Create a page that is 6 by 6 (1).

Select the basic shapes tool from the toolbox (1). Hold the left mouse button and the tool will fly out. Select the Basic Shapes (2)

Select the Shape button (1). Select the heart shape (2).

Draw out the heart. You can see that the heart is selected as it is in the button on the toolbar (1). Hold the Ctrl key and drag out the heart this will create a concentric heart.

First make sure that the unlock button is unlocked. Next make your heart 3 inches in size (2).

Create another heart. Select it and make it .35 inches tall (1). Make sure that the lock button is unlocked.

Next duplicate the .35 inch heart so that we have two made (2). To do this I usually left click on the heart and move it before I let go of the mouse right click and this will make a duplicate. If you hold the shift key the object will move over on the same plane.

Go to EFFECTS (1) | BLEND (2).

Select both the hearts. Type in how many hearts you want to make. I used 20 (1). Click on the Apply Button (2).

With the blend selected click on the path command (1).

Select New Path (1).

Your cursor will turn into a bent arrow (1). Click on the heart with the arrow

Now the Heart is selected. Make sure the “Blend along the path” is checked (1). Click on the Apply button (2).

Our Blend is around the heart. If you wanted to add or subtract the hearts you could decrease or increase the number from 20.

Because we are going to cut this out of wood we need to delete the original hear that we created. So select the heart. I know it is selected as it is the “Control Perfect Shape” in the Status Bar (1).

Anytime I am creating objects on a path I never delete the path. To remove the path so that it does not engrave requires me to remove the line colour. To do this right click on the “remove colour” in the colour palette (1). This removes the colour of the outline but it is still there later if you need to adjust the hearts.

Here is my image finished and ready to cut.

Here is the heart cutout in wood I have modified the above file to do this

First click on the Microsoft Orb and than click on ALL Programs (1).

Click on Adobe Reader 9 to start up the program

Go to File | OPEN (1)

In Adobe Acrobat you can not see an AI file so we need to change our “Files of Type” to “All Files”. This allows us to see all our files.

You can now see our AI file that is the Ontario Provincial Police_OPP (1). Click Open (2). Notice with file selected the file is an AI file and the size is 186K (3).

Adobe Acrobat is showing the logo.

Click FILE(1) | SAVE A COPY (2)

Do not worry about the warning just click OK

Notice that it wants to save the file as an AI file. Delete the .ai extension(1). It will now be saved as a PDF extension (2)

Now I can save the file as the .ai is deleted

Go to FILE (1) | IMPORT (2)

Select the PDF filter (this is what makes this work) (1). Select the File (2). Click on Import.

When you open or import an EPS or PDF or AI CorelDraw will ask you if you should “Import your text as curves or text. I usually use Curves unless I need to edit the text the as long as the text information has been saved with the file (1).

Our file can now be opened in CorelDraw

Here is the original plate that I got from my customer

My plate size is 4 (1) by 2.75 (2).

I want to first setup my text options for the paragraph text so that when I create the table it will pick up these settings. In this case I want the text to be .125 inches tall and the font to be arial. The text needs to be left justified. Go to TOOLS (1) | OPTIONS (2).

First we need to select Styles (1). than Default Paragraph Text (2). Than Edit (3)

Make your text Arial and the size .125. Note if you want a special justification select paragraph and change your justification.

For this exercise I made the default left. This is good for the two outside columns.

I drew out guidelines to help me line up the table. The left (1) and right (2) columns will be wider than the middle column (3).

Select the table command from the tool box.

I need 3 columns (2) and I need 7 (1) rows for my table. Type in this info before you create your table

With the “Snap to Guidelines” on I am going to drag from the top left corner to the bottom right hand corner. You can see that the snap is indicating intersection (via the dynamic guidelines).

To change our table widths requires me to use the shape tool. So activate it in the Tool Box

With the shape tool selected my lines turn to colour.

Place your mouse over the line until it turns into a double headed arrow and drag inwards till it snaps on the guideline

Repeat for the other side

We now have a table that is setup the way we want it

We can now start entering the text for each of our cells. With the text tool activated (press F8) click inside the table with your cursor (1).

