Creating Simple Shapes and Text

It's time to start working with Fireworks! Let's explore the tools which we will use to create graphics. But first we'll have to create our canvas.

Canvas size and color

Whenever we create a new document we can set the size of the canvas and its color. Both factors are adjustable at any time. You can create a new document from the menu bar [File -> New] or from the toolbar by pressing the icon in the toolbar.

The new document window allows you to define the size of your canvas. You can choose between inches, centimeters, or pixels as your unit. We recommend pixels, since we are designing for the Web. The rulers will always be displayed in pixels.

When you enter the size in pixels, Fireworks automatically calculates the size of the empty canvas in Kilobytes. Besides the width and height, we need to define the resolution in pixels-per-inch. PPI is the equivalent to DPI (dots per inch) used for printers. 72 ppi means that a line that is 1 inch long would consist out of 72 individual pixels.

Higher ppi resolution than 72 ppi graphics displayed on monitors results only in larger files, since only a few monitors can display more than 72 ppi. Lately, however, 96 ppi should be regarded a valid choice since monitor resolution is on the increase and the additional 24 ppi do not impact the filze size dramatically.

The canvas color is the color of the background of your document. You can choose white (which is the default), transparent, or custom. A color palette allows you to pick a color from the whole color spectrum. The default palette is the 216web-safe colors.