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CorelDRAW 7 Getting Started with CorelDraw GS31 Version 2 August 1999
Aligning Objects Artistic Text Bezier tool Bitmaps, importing Blending Bulleted text Clip Art Cloning Colour, applying Context-sensitive tools
GETTING STARTED CorelDraw is the most popular PC-based commercial artists’ package. This document introduces you to CorelDraw’s main features, and to the concepts you’ll need to understand to use these effectively. Some familiarity with Windows or Windows 95 is assumed.
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Curving corners on a Rectangle Dimensioning tools Drop capitals Duplicating objects Ellipses, creating Extruding File formats, bitmap Fill tool Freehand drawing Grids Grouping Guidelines Layers Linked text More…
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Contents Introduction................................................................................................................1 Basic Operations........................................................................................................2 The CorelDraw Toolbox – “Context-sensitive” tools – Property Bar – Status bar – Right mouse button – Setting up your file – Page setup – Setting drawing units – Saving your Work – Using the Zoom tool – Refreshing the Screen Display
Creating & modifying simple objects.........................................................................6 Creating rectangles and ellipses – Creating polygons and spirals – Undoing Actions – The Pick tool: Selecting objects – Deleting objects – Moving objects – Copying objects – Scaling and stretching objects – Rotating objects – Changing an object’s Outline and Fill – Applying colour – Using the Outline pen tool – Using the Fill tool – Copying outline and fill attributes – The Interactive Fill Tool – Using the freehand drawing tool – Connecting line segments – Creating a closed object with the freehand tool – Using the Bezier tool – The Natural Pen tool – Dimensioning tools – Modifying objects with the Shape tool – Curving corners on a Rectangle – Creating an ellipse Segment – Deleting a line or curve segment – Modifying line length and direction – Manipulating Artistic Text
Using the Text tool .....................................................................................................14 Artistic Text – Paragraph Text – Changing the Typeface: Artistic or Paragraph Text – Creating bulleted text and drop capitals – Fitting text to a path – Importing text – Copying and pasting text – Handling multi-page documents & linked text – Linked text – Inserting and deleting pages – Setting up and viewing multipage documents - Column layouts – Limitations on CorelDraw's multi-page capabilities
Changing default settings...........................................................................................20 Changing Text defaults – Changing Pen and Fill defaults – Changing typing options – Saving settings for new documents
Ordering – grouping & aligning objects ...................................................................22 Ordering Objects – Grouping objects – Aligning objects to one another – Using a Grid – Creating Guidelines – Snapping options
Importing and exporting bitmaps...............................................................................24 Importing and cropping bitmaps – Altering bitmaps – Wrapping text round a bitmap – Exporting bitmaps
CorelDraw bells & whistles .......................................................................................27 Useful variations on Copy and Paste: – Pasting – Duplicating objects – Cloning – Copying text formatting – Using symbols and clip art – Blending – Extruding – Welding and trimming – Mirroring – Making fills and bitmaps transparent - Creating your own patterns - Powerclips Perspective effects - Envelopes
Printing from CorelDraw...........................................................................................34 Making the most of CorelDraw help..........................................................................35 Index...........................................................................................................................36 Author: Jos Kingston
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Introduction At SHU, CorelDraw is available only at Psalter Lane, in the specialist computer graphics rooms (A201 and B216). Jargon: There are two main types of computer graphic image: Vector and Bitmap. Bitmaps are formed by storing an image as a set of dots. The quality of a bitmap is dictated by its resolution – the number of dots per inch used – and its colour depth – the number of colours used. Highresolution bitmaps using the full colour range required for photo-realism can create very large files. Vector graphics are objectoriented. Anything you create – for instance a shape, or a string of text – is an object, which is defined by its attributes – for instance position, line thickness, fill. Vector objects can be modified more easily, and take up much less file space, than bitmaps. Vector mode is used by CorelDraw and is standard for CAD packages, whilst paint packages and imagescanning processes work with bitmaps. You're best off working with Corel Photo-Paint or Adobe Photoshop if you want to have all the bells and whistles available for transforming bitmaps. But within CorelDraw itself, many of the most popular tools for handling bitmaps are now available on the spot. This is a great leap forward in bridging the gap between vector and bitmap software.
Introduction
CorelDraw is the leading PC package for commercial artists. It consists of a suite of applications: CorelDraw itself is the central package, providing a host of vector tools for manipulating display text, creating drawings, and capabilities for importing or exporting bitmap graphics as well. You can stretch text, rotate it, fit it to a path of any shape, extrude it to give a three-dimensional effect, and much more. You can draw Bezier curves, which give you tremendous power to create exactly the shapes you want. You can blend objects; weld objects; add perspective; and create fill patterns of your own. CorelDream is for producing 3D pictures. Photo-Paint provides tools for modifying and adding special effects to bitmap images. Photo-Paint's capabilities are very similar to those of Adobe Photoshop, the "industry standard" software for image manipulation. The graphics utilities available include CorelCapture – a screengrabbing utility which copies the current screen display from any Windows application to the clipboard as a bitmap. OCRTrace converts scanned text into editable format. It also lets you trace a bitmap image to vector format which can then be edited in CorelDraw. This can be very useful indeed with simple images. This document introduces you to the capabilities of the main CorelDraw 7 package. If you have used any other computer graphics packages, you will find a lot in common in how they operate. If not, a familiarity with CorelDraw will stand you in good stead for using other graphics applications, on Macs as well as Pcs. Some acquaintance with Windows software and Windows 95 is assumed. If you don’t have this, you might find it easiest to learn the basics with a word processing package, such as Microsoft Word, before moving onto CorelDraw. It’s especially important that you should know about “good housekeeping” when you’re working with graphics – files can take up a great deal of disk space. We recommend that you learn how to use Windows Explorer for this purpose.
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Basic Operations CorelDraw can be set up to load simply by double-clicking its icon on the Windows 95 desktop. Otherwise: Click on the Start button, select Programs and find CorelDraw. Once CorelDraw has loaded: If you don't see a blank drawing area ready to work on, select File from the menu, then New. Look first at the Toolbox on the left of the screen: you do most of your work from here.
The CorelDraw Toolbox The tools with triangles in the bottom right corner are flyouts – the icon gives access to a selection of related tools. Click and hold down until the flyout menu appears. Pick. You have to click on this tool before you can select any object or objects which you want to move, copy, delete, resize, or modify in any other way. Page 7 Shape. Use to add rounded corners to rectangles; and to change the location of the nodes which dictate the shape of CorelDraw objects. Page 13 Zoom. Click and hold down to open a fly-out menu from which you can select the magnification you want. Page 5 Freehand. For lines and curves. Hold down the mouse button when you click on the tool, and a fly-out will open. The Bezier Pencil lets you draw curves by defining nodes. 11- 12 Rectangle. Click on the tool, then click and drag with the mouse to create a rectangle. Page 6 Ellipse. Use in the same way as the rectangle tool. Hold down the Control key while you click and drag if you want to constrain your shape to a square or circle. Page 6 Polygon. Click and hold down to open the flyout menu, from which spirals and grids can also be drawn. Page 6 Text. Click on the tool, then click on the drawing area for Artistic Text. Click and drag to draw a frame for Paragraph Text. 14-15 Interactive Fill. Works in conjuction with the Property Bar (next page) to provide quick control over filling objects. Page 10 Transparency. Lets you apply transparency by clicking and dragging. Page 32 Interactive blend. Click and drag from one object to another to produce a blend. Page 30 Outline pen. The fly-out provides icons which allow you to change the shape, width and colour of freehand lines or object outlines. Page 9 Fill. Select colour and patterning for an object’s fill.