Type in your first line which in this case is the word CUSTOMER (1).

Continue entering your text into each column.

Keep entering in your text. For the right column. For this column we need to make the justification as Center so click inside your cell press the Ctrl key and the “E” key together and this will center justify the column or you can click on the center justifcation icon in the property bar.

When I am in text mode (1) the red box in the bottom right frame (2) indicates that the text is not fully showing on the screen. We need to adjust the text size or frame size to get the text on the screen.

If the line is a little long you can use the Fit Text to Frame found in TEXT (1) PARAGRAPH TEXT FRAME (2) and FIT TEXT TO FRAME (3)

You can also decrease or increase the margins of the cell. Make sure that the table tool is selected in the ToolBox. Now click on the Margins drop down (1). If you want to effect all the margins the same leave the lock button on and type in a value. If you want separate values unlock the icon (2). Now enter in your values (3). In this case all I want to do is to increase the width so that the last character can fit on the line. Note: worse case scenario is you can decrease the font size.

The text has been laid out. The problem is that the text is higher at the top than at the bottom. We need to adjust. We could lower the table box or we can change the alignment on the text frame. Right now it is top we need to make it middle. This will force the text into the middle of the table cell and the alignment will be even.

If you want you can also change the amount of condensing on that line. Go to TEXT | CHARACTER FORMATTING. This opens a docker. Select the line you want to condense (1). Next go and decrease the character spacing to increase the condensing on the line.

Make sure that the Table command is active in the Tool Box (1). Click in on the cell that you want to change so that is active as per the round selection handle dots (2). Now from the pull down menu click on the Vertical alignment icon (3) and select Center Vertical Alignment (4).

You can see that our text is now evenly spaced out on our plate. We now have to add in our dashes into the middle column

I have entered into text mode and I am going to use the underscore dash as it is longer. I have entered it in. Because it is an underscore it is actually lined up with the center of the other lines so I really do not have to do anything with it other than make it bold (1). In the next cells I just copied the first cell and each successive cell I went cut and paste.

I have now have my plate almost complete. There is still one other step to do before I can go on.

We first must thicken up the outside border. Make sure that it is selected from the Borders pull down (1). Next make sure the colour is what you want which in this case is black (2). Next select the width of the line which in this case is .014 inches.

Select the border pull down (1) and select the inside boarder (2).

Because I want no inside border I will select the “x” which is none (1).

We now have a finished plate that we can send to our laser.

Here is a logo that I grabbed off the internet. To make sure that I had a good test file I took the original vector file and converted it to a rgb bitmap.

We now need to activate the Trace program. With the logo selected select Trace Bitmap (1). Than Outline Trace (2). Than Line art (3) Typically for this type of logo I will select with the Line art (3) setting or the Logo preset (4)

Here is the Before and After view in the Trace window

I like to view the logo in WireFrame overlay as opposed to the Before and After.

The default settings that CorelTrace has used create an excellent image. Our trace is outlined in red while the original image is in blue.

Here are the settings that Corel has assigned for the Line Art Settings. The detail (1) indicates how much detail you want to include in the image. I typically always leave this at the highest level for any logos I am doing. The Smoothing (2) allows us to control how smooth we want our image’s lines to be. Typically if the image is a bad scan you may increase this while if the artwork is good as it is here I leave this alone. Note: the temptation is to slide this slider to the far left and increase the detail. The problem here is that our number of nodes and thus file size becomes quite large. Also each node indicates a direction change on our machine and thus our rotary engraving machine or our laser machine will not be traveling as smooth as maybe it should. The corner smoothness (3) allows us to adjust how tightly we follow the corners of our image. In this case our image is of good quality so I am going to have the software follow the corners as tight as it can. If the image was of lesser quality I may increase this setting. Also I like to point out that the Trace setup screen also indicates the number of curves used (9 curves), the number of nodes (539) and the number of colours (2).

Once you exit the Trace command Corel will place the new trace right on top of the old trace. This can create a problem if you deselect the image

Here is the finished trace.

