Creating Connection Lines in Keynote and Freeform

You can use connection lines in Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Freeform to create organization charts, diagrams, infographics and much more.
Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to use Connection Lines in Keynote, Freeform, and more. 
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So with Apple Apps, like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and the new Freeform app, you can connect two objects with a line. When you learn how to do this you can use these apps to make flowcharts, organization charts, instructional diagrams, all sorts of things. 
I'm going to start off here in Keynote. Now let's create some shapes. I'm going to click Shape here and I'm going to create a simple square shape and then I'm going to create a circle shape here and I can out them wherever I want. Resize them. Let's make them a little bit larger. Now let's say I want to connect these with a line. So you can do that by choosing Shape here. Make sure you're at Basics with the very beginning of the list. Then you've got a regular line, a line with an arrow, and then the third item is the connection line. Choose that. That puts a simple curved line here. It's go two squares, one at either end, and then a green dot in the middle. Now to connect two objects with this line all you need to do is click and drag one of the squares to an object. It will snap to it like that. Then click and drag the other square to another object. It will snap to it like that. Now it easily connects these without leaving any kind of gap or anything like that. Better still when you move one of these objects you can see the line goes with it. So, as you adjust things the line always stays connected to those two objects. Better still, you can have multiple connection lines. Let's add a diamond shape right here. Then I'm going to add another connection line and they are going to connect this to the circle and then to the diamond like that. Now when I move the circle all the connection lines attached to it will move.
Now these are lines just like any other lines. So you can select one or, in this case let's use the Command key and select both. Then I can go to Format and Style and I can use one of the Styles here to style it or set a Custom Style, like let's create a dotted lines here. Let's make them a little bit larger. I can add arrows by using the end point. So I can create an arrow on that side and an arrow on that side, or maybe on another side a different type of arrow. You can set the colors for these lines and everything. None of that changes how the connection lines work. You can still drag an object and everything stays connected. 
When you select a line there's that middle dot that we saw before. If you drag that you could see it changes the curve. So you can get things to look differently. Notice how the arrow here on this end will connect with this object and do its best based on the curve. So sometimes it will connect to the top, the bottom, of the side depending upon which is easier for it to get to. 
Now also notice that when you get really close to being a straight line it snaps into a straight line mode. So you can create easy straight line connections like that. You could also convert these lines by selecting the line like that. So it appears that there are actually several different types of connection lines. In fact if you go to Insert instead of the Shape button, and you go to Line, notice that there is a Straight Connection Line, a Curved Connection Line, and an Angle Connection Line. The Straight and Curved Connection Lines are actually the same thing. A straight line is just a curved connection line without any curve to it. However an Angled Connection Line is something different. Let's use Insert Line, Angled Connection Line to create a new connection line. I'm going to select these lines here and get rid of them. We'll just have this angled one. Let's connect one end to here and another end to there. Notice what happens here is you have a line, a straight line, but it's got these right angles in it. The green dot now acts as a way to draw the path between two objects. So you can have something like this or something like this, or something like this. It all depends on where that green dot is. If I put it over here notice how it accommodates that green dot. So the green dot is kind of a mid-point. It's going to shape the line based on the two end points and the mid-point. But just like before the line will move and stay connected when you move one of these objects. 
Now you can convert between the two line types. The Angled type and the Curved Straight type. You can do that by going to Format and then Shapes and Lines and there is Toggle Line Type. So I can toggle to the curved or straight if I move the green dot to make it straight or I can go and toggle to the angled type. You can also conveniently  Copy and Paste lines. So if I have this line here and let's say I make it a dashed line, a little bit bigger, set it to a color, maybe have an arrow at one end like that. Then I may decide I want exactly the same line for connecting to this. I don't have to start from scratch and set all those things. I can select this one, Command C to copy and Command V to paste. Then I can drag the end point to this new line to the objects that I want. Then it has its own mid-point. Say I could set the mid-point right there and now I get something that looks like this. 
I could also have used the Option Key technique which is to select something and then drag it holding the Option Key down. That creates a Copy of it. Then I can connect this copy to the different objects. You also, of course, use Style. So I could take this line here and I could set it as a new line style. I'll move over to the next page of Styles, hit the Plus button and you could see there's Line Style there. That could be used with normal lines and connection lines. But now if I were to create a new connection line, like this, and then I would choose that style, you could see it inherits all of those properties but still retains the fundamental property of whether it is an angled or it's the curved straight type. 
Now you have some more options. If you go to Format and then Arrange then you're going to see connection and you can go between straight, curved, and corner and you could also set an Offset. So, for instance, if you wanted there to be a gap you could have a start offset, like that, and an end offset like that. Now the way connection lines work is the same across the four Apple Apps that use it. So it works the same way in Pages, and the same way in Numbers. Of course in Freeform it works the same way as well. So I can create a shape here in Freeform. Let's create another shape here in Freeform. Then I could go here and use the connection line type and I could connect these two and I still have the same option here where I can toggle the line type or I can insert. Here you've got Connection Line. So it is always going to start with a curved connection line and if I want to change it it looks like I'm going to have to use the toggle line type. Now I get that type. Of course if I'm going to want to connect a lot of different things then it's probably best to either copy and paste or Option Drag and then easily get the same type of line with the same style and everything and adjust it to fit. 
Note that Freeform, being a newer app, has some functionality that looks the same on the Mac as it does on the iPad and iPhone. So I can select a line like this and then I get these controls here. So I can click there and now change the connection style this way. Go straight, angled, or curved. Then the same thing here with changing the line ends and the style of the line. I hope that gives you some idea of what you can do with Connection Lines in the Apple Apps. If you think you might find this useful I encourage you to play around with it for a bit. Learn how they work, learn what you can do with them, before you need them so you're ready to use them when you want.
Creating Connection Lines in Keynote and Freeform

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