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“Context-sensitive” tools The upper row of icons at the top of the screen is the standard toolbar. The icons on the left are found in most Windows software – save, print, cut and paste, and so on.
Property bar The row of icons underneath the standard toolbar is known as the property bar. This takes context-sensitivity to giddy heights – what’s available depends upon what tool is currently selected from the Toolbox (see page 2), and what kind of object is selected within the drawing area. The top illustration shows what the property bar looks like when a rectangle has been drawn and selected. In the bottom illustration, the Text tool has been selected.
Move the cursor slowly over the tool icons. A yellow "tool tips" box pops up to describe the function of the tool which the cursor is currently resting on. Jargon: Status bar: In any Windows software, keeping an eye on what the status bar is telling you can be especially useful if and when you get unexpected results from whatever you’re doing.
Status bar Look at the bottom of the screen. The status bar always provides information about your current action. For instance, it gives you details of what object is currently selected; its outline and fill; and tells you the typeface and size for a selected text object.
Right mouse button As with most Windows 95 software, the right mouse button plays a useful part in providing quick access to the functions you're most likely to want. Like the property bar, it’s context-sensitive. Right-click on a few objects: shapes you’ve created, tools in the toolbox, ruler areas. The example on the left shows the popup menu which appears with a text object selected. For any object, selecting Properties from the popup gives access to all the commands you're most likely to need. In CorelDraw, the right mouse button has some brilliant "drag and copy" capabilities – see pages 8,27,28.
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Setting up your file Page setup When CorelDraw opens a new file, you should see the Page Setup controls on the left of the Property bar. If you don’t: In the Toolbar, click on the Pick tool. Click on a blank part of the drawing area. The Property Bar will change to display the setup controls. Page size should normally be set to correspond to the paper size that you’ll be printing to. But it’s easy in CorelDraw to scale down or up at the printing stage to fit whatever paper size you want, so bear in mind that you won’t need to rework your design if, for example, you wanted to print it both as an A3 poster and A4 handbills. (An important qualification to this: if your file includes bitmap images, loss of quality will result from scaling, especially scaling up.) Click on the Property Bar buttons to switch paper orientation between Portrait and Landscape. Setting drawing units When the Property Bar is in “setup mode” as described above, you set drawing units from here. The ruler bars will reflect your selection. Saving your Work Avoid working in files created with sophisticated graphics software like CorelDraw 7 straight from floppy disk. It's much more reliable to work from the hard drive (C), or from network space.
Mousemat.cdr
From the Menu, select File, then Save. The first time you do this, the Save Drawing dialog box will open. Make sure Save In is set to the folder where you want to keep your file. Make sure Save as Type is set to CorelDraw (CDR). Enter a suitable File name. CorelDraw will automatically add the extension .cdr to this. Save every few minutes while you work. Don’t use “Save As” to back up a CorelDraw file to floppy – it sometimes corrupts the file. At the end of your session close down CorelDraw, then use Explorer to copy important files to floppy, Zip, or network space for safe keeping.
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Using the Zoom tool Selecting an appropriate magnification for the work you are doing, will make you far more efficient. Get accustomed to moving quickly backwards and forwards between the different zoom options available from the zoom icon in the Toolbox. In particular, if you are having difficulties in connecting one line segment to another, things will work much better if you increase your magnification. And if you “lose” an object (which easily happens if you use the scroll buttons to move up and down your page), the quickest way to locate it is by zooming to Fit in Window. Zoom in. Click on the icon, then drag on the page area to draw a fence around the objects you want to magnify. Zoom out. Each click zooms out by a factor of two, or returns you to the magnification before you zoomed in. Actual size. Bear in mind that the screen display isn’t as high resolution as a laser printout. Viewing at 1:1 you may not see all the detail which is actually there. Fit in Window. Displays all the objects in your drawing at maximum size to fit within the window area. Full Page/Page width/Page height. Use to design and check your overall page layout. You can also change zoom levels from the Standard Toolbar at the top of the screen.
Refreshing the Screen Display If lines or blobs or gaps appear which shouldn’t be there, don’t get frustrated attempting to delete them – they will almost certainly disappear when you refresh the screen. It’s hard work for the computer to keep the screen display completely accurate and up to date; sometimes there will be glitches. (Computer jargon for something not being quite right.) The less powerful your computer, the more likely you are to run into this problem. If it happens: From the Window menu, select Refresh Window. There is a useful keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + W Zooming also has the effect of redrawing the screen display, and thus getting rid of any on-screen glitches.
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Creating & modifying simple objects Always use the left mouse button, unless instructed otherwise. It’s usually best to work from top left to bottom right when you create an object by clicking and dragging. Creating rectangles and ellipses In the Toolbox, click on the Rectangle tool. Click and drag to create a rectangle. Create another rectangle: this time, hold down the Control key while you click and drag to constrain its shape to a square. Use the Ellipse tool to create an oval and a circle. You can draw symmetrical shapes from the centre rather than the corner – hold down the Shift key while you draw. Creating polygons and spirals In the Toolbox, click on the Polygon tool. Hold down the mouse until a flyout toolbar appears. Tools for creating spirals and “graph paper” are also available from here. Click and drag to draw a polygon. Notice how the icons centre right of the Property Bar change when the Polygon tool is selected. You can switch from here between polygon and star mode, and specify the number of points on your polygon or star. When you select the spiral tool from the flyout, the Property bar lets you specify the number of revolutions in the spiral, and choose between symmetrical and logarithmic spirals. You must change these settings before creating your spiral. Undoing Actions You can quickly undo your last action: In the standard toolbar, click the Undo button. To undo a sequence of actions: Click on the arrow right of the Undo button, then select from the list. Use the Redo button (right of undo) in just the same way.
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The Pick tool: Selecting objects An object needs to be selected before you can modify it – for instance, to change colour, outline thickness, or typeface. In the Toolbox, click on the Pick tool. You must always do this before you can select an object. Click on one of the objects you have created to select it. If the object has no fill, click firmly on its outline. Square black handles will appear around the object. To select multiple objects: Hold down the Shift key while you click on each object; or click and drag to draw a fence (referred to as a marquee box) round them. An object will only be selected if the whole of it lies within the marquee. To select all the objects in a file: In the Edit menu, choose Select All. To select an object which overlaps with other objects: You’ll often want to place objects in front of and behind one another. (Page 22) This can make it difficult to select the object you want to change. In the Toolbox, click on the Pick tool. From the Layout menu, choose Object Manager. The Object Manager window will open. Click to select the object or objects you want. Close by clicking the X icon top right of the window's title bar. The Object Manager can be enormously useful. Bear in mind for future exploration! Deleting objects Select the object or objects you want to delete. On the keyboard, press the Delete key if you know you won’t change your mind. If you might want to retrieve the object, use Cut from the Standard Toolbar instead. Moving objects Click anywhere on the selected object, but not on its handles. Hold the mouse button down. The cursor will change to a cross shape, as illustrated. Drag with the mouse to move the object. Use the Property Bar to specify an object’s position accurately by its xy co-ordinates – see next page.
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Copying objects CorelDraw provides the usual Cut, Copy and Paste buttons on the standard toolbar at the top of the screen. There’s also a useful mouse shortcut for copying: Click and drag as if you were moving the selected object or objects, but once you’ve started dragging, hold down the right mouse button as well as the left one. Scaling and stretching objects CorelDraw provides the means to do this interactively by clicking and dragging; or accurately from the Property Bar. Click on the Pick tool if not already selected.