I went to VIEW | WIREFRAME

This zoomed in shot shows the quality of the trace lines.

If you want to edit the logo to clean up some of the lines the first step is to Ungroup the Logo so that you can select the individual lines. Go to ARRANGE (1) | UNGROUP ALL (2).

To be able to edit the nodes on in the Logo I need to activate the shape tool

When you activate the shape tool your cursor will turn into a rectangle

When you click on the image any contours that are combined together will activate their nodes

I broke my contours apart so now when I click on a contour I only get one contour. You can see that the contour is selected as the nodes are activated.

Here is a zoomed in view of all the nodes. If you want to delete some of the nodes you can select them and delete them. I am going to delete two of the nodes that are marked (1).

If you hover over a node it becomes highlighted as a rectangle (1)

To select a node all you need to do is to click on the node with your cursor which is in the shape of a triangle

With the node selected you can just press the delete key and the node will disappear. Note: when deleting nodes make sure you watch the shape of the contour as a deleted node could change the shape of the contour. If it does just undo. I have now deleted my two nodes. Note: The less the amount of nodes the smoother the logo. Just be careful if you delete to many nodes you can smooth out the logo to much so be careful

Create a page in CorelDraw that is 6.0 by 3.0. You will notice that I have places some descriptive text at the top of the page (2).

Here is the file my dealer got from their customer. There are 20 columns of names. each Column needs to have a descriptive name. In this case it is NAM01 and so forth.
NOTE: remember that CorelDraw will not condense names. Thus you need to figure out how many letters you can get on a line without the line flowing past the page margins (you could do an envelope so maybe I will address that in another tutorial). So pick your font size and figure out how many characters can go on a line and tell the customer to work within these parameters.

Here is the excel file in close up view. Notice that the first cell has the identifier text NAM01 (1). The text is in the fields below. The next column has the next identifier NAM002 (3). It does not have be NAM01 it can be any descriptive name that you want.
Note: Once the file has been checked close it down.

Got to File (1) | Print Merge (2) | Create/Load Merge Fields (3).

Select “Import text from a file or an ODBC data source” (1). Click next (2)

Select “ODBC Data Source” and then select “Select ODBC Data Source”

First click on the “Machine Data Source” tab (1). Next double click on the “Excel Files” name (2).

Select the directory where the file is (1). In this case My Documents. Next double click on the file name (2) in this case PLTALL.xls. Or click once and click “Ok”. Click next.

The PTALL file is selected (1). The Column window shows the 20 columns that where in excel that are being imported into Corel (2). Select Ok (3).

Select Next (1)

You can see that the columns are imported (1). The field type is text (2). Click Next (1).

Here is the text displayed in the Merge Wizard. You can see the merge fields listed on the top (1). The names are all listed in the body (2). Note: you can spell check or change any of the names here if you want. You can also choose not to bring in a name by unchecking the name name (3). Click Next (4).

Select Finish (1). This will end the wizard.

The print merge toolbar becomes active. We now need to start inserting our merge fields. Our Name field is NAM01 and we are going to insert it onto the CorelDraw document that we created using the insert command (1).

When you insert a merge field the field takes the name of the field that was created originally in Excel. This is why it is always advisable to make sure that you chose a name that is descriptive of the data that is coming in. For example if you where bringing in data that related to a position in a company such as sales use the field identifier name “Company Position”. This way you know what is in the field.

Select all the 10 lines of text and make text left justified. Because there are two columns here I am going to make the lines left justified. If I was doing only one column I would probably just leave it at center justified.

I have placed a .25 inch margin on the plate using guidelines. Place the 10 lines somewhat like I have them. Now place the top line – Name 01 at the edge of the top guideline (1) and the bottom line – Name 10 at the edge of the bottom guideline (2). Also make sure that each line is touching the left guideline (turn on “snap to guideline”).

Select all your text. We are going to left justify the text. After that we will be aligning it and than distribute it

Select Arrange (1) | Align and Distribute (2) | Align and Distribute (3).

Select “Align (1) and than “left (2). Click “Apply (3). This will left justify all the text.

