How to expand coordinate range for the grid?

[swampwiz]

I am building a scene that has a bunch of common shapes, so I am using the "Position and Size" dialog to enter the X & Y positions. However, it seems impossible to enter a value of less than around -120 for Y (I am using mm as the unit). I see that there are the tick marks on the left for the Y coordinate, but it seems impossible to expand the range.

[acknak]

Right. It seems that OO Draw's design assumes that you want to put things on the page and that space outside the page will be needed temporarily at most.

If you need more space, you have to increase the page size.

You may want to try working with the Gallery (Tools > Gallery > ...) It's meant for storing re-usable pieces. I don't care for it because objects stored there are converted to metafile format an lose their Draw object features but your application may work better.

And, of course, you can always store re-usable objects in their own separate document and copy/paste into the actual drawing.

[keme]

acknak beat me to it.
Just so I can provide some additional info ... The amount of space available outside the page is proportional to page size, more or less. Larger page means larger area around the page.

For regular distribution of multiple objects you may want to look into Modify - Distribution... (you have to select the objects to distribute first, 3 or more objects).

If, by chance, you want to adjust coordinate reference, you can drag the origin marker to the point of the new origin. The origin marker is the "crosshair" in the top left corner of your drawing pane, where the two rulers cross. Note that this will not move existing objects, but it changes their coordinates (reflecting the new frame of reference). This may make it easier to position symmetrically around a set point (but note that object position references are not centered, so you need to add some offset in many cases).

[RoryOF]

A quick FYI: page size is limited to 300 cm x 300 cm.