Getting to Know your way around CorelDraw

Getting to know your way around CorelDraw

Before getting started with any program it is important that we understand where all the commands are located and that we have a basic understanding of how each of these commands works. This section will provide a quick overview of CorelDraw’s major commands.

CorelDraw Start up Screen

When CorelDraw first starts up you are presented with a screen that gives you a number of options. Figure 2 shows the screen that is presented when you first open up CorelDraw 13.

Figure 1

Figure 2 shows you that CorelDraw gives you a number of options that you can choose. By clicking on any of these icons you can activate them. The “new” icon allows you to open a new document. The “recently used” icon allows you to access your most recent jobs (those jobs on my computer are listed in the red box. The “open” icon allows us to access the file manager to look for saved jobs. The “new template” icon allows us to access template jobs that have been saved. The “Corel tutor” icon allows us to access some tutorial files that CorelDraw has designed for us. The “What’s new” icon gives us access to what is new in Corel 13. If you have access to the internet and you want access to more tutorial files and other goodies clicking on the www.designer.com link takes you to a web site full of helpful information. The “show this welcome screen at startup” (blue box) allows us to uncheck the box and eliminate this opening box from showing up in the future.
Click on the “New” icon. This opens up a new job in CorelDraw. You will now be presented with a workspace that looks like figure 2.

Note: one of the things that typically will happen to a lot of people is that they have toolbars and menu bars disappear or get changed on them. If you want to get your workspace back to how it was when you installed CorelDraw than all you need to do is to press the F8 key while CorelDraw is opening up. While holding down the F8 key – double click on the CorelDraw Icon to start up the program. Keep holding down the key until a dialogue box comes up and tells you that you are over writing your workspace to a default setting. Let go of the F8 key and click “ok”. Just remember that your workspace will return back to its default setting there by deleting any special settings that you may have changed.

Once CorelDraw is open you will see what we refer to as the workspace. This workspace is comprised of a number of sections. Each of these sections is outlined in red text in Figure 3.

Figure 3

The Toolbox

The toolbox is situated on the left side of the workspace. Figure 4 shows us the toolbox.

Figure 4

The toolbox allows us to quickly select a command. All you need to do is to take your mouse over and click on the icon or command. Once you click on the icon the command becomes active.  Note: when a specific tool is selected the commands of that tool are listed in the property bar at the top of your page in the menu section – see figure 4. Typically your cursor will change to identify which tool is active. Figure 5 shows that when the text tool is selected the mouse turns into a plus sign and an “A”.

Figure 5

Clicking on the magnifying glass allows us to zoom in or out on our workspace. The cursor will change into a small magnifying tool. This indicates to us that the zoom tool is active. Table 1 indicates each one of the icons and a description of what each does.

Another aspect of the toolbox is that under some of the icons is a black triangle. This triangle indicates that there is what we call a fly out available. A fly out is a separate tool bar that lists other related icons that have similar commands as the main icon that is shown in the toolbox. To access a flyout all you need to do is to click on the icon and hold your left mouse button down. This will cause the flyout to expand outwards from the main icon. If you leave your mouse over the icon you will see a yellow box that lists a description of the tool. Figure 6 shows a flyout that is located within the shape tool.

Figure 6

Table 1 provides us with an explanation of all the main icons on the ToolBox.

Table 1

Property Bar

The property bar is found located at the top of the screen and is the bottom tool bar in a default CorelDraw setup. Figure 7 shows the tool bar (red box) as it appears when you open CorelDraw to your default workspace.

Figure 7

The property bar is unique from the standpoint that when you select a command the bar changes to reflect additional commands that are associated with the selected command. Figure 8 shows the property bar as it appears when we have selected the text icon in the toolbox. You will notice that you now have the ability to change a number of text attributes from the property bar. Having the property bar change like this is advantageous as it gives you access to a lot of commands without taking up a lot of workspace area.

Figure 8

The Ruler

There are two rulers within the CorelDraw desktop. One is located to the left of the workspace. This ruler controls the height (Y direction) of the workspace. The ruler at the top controls the width (x direction) of the workspace. For most lasers the top left hand corner reflects the top left hand corner of the laser. This means that the top left hand corner should have a value of (0, 0).  This creates a problem because the default setting in CorelDraw for the left hand corner is 0 for the x direction and 11 for the y (the page is 8.5 by 11). Thus it does not reflect a true 0, 0 position. If you want to change the y ruler to 0 than you need to right click with your mouse on the ruler and select the “ruler setup”. Figure 9 shows the dialogue box that comes up. To change the y ruler so that it shows 0 at the top enter in the page height into the vertical box (red box). In this case the page height is 11 so we enter in 11 for the page height.