Select the Distribute Tab (1). Next select Center (2). We are now going to evenly distribute the 10 select lines evenly. I am using the top and the bottom lines as the extent of where this distribution is going to be. Click Apply (3). You changes will take place and the box stays open. Click Close (4)

Here is our finished layout. I have 10 names in the first column and 10 names in the second column. I am now ready to do my merge.

Select Merge to New Document (1) if you are a user of X4 or X5. If you are a user of X3 or less select Print in the print merge toolbar (2) and proceed to the imposition layout in the print menu located later in this tutorial.

CorelDraw will than proceed to create a new document called printmerge1 that is comprised of a number of pages. each page has a new set of names on it. In this case each new page has 20 new names on each page. If we only had one merge field than we would only have one new name per page.

You can see from the number of pages that I have created 268 pages (1). Each page created has 20 names. Thus I have a total of 286 x 20 names which means I have a total of 5720 names.

Some of the lines are to long so they need to be condensed. You can select each line individually and condense each one but the problem is you will get lines that will look different from each other.

Select VIEW (1) | SNAP TO GUIDELINES (2)

Some of the lines are to long so they need to be condensed. You can select each line individually and condense each one but the problem is you will get lines that will look different from each other.

If we condense the lines that are going past the guidelines than we end up with lines that look different than the non condensed lines. It is thus better to condense them together

Now we need to select all the text in the left column. Next click on the right middle selection handle (1) – green arrow and while holding down the mouse button drag left (red line). With the snap to guidelines on the text will snap to the guideline.

You can see that now each line in each column is justified the same. The text looks a lot better now.

Select File (1) Print (2).

Select Your Laser (1)

Select Your Page Size which in this case is 24 by 12.

Select the Layout tab (1). In Versions older the layout table is right beside the General Tab. Than select Edit (2).

The imposition command allows us to take our 286 pages and group them into bigger pages. Thus we can do more than one plate at a time. In this case my big plate is 24 by 12 which I setup in my print setup for my laser or sublimation printer. Now I am going to put a bunch of 6 by 3′s on a 24 by 12 inch plate. If I divide this number I will get 4 across (4 x 6 = 24) and 4 down (4 x 3 = 12). Thus I can get 16 plates per multiple. You can see from my screen shot I have 16 plates. Note: Make sure that the numbers are exact if you use to many plates they will fit on the big plate but make them smaller.

To preview the job click on the “Document Preview” (1)

You can see that I have 16 plats per page. Note: for this example I did not condense all the names on the pages. I will let my dealer do that. Select the check mark (1).

Select Print to send the job to your laser or you sublimation printer. Note: Sure is nice I did not have to type in 5700 names. Sure speeds up this job.

Here we have an image of some horses with the rockie mountains as a back drop

The resolution of our image is 228 by 228. For a laser it should not fall below 100 dpi. For sublimation I would keep this number at about 200dpi

The size of our image is 8.771 by 6.578. Let us assume we are using 3 by 3 inch tiles. For this excursive I want to use an image that is 15 inches by 12 inches. Thus we need 5 tiles long (5 x 3) and 4 tiles high (4 X 3). Before we can go on we need to make our image 15 by 12 with a resolution of 100 if we are doing it on a laser machine.

The problem is if we just drag our image and make it bigger than our resolution will be to small. To reduce the effect of enlarging the image we will use the resample command (1) that is found in CorelDraw.

First of all make sure that the image size will retain the original aspect ratio (1). Type in a width of 15 (2). You will notice that the height goes to 11.25 (3) automatically which is to small for the 12 that we need. As I only need 150 DPI i have entered this in for the Horizontal (4) and the vertical (5) resolution. Notice that the file size has increased in as per the red box. Make sure that you have unchecked "anti-alias (6). What I need to do is to enter in 12 for the height.

First enter in 12 for the height. (1) This will change width to 16 (2). Click on "OK"

We need to crop the image down to 15 by 12. We do this by selecting the crop tool (1)

While holding down your left mouse button drag and create a selection or crop box. Do not worry about the size we will correct this in the next step

First we need to type in 15 for the width (1) and 12 for the height (2). Press enter.

