Corel Tips and Tricks
For a really fast copy and paste try move instead. Type in the distance (can be 0), select leave original and OK, works with all versions.
Getting Corel to print your hand drawn crop and registration marks on all separations is easy when you know how!
- Draw in one set of crops (say the black ones) then group them and set to overprint.
- Copy and paste the group in the same place, and while the new group is still selected, change the outline pen colour to the next required colour.
- Repeat for every colour you have used.
By setting every group to overprint it does not matter what order they are in - they will appear on every plate!
If you want to change the colours of a monochrome TIFF in Corel use the Outline colour for the foreground of the TIFF (i.e. black part) and Fill colour for the background. You can have a transparent background by using "no" colour.
Corel often "forgets" the line spacing in paragraph text after you save the document. To avoid this you have to change the units of measurement for all the line height settings. Look in the paragraph menu. They should be changed from measuring as a % of character height to a fixed point size. (The contributor of this one reported great stress relief on solving this puzzlement)
Did you know that:
- The node edit tool can be used to select one or more characters in an artistic text string to alter colours, outlines etc.
- You can create custom guidelines to construct unusual designs by switching to the guides layer. For example you can draw circular or curved guidelines and then snap to them while on your drawing layer.
- If you have objects outside the page border that won't print (such as your own crop marks) you have probably got the desktop layer set as non printable.
- You can change the levels of undo in the preferences dialog box to a higher number than the default of 4. If you're working on a complex drawing and are worried about stuffing up the increase may be comforting.
The screen is a great source to access dialogs and functions - if you know where to double click:
Pick Tool: Selects all objects on the visible page
Node Edit Tool: Launches the Node Edit roll up menu
Rectangle Tool: Creates a rectangle to act as a page frame.
Text Tool: Launches the Text roll up
Rulers: Accesses the Grid & Scale set up dialog
Working Page's drop shadow: Accesses Page Setup dialog box.
A few people have mentioned frustration at trying to locate clipart on the Corel CDs. A solution is at hand, although not documented in most versions of the Corel manual. A programs called CATALOG is included on CD1 of the set which contains a database of all clipart filenames, and a listing as to the disk number and directory it can be found in.
If your big Corel file is taking ages to load, try turning off the AutoBackup option under the Preferences menu.
We have seen files so big and taking so long to 'AutoBackup' that by the time it's finished, CorelDRAW decides it's time to start another one, putting the machine into an unusable loop!
- If you would like to see the outline of your object as you are moving it, secondary mouse click on the tool, select properties, and put a check mark in the Draw Objects When Moving option box, and set the Delay to Draw when moving to 0.100.
- If you want rulers closer to your page: Hold down the shift key, click and drag the rulers anywhere you like on the page. This can be done individually or by clicking on the small box where the two rulers intersect you can drag them both.
- To wrap text around an object, simply select the object with the pick tool, secondary click on the object and select Properties/General Tab and enable Wrap Paragraph Text option box.
- To insert a page in your document: simply click the ©+ª symbol by the page indicator at the bottom of the page.
- The status bar can be customised by secondary mouse clicking on the status bar and choosing the desired options.
- Secondary click on a blank section of your working page to bring up a menu to allow you to Save, Import, Export etc
- Hold down the CTRL key and drag the side handle of an object to increase its horizontal dimensions in 100% increments or on its top or bottom handle to resize vertically in 100% increments, or on a corner handle to resize the entire object in 100% increments.
- If you are unsure about a tool or what it is for, secondary mouse click on the tool and select either Help or What's this.
- If you want to return to the old Zoom Tools secondary click on the Zoom tool, select properties and enable Use Traditional Zoom Flyout.
- If you are unsure about a particular option listed in a dialog box, click on the question mark button in the right hand corner, select the option in question to open a flyout with more information pertaining to that topic.
- Take advantage of the presets tool found in the Tools menu, it lets you add preset effects like drop shadows and unique fountain fills to a selected object. It also lets you record operations and create macros to apply to objects, such as moving, stretching, filling etc. Use the controls in the roll up to change the selected preset or to create your own.
- Customise the interface by dragging the tool flyouts out onto the page so they are floating or dock into the button bar at the top, bottom or sides of your screen.
- Customise rollup groups (without opening Tools-customise) by ALT-dragging rollup groups button around. For example, select the Effects Envelope, hold the ALT key while clicking and dragging the Blend rollup onto your page. To return it to the rollup group hold the CTRL key while clicking and dragging the Blend rollup back inside the rollup group.
- To select single objects from a grouped object, hold the CTRL+SHIFT keys and click on the individual objects within the group.
- To access the page layout dialog box double click on the page shadow of your document.
- Double click on the page/balloon icon in the left hand corner of the document to close the current document.
- Double click on either ruler to get quick access to the Grid and Scale Setup.
- A double click on the Pick Tool will select all of the objects on the current visible page.
- Double click on the Shape Tool to automatically launch the Node Edit Rollup.
- Double click on the Rectangle Tool to automatically create a rectangle to act as a page frame.
If you just can't get used to the Layout Manager in Corel 6 or 7 and yearn for the old fashioned Zoom tool flyout you can right click on the Zoom tool and turn on the option for "Use traditional zoom flyout".
You may find it easier to position objects that are being moved if you enable the options that draw the outline while moving. To do this click the right mouse button on the Pick tool and turn on the option "Draw objects when moving", also set the "Delay to Draw" setting to 0.100.
In versions of Corel 5 thru 7 you can move a single object within a group without ungrouping by holding down Ctrl and Shift while selecting the object you want to move.
A really nifty feature added in Corel 7 is the ability to re-scale the point size of the paragraph text inside a frame when resizing the frame. Previously after enlarging or reducing a frame you had to re-format the type if you wanted to retain the look of the frame. Hold down the ALT key when re-sizing to access this feature.
To create a duplicate of an object, use the pointer tool to drag the object to where you would like the duplicate to be, then click the right mouse button (don't slip!) before releasing the left. If you want more copies with the same offset `Ctrl R' repeats the operation.
The colourbar can be used to set an object's outline by clicking the right mouse button (the left button sets the fill of course).
This page is copyright ©1990-1997 Type Tamer and may not
be reproduced in any way,
either physically or electronically, without
the written permission of the copyright holder.