Note: Just remember that if you want to do this than all measurements down on the Y ruler are in negative numbers.

Figure 9

The Docker Window

One of the items that does not become active when you start up CorelDraw is the docker window. The docker window allows a number of command windows to “dock” so that you can easily access the commands. Figure 10 shows that my desktop has 4 windows docked (red box). These windows dock to the right side of the workspace. To access a docked window all you need to do is to go to WINDOW | DOCKER and pick the docker that you want.

Figure 10

Colour Palette

Another feature that is located on the right side of the work space is the colour palette. This palette allows us to place a fill in a vector object (left click on the colour with your mouse) and to change the colour of a vector line (right click on the colour in the toolbar). Draw a square or circle and try it. If you want to expand the colour bar you can click on the black arrows that are situated at the bottom of the palette.

Status Bar

One of the areas that does not receive enough attention when we are talking about CorelDraw is the status bar. This area of the workspace provides us with information on the type of object that is selected, the memory used, the fill and outline colours, help suggestions and coordinate locations. If you want you can add other details to be shown by accessing the options command located in the tools menu. Figure 11 shows some of the information listed for some text.

Figure 11

Once you learn the main components of the CorelDraw Workspace you can have a better appreciation for the commands that we will talk about later on. Practice and develop a through knowledge of these components as they are the foundation of CorelDraw.

Turning off Colour Correction in CorelDraw

One of the first things that you need to do in CorelDraw is to turn off the colour correction that has been enabled by default. The problem with the colour correction settings is that they are providing CMYK colours to any output device like the laser engraver. The laser engraver typically needs to be given RGB numbers. RGB numbers are given by CorelDraw only if the colour correction setting is turned off. To access the colour correction setting you need to go to TOOLS | COLOUR CORRECTION. This enables a dialogue box as per Figure 12. All you need to do is to click on the pull down menu and select “Colour Management Off”.

Figure 12

Note: for CorelDraw version 9 users figure 13 shows you the menu that comes up. Make sure that you uncheck the “Calibrate colours for display”. This will turn the rest off.

Note: for Corel X3 users make sure that the coloured arrows are gray. You can do this by clicking on them. Turn them all off.

Figure 13

Changing Corel Default Settings

Sometimes when you start out with a program you may not like the default settings that are set up. In CorelDraw you have the ability to change CorelDraw’s default settings to whatever settings that you want. To access the control panel where all the presets are listed go to TOOLS | OPTIONS. Figure 14 shows the dialogue box that you are presented with.

Figure 14

Working with this control panel is easy. Each of the default settings in CorelDraw are broken down into sections. These sections are listed on the left side of the window. As you select each one of these sections you are presented with a number of attributes. You can turn these on or off or enter in different values than what Corel has setup. Some of the more common ones that I change are listed in the table below.

Table 2

There a few of the settings that I tend to change. You can change them or not. You can do whatever you want. Just make sure that any settings that are changed in the Document area are then saved via the check box in the main document area. We will get to this in the next little while.

Changing the text attributes in CorelDraw

For a lot of us that use CorelDraw the one thing that we quickly learn to hate is the default font style and size that CorelDraw has chosen for us (X3 users can bypass this). It is easy to change the font styles by going into the options section of CorelDraw.

For this exercise we are going to change the text attributes in regards to font style and justification.

First we need to go to TOOLS | OPTIONS. Before we change the text attributes we need to change one setting in the CorelDraw defaults. While in the options dialogue box move up and select “text” in the left pane – see figure 15. Here we need to change the default settings for text to inches. This setting allows us to specify our font height in inches as opposed to points (Only in the Object Properties Docker).

Figure 15

Once the font size can display in inches we can proceed to changing all the text attributes. On the left hand side of the display we need to go to DOCUMENTS | STYLES – see figure 16. Next select the “Default Artistic Text”. Note: by selecting the default artistic text we will be changing the attributes for only artistic text. Artistic text is the standard text that we use when we enter text (we will learn more about this in the text chapter).

Now to change the text attributes we need to select the “edit” button beside the Latin Text Font – see blue box. Note: if you want to make a change in the text colour you would select the edit button that is located next to the Fill section – see red box.