Place the selection box on top of the original image. Remember that anything outside the box will be gone once we accept the crop.

Double click on the selection or crop box to accept the crop.

Go to the toolbox and select the Graph Paper (1). The hot key is "D"

As per the beginning of this article we know that we are creating 3 by 3 tiles. Thus we need 4 tiles tall and 5 tiles wide. Type in 4 for the height (1) and 5 for the width (2).

While holding down your left mouse button drag and create the stock graph paper

We should have a setup as per the above.

Select the graph paper and type in 15 wide (1) and 12 (2) tall.

First we need to select the graph and the picture together. Drag a selection box around the two. Press the letters "C" and than "E". This will center the two.

Press the Tab button until the picture is selected. You will know the picture is selected as the pictures name is at the bottom in the status bar

Select EFFECTS (1) | POWERCLIP (2) | PLACE INSIDE CONTAINER (3).

When you select "Place Inside Container" your cursor will change into a black arrow. Click inside the Gird, This means that we want the grid to powerclip our photo

If you get this error message than you did not have the photo selected. Click "No" go back and make sure the photo is selected and repeat.

Make sure that you have the powerclipped image and grid selected. Now go to ARRANGE (1) | UNGROUP(2).

You can now separate the image from each of the other grids. Notice that the grid that I selected is a 3 by 3 grid (1), Now all I have to do is to remove the pen outline.

Make sure that the 3 by 3 image is still selected. Than select the Pen tool (1). Than None (2).

You can see that my picture is 3 by 3 and it has now outline. Now we can laser the image onto tiles or sublimate the image onto tiles

To invoke artistic text all you need to do is to click anywhere on the desktop with you mouse. Your mouse will turn into

Too activate text click on the Text icon in the Toolbox or press the F8 key. To activate Artistic text just click on the workspace and start typing. YOu will see a flashing cursor which indicates that text is active.

To create paragraph text drag and hold your left mouse button and drag a window.

A text frame is create which allows you to start typing. Although Paragraph text is powerful I tend to only use it when I need to do a column layout as for a coaches plaque or for a large plaque where there is a lot text.

Let us type some text

Any misspelled words will be underlined in red by CorelDraw

To auto correct a misspelled word in CorelDraw just right click on the word

If you want to rotate the text (1) select one of the 4 arrows with the curved lines. To Skew the line left to right select the arrows above or below the text (2). To skew one end or the other click on either one of the arrows at either end (3).

To rotate the text move your mouse overt the double arrow (1) until your mouse turns into a circle with 2 arrows at the end (2). To rotate the object, drag a corner rotation handle, holding down Ctrl if you want to rotate the object in 15-degree increments.

If you click and hold your mouse you can rotate your text

To skew the text move your mouse over the double arrow (1) until your cursor turns into a double arrow (2). To skew the object, drag a side skewing handle, holding down Ctrl if you want to skew the object in 15-degree increments.

If you click on the arrows and hold your left mouse you can skew your text

To change your justification select the text and than select the justification from the command button in the property bar

To edit your text all you need to do is to double click on the line with your cursor

To change the font first select the text. Next in the property bar select the text (1). Next select your font (2). Next with the font selected you will see a preview of the font X4 and X5 only

If you want to change the font size select the text and than from the property bar select the pull down menu for the font size (1). Next move your cursor down the list and select your font. In X4 and X5 this will change dynamically as you move over each size of font.

You can bold the line by selecting the bold button in the property bar (1). The text in the first line (2) is the original and the text in the second line (3) is the line that has been bolded.

To italicize the text you need to select the italics button (1). The first line shows the original line (2). The second line shows the line that has been italicized (3).

If you want to underline text select the underline tool button in the property bar (1). The first line shows our original line (2) and the second line shows our underlined line (3).

To enter a successive line press the enter key when you get to the end of the line

To break the lines into individual lines select the group of lines that you want to break apart (1). Next select ARRANGE (2) and than BREAK TEXT APART (3).

Once the lines are broken apart you can select them individually