Click and drag
Select the object or objects you want to size or move. To scale “interactively”: Click on a corner handle, and drag. This will scale the object – its size will change, but its shape won’t. Click on a side handle, and drag. This will stretch or contract the object in that direction. Watch it! You can easily find yourself mirroring an object by accident when doing this. See page 31. For accurate scaling and positioning: Use the Property Bar to specify xy coordinates, object size, and scale factor. Click the padlock button before specifying measurements to maintain proportional sizing. Rotating objects Select the object you want to rotate. In the Property Bar, either specify the required rotation angle in the Angle of Rotation box, or click on the arrows next to it until the object is rotated the required amount. Alternatively: Click to select an object, then click once more. You should now have entered Rotate and Skew mode: the square box handles around the selected object will be replaced with doubleheaded arrow handles. To rotate an object: click on the centre of a corner arrow handle, and drag. The cursor should change to a horseshoe shape. If you want to leave the original (for instance, to draw blades on a windmill), hold down both mouse buttons while you drag.
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Changing an object’s Outline and Fill Rectangles and ellipses are known as closed objects; a curved or straight line is called an open path. Any closed object consists of an outline, and a fill. Characteristics of a CorelDraw object, such as outline thickness, colour, or type of fill, are referred to as attributes of the object. CorelDraw offers many different ways of doing the same thing. (Right mouse button, toolbox, etc.) Unless you're a keyboard shortcut whizzo, the Main Menu is usually slowest! Experienced computer users should think afresh about how they do things. Applying colour Click here to expand the colour palette.
Using the Outline pen tool
Jargon: Rollup Rollups are windows which you can keep open on screen while you work, to give quick access to the tools you are most likely to need.
Select the object or objects you want to colour. Left-click in the colour palette on the right of the screen to apply a fill colour; right-click to apply an outline colour. Click on the scroll tools at the bottom of the palette to increase the colour range available to select from.
Select one of the objects you have created. Click on the Outline pen tool.
A flyout toolbox will appear, to provide a range of tools for modifying the thickness, shape and colour of the line or outline. The tools on the right let you apply a small number of preset widths with just the one click of a button. The tools on the left of the flyout give access to dialog boxes which allow you much more precise control over the object’s outline. Especially useful is the pen and special fill rollup. Click on the third tool from the left to display the pen rollup window on screen. Click and drag on the rollup window title bar to move it to whatever screen position you want. Click on the middle icon at the top of the rollup window to close it but keep it handy on screen; click again to roll it down again.
You can alter outline thickness and colour, and also apply arrowheads to lines, from this rollup. Familiarise yourself with how to do these things. Note that your changes won’t take effect on the selected object, until you click the Apply button.
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Using the Fill tool
Select one of the closed objects you have created.
Click on the Fill tool. A flyout will appear.
Click on the Special Fill rollup (right of flyout). This gives easy access to the same fills which you can also reach separately from the fountain fill, texture fill and pattern fill icons left of the flyout. Notice that this rollup “doubles up” in the same window as the pen rollup. (See previous page.)
Click on the different icons and scrollbar arrows in the Special Fill rollup to try out some of the many fill effects which are available to you.
Remember that your changes won’t take effect until you click on the Apply button. If you use a lot of full colour pattern, bitmap or texture fills, your file may become very large and slow to work with. If so, don't apply such fills until you have done all your other work on the file.
Copying outline and fill attributes The pen and fill rollup includes an “eyedropper” icon in the bottom left corner. This allows you to instantly copy the outline or fill attributes from one object to another. Give any object you have created an interesting fill.
Select another object to which to apply this fill.
In the Special Fill rollup, click on the eyedropper. The cursor will change to a large arrow. Click on the object from which you want the fill to be copied, then click on Apply. Alternatively, you can "copy object properties" using the right mouse button. See page 28.
The Interactive Fill Tool
Select an object.
In the Toolbox, click on the Interactive Fill Tool.
Notice how the Property Bar changes. In general, you may find it quicker to apply fills and outline attributes from here than from the Rollup and colour palette. Do experiment with the “click and drag” method of applying fountain fills!
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Using the freehand drawing tool
Click on the freehand tool in the Toolbox. (If you held down the mouse button and the flyout toolbox has appeared, make sure you select the first left icon.)
Click and drag to draw a freehand line or curve.
To draw a straight line: click where you want the beginning of the line, take your finger off the mouse, then click where you want the end of the line.
To constrain the straight line to 15o increments: hold down the Ctrl key while you move the mouse and click for the end of the line. Do this whenever you want to be sure a line is vertical or horizontal. On screen, a straight line will often look jagged. Don't worry about this. When you zoom closer on screen or print out straight from CorelDraw, it should look fine.
Jargon: Pixel: abbreviation of Picture Element: the dots which make up the screen display. A pixel isn’t a fixed size: it depends on the resolution of the monitor how many pixels make up the screen area.
Connecting line segments You will often want one line segment to connect to the end of another, so that you can treat them as a single object. Create a line, and double-click at its end point. The doubleclick will automatically start you off on a connected line segment from this point. A line will automatically connect to the previous line if its start point is no more than five pixels away from the previous line’s finishing point, but the double-click approach is more reliable. Creating a closed object with the freehand tool If lines connect to create a closed object, you can add a fill and change any other attributes just as you would with a rectangle or ellipse. The illustration on the left shows a closed object created with the freehand tool. When you add the last line segment to form a closed object, single-click to place the finishing point of the last line, at the starting point of the first. If you double-click, Coreldraw will assume you want to add a further segment to the line. Alternatively and often easier, select Auto-close from the Property Bar.
Click on the Pick tool. (If the Line tool is left selected, you may find yourself drawing lines unintentionally.)
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Using the Bezier tool A Bezier curve consists of nodes, connected by line segments. Once you have created a Bezier line, you can use the Shape tool to tweak it into a curve, like a rubber band, by pulling on its nodes and control points. This is a very satisfying activity, but it may take a while before you feel that you have any control over what happens to your curve! Click and hold down the freeehand drawing tool until the flyout appears. Select the Bezier icon. Click where you want your curve to begin. Keep the mouse button down, and drag to where you want to place the next node in the curve. Click and drag in the same way to place subsequent segments. Playing around is the best way to get a grip on what’s going on. You may find the on-line help information useful – select Help Topics, then search the Index for Bezier.
Press the Space Bar twice if you want to start a new curve. When you have finished using the Bezier pencil, select the Pick tool so you don’t find yourself accidentally drawing unwanted lines or curves.
The outline boxes show the curve’s nodes, which can be edited later with the Shape tool. (Page 13)
You can create closed objects with the Bezier tool, just as you can with the standard freehand pencil. To draw a straight line segment within a Bezier object: Lift your finger from the mouse button, and click at the finish point of the segment. The Natural Pen tool This tool can be specially useful where you want to draw curves with a differently coloured outline and fill. In the Freehand flyout, click the Natural Pen icon. The Property Bar changes to provide pen controls. Dimensioning tools In the Freehand flyout, click the Dimension tool. The Property Bar changes to give access to a range of dimension tools – look up dimension lines in the Help Topics index.
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Modifying objects with the Shape tool The Shape tool has different effects, depending on the type of object which you have selected. To activate it: Click on the Shape tool, then click on the object you want to modify. Curving corners on a Rectangle Draw a rectangle if you haven’t got one handy, and activate the Shape tool. Node boxes will appear at the rectangle’s corners. Click on one of these, and drag, to curve the corners of the rectangle. Alternatively, when your rectangle is selected you can use the dragger in the Property Bar to set corner roundness. Creating an ellipse Segment Draw an ellipse if you haven’t got one handy, and activate the Shape tool. Click on the node box and drag to create the segment. If the cursor is on the inside of the ellipse when you click and drag, you will create a pie wedge; if it’s on the outside, you will create an arc. Alternatively, when your ellipse is selected you can use the Property Bar controls to create an arc or pie wedge. Deleting a line or curve segment Selected node
Activate the Shape tool, then click on a node to select it. The outline node box will appear bolder. Press the Delete key. If the first or last node was selected, the first or last segment will be deleted. If any other node was selected, the line or curve will be redrawn without that node. Modifying line length and direction Activate the Shape tool, then click and drag on the node at either end of the line. Manipulating Artistic Text Create a word or two of artistic text (see following pages), scale to a fairly large size, then click on the Shape tool. The position of each letter is dictated by the node at its bottom left. Click and drag on a node to move that letter.