Figure 16

Once the edit box is clicked we are presented with a dialogue box as per figure 17. Within this first tab we find that we can change several of the font attributes. First we need to change the actual font to what we want to use. Figure 17 show us that I have changed the font to Arial. I have also changed the font size to .125. Note: we can see inches because of the changes that we made in figure 15.

Figure 17

Once you have changed those attributes we need to change the default justification to center. Figure 18 shows that this attribute is located in the paragraph section of the same window. Click on the tab “paragraph” and change the justification to center.

Figure 18

Another attribute to change is the uniform fill that is listed in figure 16 (red box)

Figure 19

Click on the word “edit”. Select the “Model” as RGB – blue box in Figure 19. Next make your R G and B values 0 as per the red box in figure 19. This gives us a solid black colour.

Now that we have changed the text attributes we still need to let CorelDraw know that we want these changes to be our new default. To do this we need to go back and click on the word DOCUMENT (red box) in the same window located on the left side – see figure 20.

Figure 20

Because we are only saving the default settings for the Styles section we can uncheck all the others except the “styles” option as per Figure 20. Click okay and you defaults will now be saved.

Figure 21 shows that when we activate text within our drawing our changes are now defaults.

Figure 21

Changing the Ruler Attributes

One of the more annoying things that we find in CorelDraw is that the upper left hand corner origin points are not 0 and 0. For example if you have an 8.5 by 11 page size the top left hand corner is X=0 and Y = 11. This can cause issues especially if you want to place an item 3.185 inches from the top. You have to subtract 3.185 from 11 and than you will have the proper number.

Make a page size that is 12 inches high by 24 inches long. As is usual the y ruler shows a top origin of 12.

So how do we make the origin 0 and 0? It is quite easy. Go to TOOLS | OPTIONS. Move down the left side of the window and select rulers as per figure 22.

Figure 22

Figure 22 shows us that the vertical and the horizontal origins are 0 and 0. However on our page this is not right. Our vertical is 12. So to make the origin zero we need to make the vertical number 12. This will make the vertical origin 0.

If you are always using the same page size than you can save this setup by going to document and click on “Save options as defaults”. Also select only “Grid and ruler options”.

Note: Once you have changed the vertical origin so the origin is 0 you will need to enter in a negative number to move down the page. For example if you need to move a line to 1 inch than you will enter in -1.

Nudges

Another important item that resides in the ruler section is the Nudge settings. If you hit any of the arrow keys located on the keyboard you can “nudge” an object. This distance is controlled by the numbers in the nudge setting as per Figure 22.

Changing Backups and Autosaves

One of the more annoying things that CorelDraw has setup as a default is that it makes auto backups at predetermined times and also makes a backup copy of your file when you exit. This ends up creating two separate files and can be a real pain if it is saving the backup files into the same directory as your other jobs. Actually if you want to back up your files this feature is nice when you want to have a backup file created on a network drive. However most people do not and thus want this feature turned off.

Open up TOOLS | OPTIONS and move down to “Save”. Figure 23 shows us what you get.

Figure 23

You will notice that the default setting is a backup every 20 minutes. Typically I turn this off. If you want to you can have a back up file go to another location. To accomplish this choose “specific folder”. I usually uncheck “make backup on save”. Any changes done in the “Workspace” section do not need to be saved as we did in our previous examples. Any changes are immediate.

Page Size

One other item that you may want to change is the default page size. For example if you like to work on a 12 by 24 than why not have CorelDraw bring up the page size automatically. To change the default page size go to TOOLS | OPTIONS and select page and than page size – see figure 24.

Figure 24

The red box shows the new size that I have listed. Once we have made our changes we need to save the changes by going to Document and than select “Save options as defaults”. Select the page option. Now when you open up CorelDraw you will have the 12 by 24 page size come up. If you want you can “save custom page” so that you can access the page quickly in the Property Bar

We have now concluded our introduction to CorelDraw Basics. This section was designed to give you an overview of the program as well as some housekeeping chores. We will talk in depth about CorelDraw in our next chapter. However I feel it is important to discuss the workings of the laser first. The next section of this chapter is devoted to this.

Setting up the Laser Driver in Windows

Typically when you install your laser driver the driver installs a number of presets. Typically these presets are not what you want. In this section we will show you how to change the laser presets.

The first issue that some users have – especially us in Canada, is that the driver and Corel for that matter default out to metric. Most of us still want to work in imperial. To make the change before you install Corel and your driver