If you have any custom graphics you use often -- shapes that have been heavily customized, embedded images, or groups of graphics that you always use together as one element, for example -- you might find it convenient to put those graphics on a palette so they can be easily dragged and dropped into your documents.
To create a palette:
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Choose New Palette from the Tools->Palettes menu. This will open up a palette editor window and the palette viewer will show an empty palette. Add graphics and make changes to the palette editor. The changes are immediately reflected in the palette viewer. Any groups of graphics you'd like to work with as one should be grouped using the Group (⇧⌘G) command. For best results, arrange them such that they're near the upper left corner of the document.
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Choose Save (⌘S) from the File menu. Close the palette editor window when you are done modifying the palette. The next time the palette is opened, the palette viewer will display the palette, but you will not get a palette editor.
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To edit an existing palette:
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Click on the Edit button on the palette viewer toolbar, or choose Edit Palette from the Tools->Palettes menu. This will open up a window for editing the palette.
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Make your changes in the palette editor window and save the changes as above.
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If you resize a palette window to a smaller size, the graphics within it will be scaled down, but they'll appear at full size when you drag them into your documents. The size of a palette window is saved when you save the palette file.
If you'd like the palette files you've built to be conveniently accessible, you can install them so they appear in the Tools ▶ Palettes menu. Also, you can set OmniGraffle to automatically re-open palettes on startup in the Preferences window.
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