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Using the Text tool Typographers make a clear distinction between display text, used to catch the eye; and body text, used for what needs to be read. Whereas display text can usefully employ a variety of artistic techniques to draw the attention, the reader is likely to be seriously distracted by fancy formatting of body text. CorelDraw is primarily a commercial artists’ package, and as such is concerned more with providing all the bells and whistles for display text, than with the features needed for handling large chunks of body text quickly and simply. (Although each new version of CorelDraw is bringing major improvements in this respect.) Most people prefer to use their favourite word processing software for standard document work- you can easily import word processed text into a CorelDraw file. (page 17.) Display text is referred to by CorelDraw as artistic text; and body text, as paragraph text. Artistic Text From the Toolbox, select the Text icon. Click in the page area where you want to enter your text, and type in a couple of words. Don’t worry about size or typeface at this stage. Click on the Pick tool, select the text object you have created, and scale or stretch it to whatever size you want. (Page 7) Apply a different fill to your text. (Page 10) Apply a visible outline to your text. (Page 9) Bear in mind that Artistic Text doesn’t “word wrap” – you have to press Enter every time you want to start a new line.
Each letter you enter is treated by CorelDraw as a closed object, with an outline and a fill. This is great if you want to create effects like the one you have just tried out. But most of the time it is a serious nuisance if letters are set to have an outline as well as a fill – it is likely to give a thickened, jagged appearance to your text when printed. Make sure your artistic text is still selected.
No outline/fill icon.
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Choose one of the many possible ways to switch off the text outline. Right-click on the icon at the top of the colour palette; or use the Property Bar, the Pen rollup, or the Outline Pen fly-out.
Using the Text tool
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Paragraph Text From the Toolbox, select the Text icon.
The border – or frame – you see while you're typing in paragraph text, shows the text area you defined. Once you have finished creating this text object, the border will no longer be displayed. Notice that you can often find yourself creating a new paragraph frame when you didn't intend to. If this happens, select the new frame and delete it.
Click and drag with the mouse on the page area to define a frame within which you want the text to fit. You can easily change the shape of this later, so just go for a rough and ready approximation. The cursor will now be blinking within the text area you have defined, ready for you to start typing in text. Text will word wrap to the frame borders as you type – only press Enter at the end of paragraphs. If there isn’t enough space in your frame for the text you want to type in; or if you want to change the frame’s shape: Click on the Pick tool, and select your text. Drag on the frame handles to size and scale it. Your text will automatically “re-wrap” to the new frame size. Make sure all the text has all fitted into the frame. If it hasn’t, you’ll see a triangle icon in the tab at the bottom of the paragraph frame, as illustrated. Resize the frame until this tab is blank. You can wrap paragraph text round the shape of any object or bitmap image - see page 25. Changing the Typeface: Artistic or Paragraph Text When a Text object or the Text tool is selected, the Property Bar allows you to choose typeface, size, style, and alignment for both artistic and paragraph text by methods which should be familiar if you’ve used any popular Windows word processing software.
Notice that you can’t use the Property Bar if you want to change multiple text objects at the same time. To do this: Select the text objects you want to change – either draw a marquee round them, or Shift-Click. (Page 7) From the Text menu, select Format Text. The Format Text dialog box will open: settings chosen here will apply to all selected text objects, whether Artistic or Paragraph text. With artistic text, type size can be altered by selecting the object, then clicking and dragging to scale or stretch it. Paragraph text can’t be scaled and stretched in this way: when you click and drag you resize the frame, not the text. Change paragraph text type size using the Property Bar or Format Text menu options.
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Creating bulleted text and drop capitals In paragraph text mode, you can automatically create bulleted points, selecting from a wide range of symbols. 1. Click on the Text tool, and either define a new paragraph text frame (see previous page), or click in an existing one. 2. If you have already typed in text which you want to convert to bulleted points, click and drag with the mouse to highlight it. To change the entire contents of a paragraph frame to bulleted points, select the frame with the Pick tool. 3. In the Property Bar, click on the Bullets icon. 4. When you want to return from bulleted text to normal lines, click again on the Bullets icon to switch it off. To change the type of bullet you’re using: In the Property Bar, click on the Format Text icon. The Format Text dialog box will appear. Click on the Effects tab. Select your symbol, bullet size and indent from here. Usually, you’ll want Placement set to Hanging Indent. Drop caps are set in a similar way from the Effects tab. Familiarise yourself with what you can do from the other tabs in this box. Fitting text to a path Create the line or shape to use as a path. In the Toolbox, click on the Text tool. Move the cursor close to your path object. CorelDraw will recognise when a possible text path is “in sight”, and the cursor will change shape as in diagram 1. When the cursor is this shape, click and type. You can select your path independently and modify it as you want with the Pick or Shape tool. The text will automatically reroute. Notice in the Status Bar that the path will be referred to as a control object. If selecting the control object independently of the text proves difficult, use the Object Manager. (Page 7.) Once the text is as you want, switch off the path outline to make it invisible. (Page 14.) If you've already typed in text and then want to fit to a path, or if you want to modify positioning in relation to the path: Select both the text and the path. From the Text menu, select Fit text to path. Make your choices from the rollup, then click the Apply button.
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Using the Text tool
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Importing text You can import documents into CorelDraw 7 direct from WordPerfect and Word 6 formats. Whatever your word processor, a file saved to plain text format (often known as ascii or .txt format) should be importable into CorelDraw. To import files from Word 97, you must first save the file from Word in Rich Text Format. Most formatting will be maintained in Rich Text Format, but some complex layouts, for instance with text boxes, will be lost. As a general rule, don’t apply complex formatting within your word processor if you’re going to import text – leave the fancy touches to add in CorelDraw. In CorelDraw: From the File menu, select Import. The Import dialog box will open. In the Files of Type list, select All Files. Set drive and directory to display your file, select it, and OK. Your text will be imported into CorelDraw as paragraph text, running on to as many pages as it needs in linked frames – see the next page. Expect to have at least some reformatting to do, especially if the typeface originally used isn't available on the computer where you're working. Copying and pasting text When you copy and paste in the usual way, your text will be inserted into CorelDraw as a document object – it can then only be edited if you double-click on the object to activate the software in which it was created. If you want your text to look exactly as you created it – perhaps with a fancy border added in CorelDraw – this is what you want. But more often, it's likely to be an irritation that you can't edit or format the text using CorelDraw's tools. Simple copying and pasting of text from software such as Word may give unwanted results. It's usually more reliable to import a Rich Text file as described above. Using Paste Special from the Edit menu gives you a wider range of paste options, depending on what type of object you are pasting. However there is a problem with CorelDraw 7 running under Windows NT which means this is unlikely to work properly on SHU's computers. Import text in preference. Spellcheck and proofread your text before importing or pasting it to CorelDraw, so the word processed file remains a correct reference copy.
