CorelDRAW - Basics of CorelDraw, Working with various Objects & Shapes
Basics of CorelDraw
Creating Basic Shapes
Working with Shape Tool
Applying Outline and Fills
Adding Text To Document
Working with Edit Tools
Working with Grid & Guidelines
Working with various Objects & Shapes
Welding of Objects
Trimming of an object
Combining of Objects
Intersection command
Transformation of an object
Powerclip on Object
Aligning of Objects
Working with Curves
Basics of CorelDRAW
Creating Basic Shapes
There are many tools which are available in CorelDRAW for drawing various shapes. These are Rectangle Tool, Ellipse Tool, Polygon Tool, Spiral Tool and Graph Paper Tool.
To draw rectangle
. Click on Rectangle Tool or press F6
. Drag with mouse on the drawing page.
. Specify width and height dimension from the property bar .
. Press Enter
To draw square
. Click on Rectangle Tool or press F6
. Press Ctrl and drag with mouse on the drawing page.
. Specify width and height dimension from the property bar.
. Press Enter
To draw four side rounded rectangle
. Draw a rectangle.
. Choose the Shape Tool.
. Click and drag on any corner handle to shape the corners.
. Release mouse when you achieve the desired corner roundness.
To create rounded rectangle from rectangle tool property
. Draw a rectangle.
. Type the value of roundness in property bar above application window.
. Click Enter
To draw one side rounded rectangle
. Draw a rectangle.
. Choose the Shape Tool.
. Click on any corner of rectangle and release.
. Drag on that corner.
. Release mouse when you achieve the desired corner roundness.
Ist stage
IInd stage
To draw circle
. Choose Ellipse Tool.
. Click and drag with the CTRL key pressed down to constrain the ellipse to a circle.
. Use both the CTRL key and the SHIFT key together to create a circle drawn from the center.
To draw ellipse
. Choose Ellipse Tool.
. Click and drag to create ellipse of the shape and size you desire.
To draw Arc shape -Circle
• Choose Ellipse Tool.
. Choose arc shaped circle from the property bar
. Drag on the drawing page to create semi-circle.
To draw 7-sided polygon
. Click on Polygon Tool or press Y
. Specify 7 points in the the property bar above
. Drag the mouse on the drawing page.
To draw triangle
. Click on Polygon Tool or press Y
. Specify 3 points in the the property bar above and drag on the drawing page.
. Drag the mouse on the drawing page.
To draw star-shaped polygon
. Click on Polygon Tool or press Y
. Specify 7 points in the the property bar above
. Choose Shape Tool
. Click on any node point of polygon and drag.
To draw star
. Open the Object flyout.
. Click the Star tool.
. Type the number of sides or points in the property bar above.
. Drag in the drawing window until the star is the size you want.
Working with Shape Tool
Shape Tool: is for editing the shape of objects. Shape tool is for making rounded shapes of objects like rectangle, square etc. Shape tool also creates various shapes to objects by curves.
Drawing of rounded rectangle.
• Draw a rectangle.
• Choose the Shape Tool (F10) from the Toolbox and round the corners interactively.
• For making the corners of a rectangle more or less round, click and drag any node as shown below:
Editing of rectangle or any other object in different way
• Draw Rectangle
• Right-click on rectangle and click on convert to curve.
• Select Shape Tool (F10).
• Drag any side of the rectangle as shown below:
Converting Rectangle into triangle
• Draw rectangle and fill it with any color.
• Select Shape tool from the tool box.
• Right-Click on mouse and choose convert to curve.
• Double click on any side of rectangle.
• You will notice a 90 degree triangle is created.
Creation of semi circle by shape tool:
• Click on Ellipse tool.
• Press Ctrl key and drag to create a circle.
• Fill it with any color.
• Pick Shape Tool.
• Click on any node point of circle.
• Drag slightly with shape from inside circle unless it is converted into semi-circle.
Applying Outline and Fills
After drawing or creating any object and shape, the next step is to fill object with some colors and give some colored outlines.
This tutorial will explain in detail of how to apply outline and color to objects or shapes.
Applying Fill to object
A simple example is here explaining how to fill color in object.
. Select rectangle tool from the tool box.
. Create Rectangle. Keep it selected.
. Click on any color ie red from the color-tool palate right in the application window.
. You will notice a red rectangle.
Applying Outline fill to object
A simple example is here explaining how to give outline color to object.
. Select rectangle tool from the tool box.
. Create Rectangle. Keep it selected.
. Right-click on any color ie Green from the color-tool palate right in the application window.
. You will notice a rectangle with green outline color.
