeah, they do sometimes slip through), or adding details or clarification for a specific feature based on something we’ve heard from a customer, we’re always trying to make our documentation better and more useful for you.

If you have any specific comments you’d like to send us about the documentation, please do. You can drop us an email message via our Support queue, or you can ping us on Twitter; we’re @OmniWranglers.

Finally, we’d like to thank you for taking the time to read the docs.