Using the Text tool
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Handling multi-page documents & linked text You can use CorelDraw to produce multi-page documents – magazines or even books. But if your document contains a large number of pages with graphics, bear in mind that it's usually best to keep file sizes down to around 2mb for ease of handling. Split a document between different files if necessary. When you import or paste text from a word processor into CorelDraw, it will run on to as many pages as are required to fit the text at your current text settings. The Navigator at the bottom of the screen shows you how many pages there are in your file: Keep an eye on this – it's easy to find that pages have unexpectedly created themselves – Beware clicking on the + button! Editing paragraph text Make small changes by selecting the Text tool, then clicking within the text. If you want to do extensive editing within CorelDraw: select your text object, select Text from the Menu Bar, then Edit Text. Linked text When you flow text into a multi-page document, it will be automatically be contained within linked paragraph frames. Whether a document is single-page or multi-page, you can manually link paragraph text frames to one another. If, for example, you change the size of a paragraph frame to accommodate a graphic, the text will reflow to the following frames. Whenever you use paragraph text, you should be aware of what happens if not all your text will fit into a frame: Click to select a paragraph frame. If the handle at the bottom centre of the frame contains a triangle, this means that there is more text to come. If you want all the text in a single frame: resize the frame and adjust type size until the triangle disappears. If you want the text to continue in a different frame: Click on the triangle, and the cursor will change to a linked text icon, as illustrated. Click and drag to define your next paragraph frame. The text will flow into here, and the handles at the top of this frame and the bottom of the previous frame will change to display a linked text icon. It's often useful to work with linked paragraph frames where you want text to flow between differently shaped areas scattered over a page.
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Using the Text tool
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Inserting and deleting pages In the Navigator, click the + button. A new page will be inserted before the currently selected page. To insert multiple pages: from the Layout menu, select Insert Page. To delete pages: from the Layout menu, select Delete Page. If the page you delete contains any linked paragraph text, this will reflow onto succeeding pages. All other types of object on a deleted page will be deleted, not relocated. Setting up and viewing multipage documents CorelDraw offers a number of settings which can make life much easier when working with multipage documents: From the Layout menu, select Page Setup. In the example, page layout has been set up for a standard booklet, printed on A4 folded to A5. Note that page size is set to A4 landscape – the booklet will print two pages on an A4 sheet. When printed, the pages will be laid out so as to be in the correct order when printed back-to-back and folded. Facing pages has been selected so that the booklet can be viewed in "double page spreads" whilst working on it. If you're using booklet format, the pages will still be in consecutive order when you view them – select Print Preview to see them as they'll print. Column layouts Select the paragraph text which you want in columns. In the Property Bar, click the Format Text icon. Select the Frames and Columns tab, specify the number of columns you want, set required width, and OK. Limitations on CorelDraw's multi-page capabilities Automatic page numbering isn't available, except as a "prepress" feature. The numbering won't fall within the printed page area unless you print to a larger paper size than you have specified as your document's page size. Headers and footers – running titles along the top and/or bottom of each page – can't be generated. CorelDraw doesn't have the capacity to produce Contents or Index pages, or to add footnotes.
Using the Text tool
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Changing default settings When you run CorelDraw, it will use its default settings for pen outline width, fill, and typeface. Bear in mind when you change default settings, that these changes will only take effect on objects created from now onwards. On your own computer, the changes you make to default settings can be saved from one work session to the next. Multi-user computers, for instance in educational institutions, may be set up so a standard configuration is restored each time CorelDraw is loaded. Changing Text defaults Make sure that you don’t have any text objects selected. From the Text menu, select Format Text. Click to select whether you want the new settings to apply to artistic text, paragraph text, or both, then OK. The Format Text dialog box will open. Make your choices and OK. Changing Pen and Fill defaults You can change the default Outline Pen attributes in a similar way, making sure that you don’t have any objects selected, and applying new choices from any of the Pen flyout tools. If the CorelDraw setup you’re working on doesn’t already default to this, it can be especially useful to have Outline Pen set to nil width for text objects, and to a width of your choice for other objects. Simply repeat the process of applying choices, and specify each time in the Outline Pen dialog box what type of object you want these settings to apply to. Default fills can be altered with the Fill flyout tools following the same procedure.
No outline/ fill icon
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The default fill is usually set to black for text objects, and no fill for graphic objects. Bear in mind that no fill is not at all the same as a white fill, and the distinction is vital when you want to place objects on top of one another.
Changing default settings
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Changing typing options Like Word or WordPerfect, CorelDraw 7 has a variety of settings designed to make your life easier. For example, you may find it’s set up so that the first letter you type will always be capitalised. It may assume that if you type (c) you want a copyright symbol: ©. Red wavy lines may appear to suggest that your spelling needs correcting. It could well be that you find such things irritating rather than useful. If so: In the Tools menu, click on Options. If CorelDraw is being “too clever” about changing what you’re typing, select the Type Assist tab. Note that you can either switch off “Replace text while typing” completely, or add/delete specific items to the automatic replacements list. Select the Spelling tab and switch off “Perform automatic spell check” if the red wavy lines annoy you. (But bear in mind that they won't print in any case.)
Saving settings for new documents If you’re using CorelDraw on your own computer, there are a number of other default settings which you may wish to change – most especially in relation to page setups, ruler and grid settings. Set up the CorelDraw working environment exactly as you want it. From the Tools menu, select Settings for New Documents. Select the settings you’d like to save, then click Save Settings Now.
On multi-user computers, administrators can easily set up a batch file to copy over standard configuration files every time CorelDraw is loaded. This means that the previous user's whims, preferences and accidental alterations won't get imposed on the next user.
Changing default settings
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Ordering, grouping & aligning objects Ordering Objects If you think you have “lost” an object from a CorelDraw file, always consider the possibility that something else has got placed on top of it.
CorelDraw refers to the process of placing objects one behind the other, as ordering. This is often essential to create the effects you want: for instance, to place a fill or a shadow box behind some text. Ordering is not to be confused with layering. Layering is used to cluster related objects together in a drawing. For example, a wiring diagram might be created on one layer of a drawing, to overlay an architect’s plan on another. Beginners and non-technical users don’t normally need to use layers in software like CorelDraw. (But you’ll instantly benefit from using layers when working with bitmaps in Corel PhotoPaint or Adobe Photoshop.) Try to copy the example on the left: Create a small amount of artistic text. Anywhere nearby, create a rectangle and select it. From the Edit Menu, select Duplicate. Apply a white fill (not the same as no fill) to one rectangle, and a black fill to the other. Move the two rectangles into the right position in relation to one another. Make sure one of the rectangles is selected. From the Property Bar, try out the To Front or To Back buttons. Move the text so that it’s on top of the shadow box. Notice that when a text object is selected, the To Front and To Back buttons aren't available from the Property Bar. When ordering more than two objects, you often also need more sophisticated control than these two buttons provide. In these cases: From the Arrange menu, select Order. A greater variety of ordering options is then available.
Always group “critically related” objects immediately. It’s very irritating if, for example, you find you’ve accidentally moved or stretched one part of the text shadow box, without the rest. Copy the group, then ungroup to edit the text in the copy, if you want to create more objects with similar formatting.
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Grouping objects The above is a good example of when you should use Group, so that the three objects are treated as one from now on. Select the three objects. In the Property Bar, click on Group. You must Ungroup to edit any object within the group. Objects, including symbols, may be combined rather than grouped. From the Arrange menu, select Break Apart to edit.
Ordering, grouping and aligning objects
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Aligning Objects Learn these features now: the same concepts of “snapping” to grids, guidelines or objects are used in all CAD packages.