Increasing the width of outline:
Now, you will learn how to increase the width of outline of any object.
This is explained in an example below:
. Select rectangle tool from the tool box.
. Create Rectangle. Keep it selected.
. Click on Outline Tool .
. Dialog-box will appear on your screen as shown below.
. Change width of outline to 8-point from width list box on left of the dialog box.
. The outline of the rectangle becomes thick.
. Tryout different thickness available in the outline tool.
. This is the image of the rectangle with thick outline.
Applying Gradients in Objects:
To give some colourful gradients in object coreldraw has provided facility of "Fountain Fill".
An example given here explains utility fountain fill.
. Draw circle. Keep it selected.
. Click "Fountain Fill Dialog" from Fill Tool.
. Linear fill type is selected by default. Click ok and check out the effect.
. Open Fountain Fill again and change Linear Fill type to Radial. Click ok. Observer the result.
. Try Conical and Square fill types.
. Please do not change any other settings.
. This is the image showing different types of fill, in a clockwise manner from top left, they are Linear, Radial, Square and Conical.
Adding Text To Document:
In this tutorial we are trying to explain how to add text to your document in coreldraw.
To add any text to document we can import some text from any other application ie Ms Word or Pagemaker.
This is explained clearly as under:
. Choose File > Import (Ctrl+I) to open the Import dialog box. Use the Browse options to locate and select the text document you want to import, and click OK.
. In the Importing/Pasting Text dialog box, choose an import preference (shown below). If you choose the Discard Fonts and Formatting option, the imported text will be automatically formatted with the current paragraph text frame style properties.
. Click OK to import the text. The imported text will automatically be added at your insertion point and flow with the current text in the frame.
Wrapping Text
Applying a CorelDRAW text wrap effect to simple shapes is an easy way to create an interesting flow of paragraph text. The simpler the shape, the less distracting the text wrap will be. The example below shows a typical text wrap around a simple shape.
You can apply a text wrap effect to a shape by right-clicking the shape and choosing Wrap Paragraph Text from the context menu. You can also customize the wrap effect by choosing a different style or changing the text wrap offset value from the Wrap Paragraph Text menu (shown below) on the Property Bar.
If your text wrap is difficult to manage because of an awkward shape contour or void, you may need to activate the text hyphenation feature in CorelDRAW. To do this, select your text frame, open the Format Text dialog (Ctrl+T), click the Paragraph tab, click the Hyphenation Settings button, and enable the Automatic Hyphenation option in the dialog that opens (shown below). This dialog also includes options for you to adjust the automatic hyphenation of your text.
Working with Edit Tools :
Knife Tool: is for cutting the objects. Knife tool is one of the more descriptively named weapons in the toolbar. It can cut objects in two! The basic routine is that you click twice on an object to make "incision points," and those points become a line that divides your object into two, new objects.
Here is an example of knife tool.
• Create a Triangle.
• Select Knife tool.
• Click at a point on a shape that you want to cut as shown:
• Click a second time at the endpoint of the cut. After you cut your shape, use the Pick tool to select either of the two new shapes you created. You can drag to move either of the two objects, or delete one of them.
Eraser tool: is for erasing any part of the object.
An example here is given below of eraser tool.
• Select the object with pick tool.
• Click on eraser tool from the crop tool flyout
• Drag on the part of object you want to erase.
Virtual Segment delete tool: is the last tool of the crop tool flyout.
This tool works where two objects intersects.
An example below explains virtual segment delete tool.
• Draw a rectangle
• Draw another object ie circle intersecting rectangle as shown below:
• Pick virtual segment tool.
• Click on the circle outside the rectangle.
• You will find only the portion which is outside the rectangle is deleted as shown below.
Note: Virtual Segment tool can be used for intersecting two objects.
Working with Grid & Guidelines
Importance of Grids and Guidelines in Designing
Grids and Guidelines play an important role in designing. Grids helps in drawing objects exactly in the shape you want. Guidelines helps in drawing any image in exact size and shape as per requirement.
In this tutorial you will learn about the working of grids and guidelines in CorelDraw.
Grids
Grid is a series of intersecting lines or dots that you can use to precisely align and position objects in the drawing window.
For showing grids on the page
Click View>Grid.
An intersecting dashed lines will appear on the screen as shown below.
Professionally grids are used where complicated artworks like cartoon characters, human organs etc are drawn.
