Conventions of this help site

Introduction

If you are reading this than it means that you have purchased my manual on laser engraving. Why write a manual on laser engraving? Well for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that there is no manual that looks at CorelDraw and how it relates to laser engraving. A second reason is that there are a lot of people who are purchasing lasers and although running a laser is easy, it helps when you have help in explaining certain procedures. Thirdly and most importantly there are many times where you as an owner have employees. As is usual in any business there is a certain amount of turnover. Having this manual to give to a new employee would make it a lot easy to get them up to speed.

I have tried in writing this manual to address all the common questions that I have been asked over the years about CorelDraw and Laser Engraving. I know I will miss some areas that you may feel important. If you would like me to address an issue that you have that is not covered in this manual please let me know. I may have time to do a special insert for you or if it is that important I will make it available to all.

Machine Settings

Because there are so many machines and so many power settings it is impossible for me to offer suggested power settings and speeds. Make sure that you have a good grasp of powers and speeds with your machine.

Conventions in this Manual

Before going on it is important to understand that when we are explaining certain steps that we will use a standard format to help you understand the steps we are taking. For example when we want you to go to a menu item we will present it to you in Capital Letters. For example let us say that I want you to go and group a set of objects together. You will need to access the group command. I will present this in the following format ARRANGE | GROUP. Where “arrange” is the main menu item and “group” is the command which is found within the Arrange command. Figure 1 shows you the tree view of this command.

Figure 1

Also when I make reference to a button in a command such as the “okay” button I will place quotes around it.
For some of the sections in this book there is example file which is available on the CD. Each chapter has the relevant files located in the folder.
Also, on the CD I have placed the full text of this manual in PDF format. I have done this for two reasons. The first is that you may feel more comfortable reading this manual on your computer screen as opposed to in a book format. Secondly, you may want to make a copy of this manual for your own use (not someone else’s). You are more than welcome to reprint the book especially if you have lost the original – but not for someone else.
Well there you have it. It is time to get on and learn lots of new things about CorelDraw and your laser machine.