Pleasing alignment is one of the most important aspects of good design. Aligning objects purely by eye is always time-consuming, and never accurate. CorelDraw lets you align objects automatically with one another; or snap objects onto a grid or guidelines, or to other objects. Aligning objects to one another Select the objects you want to align. (Page 6.) In the Property Bar, click on Align. Set alignment choices from the dialog box. Using a Grid Always set the grid to suit the particular needs of the work you’re doing. Otherwise, Snap to Grid won’t be a help, and may be a hindrance. In the Layout menu, select Grid & Ruler Setup. The grid will use whatever units you have specified for the ruler (page 4). Bear in mind that a grid won't show fully unless you're viewing at an appropriate magnification, but snap to grid will work whether or not the grid is visible. Creating Guidelines Use Guidelines as you would a ruler or T-square. They are purely onscreen guides – they won't print. Click anywhere on the horizontal ruler bar, and drag down onto your page area. A blue horizontal guideline will appear on screen.Follow the same process to create a vertical guideline. Refer to online help if you want a guideline at an angle. To remove guidelines: drag them back to the ruler bar. Snapping options You can snap to guidelines or other objects, as well as grids. You will often want to switch quickly between having Snaps set on, and off. Check that no objects are selected. From the Property Bar, click the appropriate snap button or buttons. Look up Snap to Object in online help to see how this feature works.
Ordering, grouping and aligning objects
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Importing and exporting bitmaps You will often want to incorporate a bitmap image into a CorelDraw file. You may also need to export to bitmap format from CorelDraw – for instance, to save images in a format you can use within Web pages. In addition CorelDraw has the capacity to import and export in standard vector formats –files in .dxf format can be moved between CorelDraw and CAD software packages. You can also export text to standard word processing formats. Importing and cropping bitmaps CorelDraw has a very wide range of conversion filters which allow you to import and export graphics from and to all the most commonly used file formats. In the File Menu, click on Import. The Import Dialog box will appear. Click on the Arrow by the Files of Type box, and scroll down the list – this shows you all the file formats which CorelDraw can handle. If the setting is left on All Files, you can simply select the file you want whatever its format. If you want to crop your image, it's best to do so at this stage, before it's imported. Otherwise, the unwanted parts of the image will be adding unnecessarily to your file size. Select Crop from the box lower centre of the window. A Crop Image window will open. Click and drag on the image preview handles to crop; or specify crop area in exact measurements. Once the bitmap is loaded into CorelDraw, you can use the Shape tool to crop bitmaps to non-rectangular shapes. Click on the Shape tool, then click on the bitmap you want to crop. Nodes will appear at each corner. Click and drag a node to modify the outline shape. Add in extra nodes as you require: double-click on the Shape tool or on a node to display the Node Edit box. Click on the bitmap outline where you want an extra node, then click the Node + button in the box. When cropping a bitmap to a complex shape, it’s often best to define a path using Photoshop or Photopaint. But also look at CorelDraw’s PowerClip capabilities – page 33. Designating background colours as transparent is another useful strategy – page 32.
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Importing and exporting bitmaps
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Altering bitmaps If you want to carry out sophisticated transformations to a bitmap image, it's usually best do this before importing the image: use software designed for the purpose, such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Photopaint. But CorelDraw does provide a "cut-down" set of bitmap manipulation tools for you to use with bitmaps after importing them. Select your bitmap. The Property Bar will change to display the tools you're most likely to need. Among other things you can rotate a bitmap, mirror it, and adjust sharpness, brightness etc. from here. From the menu, choose Bitmaps. From here, the same commands can be accessed as from the Property Bar, and more besides. Resample lets you change the size and resolution of the bitmap; Convert to allows you to change its colour mode – for instance, from full colour to greyscale. These options can be useful to keep your overall file size manageable – for example, a greyscale or 256-colour (8-bit) image will take only one-third the space of a full-colour (24-bit) image. Try out the different effects available (Blur, noise, etc.) Wrapping text round a bitmap or other object Paragraph text can be wrapped around any object, whether it's an imported bitmap image, or a shape created in CorelDraw. The text must be in paragraph mode, not artistic. (Page 14.) Text can be converted from artistic to paragraph mode if necessary - select and click the Convert Text icon to the right of the Property Bar. Right-click on the object which you want to wrap text around. If you object is already positioned in the text, you may need to move it so you can select it independently of the text, then move it back into position. Select Wrap Paragraph Text from the popup menu. To make sure that your text doesn't come too close to the object: Right-click on the object and select Properties from the popup. Click the General tab, then set Text Wrap Offset as required. If you want to wrap text around part, not all of a bitmap image, it's often useful to draw an outline shape around the part from which you want text to be repelled, set the outline width to none, and wrap text around this invisible shape.
Importing and exporting bitmaps
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Exporting to bitmaps Jargon: Resolution: The number of dots used to create an image measured in dots per inch (dpi) or pixels per inch (ppi).
You can export all or part of any CorelDraw file to bitmap format. However, this is likely to result in significant loss of quality, especially if text or fine lines are exported. Quality loss can be kept to a minimum by specifying high resolution settings when you export, but your bitmap file may then become very large and slow to work with. A variety of bitmap file formats are available. You must use a compressed format – GIF or JPEG – if you want to include an image in a Web page. Online help has good information about which of these to use when. BMP is a reliable format for images you want to import into Microsoft packages such as Word. Uncompressed TIFF is a good choice for images you want to transfer between PCs and Macs, or if you want to load into specialist bitmap or dtp software. If you only want to export part of your CorelDraw image to a bitmap file, select what you want included. From the File Menu, select Export. The Export Dialog Box will open. (Only the lower part of this is illustrated.) Set Save as Type to the file format you require. Set the checkboxes for “Export this Page Only” and “Selected Only” right of the save as type list as you need. Name your file, then click Export. A second dialog box will open. This is where all the important decisions need to be made. Experiment, especially with resolution. Watch the Projected uncompressed file size reading at the bottom of the box, and note how your choices affect it. 256 colours will often be fine for a computer-generated image, and the file will be only one-third the size it would be saved in "millions of colours" Dithering is usually best left off to avoid a speckly effect. Best quality is achieved by leaving size set at 1 to 1. Scale up or down in CorelDraw before exporting. High quality printing requires much higher resolution than simply displaying on screen. But a bitmap saved at 300 dpi is four times the byte size it would be at 150 dpi, which in turn is four times the byte size of the same image at 75 dpi. Anti-aliasing is used to minimise jagged effects on text and fine lines when exported to bitmaps. Super-sampling does the job better than normal anti-aliasing, but takes longer.
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Importing and exporting bitmaps
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CorelDraw bells & whistles Useful variations on Copy and Paste Like all Windows software, CorelDraw’s Standard toolbar includes the usual Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy and Paste operations. Select All is also commonplace in Windows software, and makes it very quick to delete everything from a file, if you want to start afresh. (See page 8.) Pasting When you use the Paste option, CorelDraw will usually place the new copy of the object, directly on top of the original. This is confusing – you are likely to think that nothing has happened. Click and drag to move your pasted copy to its desired position. Duplicating objects
Tip: The keyboard shortcut to repeat an action is especially useful. Hold down the Control key, and press R (Ctrl + R)
Duplicate copies and pastes in one go, putting the copy down slightly offset from the original. Select the object or objects you want to duplicate, then select Duplicate from the Edit menu. Notice that the duplicate copy, not the original, is now the selected object. If you want further copies: From the Edit menu, select Repeat. Your second duplicate will be positioned in relation to the first duplicate, not to the original. You can exactly specify the relative position of a duplicate – this is useful if you want multiple copies of an object at fixed distances from one another. In the Property Bar, use the Duplicate Distance buttons. Either type in the values you want, or use the arrow keys to increase/decrease.
Original
Duplicate
The example is set up so that duplicates are placed two inches to the right and one inch above the original. Duplicates can be placed to the left of and/or below the original by specifying negative values. Distance is measured from the centre of one object to the centre of the next – not the space between the two. Once you have set preferences here, they will remain in force when you duplicate or clone, until you change the values again.
CorelDraw bells and whistles
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Cloning If you select Clone rather than Duplicate from the Edit menu, the copies will remain linked to the original. In the Status Line, the original will be described as the control object. Changes you make to the control object, will be automatically applied to the clones. Select the object or objects you want to clone from, then select Clone from the Edit menu. The clone will now be the selected object. Notice that you can’t simply repeat the Clone command, because you can’t clone from a clone. To place further copies of the Clone at fixed relative positions: Make sure the first clone (not the control object) is selected, and use Duplicate and Repeat as described on the previous page. In the example, an artistic letter (1) has been cloned and duplicated as described above(2); the control object has then been selected, and a different fill applied (3). You can modify a clone independently if you wish. If you do so, any attributes you have specifically set for this clone will override the control object attributes. However, any attributes which you haven’t reset on a clone, will change when you change the control object. For instance, if you only changed the shade of an individual clone, and then change the pen outline thickness of your control object, this alteration would apply to your changed clone. Copying text formatting It’s often useful to apply the text formatting which you have set for one text object, to another. Select the source object – the text from which you want the formatting to be copied. Click and drag the source object with the right mouse button until it’s resting above the target object. Leave go of the mouse button. If you've got the knack, a popup menu should now appear. Look at the different choices, and select Copy All Properties. The typeface, typesize, outline and fill of the source object will now be applied to the target object. You can use this method to copy outline and fill from between any objects, not just text ones.
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CorelDraw bells and whistles
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Using symbols and clip art Symbols In the Standard Toolbar, select the Symbols icon. The Symbols Rollup will open. Choose a symbol. Use the arrow keys at the top and bottom of the rollup to select a different set of symbols, and to scroll through the symbols available from that set. You can specify the size from here, but it’s easy to alter it later with the Pick tool. Click and drag your chosen symbol onto the CorelDraw drawing area. Scale or stretch the symbol to the size you want. You can alter the outline and fill of any symbol, just as you can any other CorelDraw object. However, with all but the simplest symbols, the results you get might not be quite what you expect. You need a good understanding of CorelDraw to avoid frustrations. Most symbols are grouped or combined objects – you must ungroup or break apart if you want to “fine-tune” them. See page 22. Clip Art CorelDraw offers a wide range of clip art, all of which can be altered to suit your wishes just like any other CorelDraw object. Because these take up a large amount of disk space, they are accessed from CD-ROM, and not installed on the hard disk. With the CD-ROM in the drive: In the Standard Toolbar, select the Scrapbook icon. The Scrapbook Rollup will appear. Click the Corel tab in the rollup. You should see the Clipart folder as illustrated. Double-click to open it. Select the appropriate folder, then click and drag your chosen image onto the CorelDraw drawing area. For an index search, scroll down to the bottom of the window, and you’ll find a file called Keywords.txt. Double-click to open this text file so you can search the list for what you want. Whatever software the file opens in, a Search command will be available from the Edit menu.
CorelDraw bells and whistles
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Special Effects If you have reached the point where you feel reasonably confident at all the operations already described in this document, finding out by yourself how to use the special effects which CorelDraw provides should be within your capabilities. These pages introduce just some of them. Blending Create two objects and apply different fills – a rectangle and a circle were used in the example. In the Toolbox, click on the Interactive Blend Tool, then click and drag from one object to the other. Your two objects should now have blended, and the Property Bar will change to display a set of blend control tools. From here, you can change the number of steps in your blend, blend direction, and more besides.
However, you may find the Blend Roll-up provides easier ways of handling things: Select the two objects you want to blend. From the Effects menu, select Blend. Remember that you need to click on the Apply button before the blend will take effect. However you create a blend, it can be modified later: Try selecting the blend. If you select by clicking on an intermediate step, the selected object will be described in the status bar (bottom of CorelDraw window) as a blend group. With the blend group selected, you can size it, scale it and move it. Click on the blend outline to enter Rotate and Skew mode (page 6), and try the effects. You can still select your initial two objects independently from the blend. These are now described in the status line as control objects. Try the effects on your blend of moving, scaling and otherwise modifying either of your control objects. Then try some different settings in the blend rollup.
The path can be made invisible once the blend is as you want it to be.
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To fit a blend along a path: create a blend, create a path object, then select the Interactive Blend Tool. Using the right mouse button, drag the blend group over the path. When you release the button, a popup menu should appear. Select Fit Blend to Path. Change the path, and the blend will reroute, just as when you fit text to a path. (Page 16.)
CorelDraw bells and whistles
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Extruding If you found playing with blends slightly addictive, extruding is still more dangerous. Create an object with an interesting shape to extrude, and select it. From the Effects menu, select Extrude. Notice that this shares the same window as the Blend rollup – if this is already open, select from the picklist at the top. From the rollup, you can control depth, lighting, colour. Experiment with every setting, and different combinations. Some things will not have any good effects at all – it all depends on what kind of object you’re extruding. Online help is quite useful. Remember you need to click on Apply before your settings take effect. Welding and trimming Create some overlapping objects, as in the example. Select the objects. From the Arrange menu, select Weld. The Weld Rollup will open. Click on Weld To, then on one of your selected objects. A single object will now be created, with the same outline and fill as the object you selected to Weld To. You can trim one object with another by a similar process: Create some overlapping objects, and select them. From the Arrange menu, select Trim. Or, if the Weld Rollup is open, select it from there. Click the Trim button, then on the target object – the one you want trimmed. Move away or delete the object you used to trim with. Mirroring Select an object or objects, then click the horizontal or vertical mirror button in the Property Bar. If you want a mirrored copy, rather than replacing the original object: From the Arrange menu, select Transform, then Scale and Mirror. Click the mirror buttons as required, then click Apply to Duplicate. Just as you would do simple stretches with the mouse, you can also mirror objects by clicking and dragging: Select an object or objects, and drag one of the side handles over and through to the other side.
CorelDraw bells and whistles
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Making objects transparent Any object, whether created in CorelDraw or an imported bitmap, can be made transparent. Select the object to which you want to apply transparency. In the Toolbox, click the Interactive Transparency Tool. The cursor changes to a wineglass icon. Click and drag across the object and transparency will be applied. Once you have applied transparency to an object, the Property Bar will change to give you access to a range of tools for specifying exactly the transparency you want. Experiment!
Making a specified colour transparent Using the Bitmap Color Mask Rollup, you can hide colours (e.g. white or black) within a bitmap, so that they are treated as transparent. This is especially useful to make single-colour background areas transparent, so giving a "cutout" effect. Select your bitmap. From the Property Bar or Bitmaps menu, select Bitmap Color Mask. A rollup will appear. Make sure the top bar in the colour mask is selected. (A blue marker will show to its right.) Click on the eyedropper icon, top left of the rollup. While the cursor is an eyedropper shape, click within your bitmap on the colour you want to be transparent. Adjust tolerance if you want to hide not just a single colour shade, but a range of shades within that colour. If you want more than one colour to be transparent: Make sure the next bar down in the colour mask is selected, then repeat the steps described above. When you have chosen all the colours you want: Click the Apply button. Move the bitmap on top of something else to check that the desired transparent effect is achieved. When you import a multi-layered Photoshop (.psd) file into CorelDraw, it will consist of a group of objects, with one object corresponding to each layer. If you want to use just one layer, ungroup the object, then move the layers away from each other. Delete the ones you don't want. This is useful if you've made a cutout on a layer in Photoshop and want to carry the cutout effect into CorelDraw.
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CorelDraw bells and whistles
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Creating your own patterns Any bitmap image can be used as the basis for creating a tiled fill. Create the shape you want to fill with your own pattern. In the Toolbox, click the Fill tool, then Pattern Tool (third from left). The Pattern Fill dialog box will open. Select Bitmap type, then click Load. The Import dialog box will open. (Page 24). Select the file you want to use for your pattern, and OK. You will now be returned to the Pattern Fill dialog box. Set tile size as you require, and OK. To control pattern offset: Click the Tiling button in the Pattern Fill dialog box and select from the options available. Powerclips Powerclip lets you quickly clip a bitmap image to any shape. Any vector object - including text objects - can be used as the "container". Import the bitmap you want to clip. (Page 24) Create the shape you want to contain the bitmap. Select the bitmap, then click and drag with the right mouse button until the bitmap is in the correct position in relation to the container shape. When you stop dragging and lift your finger from the mouse, a popup menu should appear. Select PowerClip Inside, and the bitmap will be clipped to the required shape. To reposition the bitmap inside the container: from the Effects menu, select Powerclip, then Edit Contents. When you've done, select Finish Editing from this menu. Perspective effects Select the object to which you want to apply perspective. From the Effects menu, select Add Perspective, then click and drag the object nodes to create the perspective you want. If you want to edit the perspective, first select Clear Perspective from the Effects menu, then repeat the process. Envelopes Any vector object can be distorted to any shape by applying an envelope, which controls the shape of the distortion.
You can select from the preset choices, then edit as you want.
Select the object you want to distort. From the Effects menu, select Envelope. The envelope rollup will appear. Click Add New or Add Preset, then click and drag on the object nodes to pull the envelope to the shape you want. Nothing happens till you click the rollup Apply button!
CorelDraw bells and whistles
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Sheffield Hallam University, Corporate Information Systems
Printing from CorelDraw When you're ready to print: Save your file just before you print in case you have a crash. If more than one printer is available to you: from the File menu, select Print Setup, and choose the printer you want. From the File menu, select Print Preview. Always Print Preview before you print. Check that your whole design fits within the printable area of the page – this is shown as a dotted border in Print Preview mode. You'll sometimes want to scale your whole design at the printing stage – either to fit within the printable area, or to print on a different paper size from the size you designed at. To do this either: Click and drag on the handles around the image area. Click the Options button. The Print Options dialog box will open. From Layout, select Fit to Page. Fit to page may have unexpected results if you have objects in your drawing area outside the page limits. Sometimes you may not have realised they were there. To check: 1) Close Print Preview. 2)From the Zoom tool, select Zoom All Objects (top right). 3) Click Select All in the Edit menu. When all is as you want: click the Print button in the toolbar to print one copy of the whole file; or select Print from the File menu to print specific pages or multiple copies. Printing to Postscript printers
Convert to curves button
Many high-quality laser printers use the Postscript page description language. As vector software has developed, its capabilities have outstripped those of Postscript. Some types of object may not print at all, or will print only partially, on a Postscript printer. Potential problems you should look out for and "workarounds" include: Complex grouped objects – try ungrouping before you print. Text objects to which complex fills, perspectives or enveloping have been applied, particularly if the object has an outline as well as a fill. Possible workarounds are 1) Convert problem text to curves – select, then click the Property Bar button. 2) Convert to bitmap – select, then choose Convert to Bitmap from the Bitmaps menu. Both these procedures will involve quality loss. (1) isn't always effective, but (2) can produce very large files. Many printers can run in both Postscript and an alternative mode. Use the alternative if possible.
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Printing from CorelDraw
Sheffield Hallam University, Corporate Information Systems
Making the most of CorelDraw help If you have worked your way through this document, you are well on your way to becoming a competent CorelDraw user. You have been introduced to many of CorelDraw's capabilities, and you should have begun to get a feel for the more general computer graphics concepts which you most need to understand. Once you have reached this stage, you're at the point where you can really benefit from online help. Beginners often find online help frustrating rather than useful – you need some basic confidence and a familiarity with the jargon before you can make the most of what it offers.
What's Tutorials Hints This?
Corel Tutorials Getting Started Working with Text Changing the appearance of objects Special effects Publishing & Internet
However, CorelDraw does provide three easily-accessed help tools on its standard toolbar which new as well as experienced users will often find useful. What's This? Click on the tool, then click on the item (for instance, tool in the toolbox or property bar) you want help with. An information box will popup. Right-clicking on the item then selecting What's This from the popup menu has the same effect. Tutorials. Click here to run the Corel Tutor. When the opening screen has loaded, click on one of the hyperlink pictures down the left of the tutorial window. The list of tutorials to select from will change to reflect your selected area of interest. Most tutorials include "Show me" demonstrations – these can be useful if you're having difficulty with a particular feature. Hints. This help option provides context-sensitive help which you can keep "always on top". Once you've clicked the hints button, the content of the Hints window will change depending on the tool and/or object you have selected. From the Help menu, Help Topics allows you to search for help via a Contents page, an Index, or by a Search. The Search option involves building up a database of words from the CorelDraw help files and this results in a very slow initial process when you first use it. Unless you're regularly using CorelDraw on your own computer, you're unlikely to find this worthwhile. If you have Internet access on your computer, you can link straight to Corel's Web site, and to Corel newsgroups, from the Help menu Corel on the Web option.
Making the most of CorelDraw help
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Sheffield Hallam University, Corporate Information Systems
Index Aligning Objects Artistic Text Bezier tool Bitmaps, concepts Bitmaps, altering Bitmaps, cropping Bitmaps, exporting to Bitmaps, importing Blending Bulleted text Clip Art Cloning Closed objects, creating freehand Colour, applying Colour settings, bitmap Column layout Combined objects Context-sensitive tools Copying objects Copying outline and fill attributes Copying and pasting text Copying text formatting Curve segment, deleting Curving corners on a Rectangle Default settings, changing Deleting objects Dimensioning tools Distorting objects Drawing units, setting Drop capitals Duplicating objects Ellipse Segment, creating Ellipses, creating Envelopes Extruding File formats, bitmap Fill defaults, changing Fill tool Fill, changing Freehand drawing tool Fountain fills Grid, using Grouping objects Guidelines, creating Handles Help tools Interactive Fill Tool Layers, Lines, drawing Line length and direction, modifying Line segment, deleting Line segments, connecting Linked text Magnification levels Mirroring Moving objects Multi-page capabilities, limitations Multi-page documents Natural Pen tool Object Manager Online Help Ordering Objects Outline and fill attributes, copying Outline pen tool Outline, changing Page setup
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23 14 12 1 25 24 26 24 30 16 29 28 11 9 26 19 22 3 8 10 17 28 13 13 20 7 12 33 4 16 27 13 6 33 31 26 20 10 9 11 10 23 22 23 7 35 10 22 11 13 13 11 18 5 31, 8 7 19 18 12 7 35 22 10 9 9 4, 19
Pages, inserting and deleting Paragraph Text Pasting Pattern fills Patterns, creating your own Pen defaults, changing Perspective Pick tool: Selecting objects Polygons, creating Postscript printers, problems Powerclip Printing Property bar Properties, copying Rectangles, creating Refreshing the Screen Display Resolution Right mouse button Rollups Rotating objects Saving files Scaling objects Selecting objects: pick tool Settings, saving for new documents Shape tool Skewing objects Snapping options Spellcheck Spirals, creating Status bar Stretching objects Symbols Text defaults, changing Text tool Text, copying and pasting Text, fitting to a path Text, importing Text, linked Text, wrapping round objects Toolbox Tool tips boxes Transparency in bitmaps Transparent fills Trimming Tutorials Typeface, changing Typing options, changing Undoing actions Vector, concepts Welding Zoom tool
19 15 27 10 33 20 33 7 6 34 33 34 3 28 6 5 26 3 9 8 4 8 7 21 13 8 23 21 6 3 8 29 20 14 17 16 17 18 25 2 3 32 32 31 35 15 21 6 1 31 5
Index