For Grid settings
. Click View> Grid and Ruler Setup
. A dialog box will appear on the screen as shown below:
Click on Grid option on the left of dialog box area
Enable any of the following options:
. Frequency - specifies grid spacing as the number of lines per unit of measure
. Spacing - specifies grid spacing as the distance between each grid line
Type values in the following boxes:
. Horizontal
. Vertical
Enable any of the following check boxes:
Show grid: For showing grid on screen
Snap to grid: For snapping objects to grids
Show grid as lines: For showing grids as lines
Show grid as dots: For showing grids as dots.
Guidelines
To display guidelines in document window.
. Click>View>Guidelines
. Select Pick Tool
. Place it on the ruler and drag down
. Drag the pointer down. It will bring the dotted line on the page called Guideline.
An image showing guidelines is given below:
Note: A check mark beside the Guidelines command indicates that the guidelines are displayed.
For adding horizontal and vertical guidelines.
Click View>Guidelines Setup
A dialog box will appear on the screen as shown below:
. Set the default Guideline Color you like
. To snap objects to guideline enable Snap to Guidelines checkbox.
. In the document list of categories, click one of the following:
. Horizontal
. Vertical
Following dialog box will appear on the screen after clicking on horizontal or vertical option.
. Click Add
. Click Ok after adding values of guidelines
Snap to Guideline:
To activate guideline snapping, choose View/Snap to Guidelines or click the Snap to Guidelines button on the Property Bar (shown next). Guidelines are created by dragging from your vertical or horizontal rulers (they can also be slanted), or by using Presets with automated scripts in the Guidelines Presets page of the Options dialog box.
Snap to Objects - To have your objects or cursors snap to and align with other objects, choose View/Snap to Objects; press Alt+Z; or click the Snap to Objects button on the Property Bar (shown next). You can set snap points using new snap modes option in the Snap to Objects page of the Options dialog box.
Dynamic Guides
Dynamic guides are temporary guidelines that you can pull from the following snap points in objects - center, node, quadrant, and text baseline.
Typical Guidelines physically occupy a point on your document page whereas dynamic Guides appear only momentarily right where you need them.
For making dynamic guides active:
Click View> Dynamic Guides or press Alt+Shift+D.
A dialog box will appear on the screen as shown below:
. Make sure the Angle and Distance Screen Tip options are selected and Click OK.
. Draw a simple rectangle with the Rectangle tool (F6).
. Choose the Pick tool, then grab the lower-left corner node of the rectangle and drag it in a circular motion around its original position. Notice as you do this that guide paths, and angle and distance values appear around the rectangle.
. What you see on your screen will look something like this:
Working with various Objects & Shapes
Welding of Objects
Welding is, melting of the overlapped parts and converting the two objects into one. You can create irregular shapes by welding and intersecting objects. You can weld almost any object, including clones, objects on different layers, and single objects with intersecting lines.
Example:
. Select Rectangle tool and draw a rectangle.
. Select Ellipse tool and draw another circle so as to overlap rectangle.
. Select Pick tool and select both rectangle and circle.
. Go to Arrange > Shaping > Weld
. Both objects are joined and formed one single shape, melting the overlapped part.
You can weld objects regardless of whether they overlap each other. If you weld objects that do not overlap, they form a weld group that acts as a single object. In both cases, the welded object takes on the fill and outline attributes of the target object.
Trimming of an object
Trimming creates irregularly shaped objects by removing object areas that overlap. The process of trimming depends on what object you select for trim. However, you cannot trim paragraph text, dimension lines, or masters of clones.
You can trim almost any object, including clones, objects on different layers, and single objects with intersecting lines.
Example:
. Select Rectangle tool and draw a rectangle. Select Ellipse tool and draw the circle so as to overlap the part of the rectangle. Keep the circle selected.
. Go to Arrange > Shaping > Trim
. The selected rectangle is trimmed; it means the portion of the rectangle is cut in the shape of the overlapped part of the circle. And the source object that is the initially selected circle will also remain intact.
You can also trim an object by opening the docker window of shaping.
For Trimming
. Go to Window>Dockers>Shaping
. Docker window appear on the application window.
. Select Trim from the list.
. Select source object
. Click on Trim button.
. Arrow will appear on the screen
. Click on object which you want to trim
Combining of Objects:
If you want to convert two or more objects into single object with common fill and outline attributes you can use combine command. You can combine rectangles, ellipses, polygons, stars, spirals, graphs, or text. CorelDRAW converts these objects to a single curve object.
For combining objects
• Select the objects you want to combine.
• Click Arrange>Combine
The result would be as under:
Before Combine command
After combine command
Difference between Combine and Group command
An example below will explain the difference between combine and group command.
• Draw two circles.
• Fill them with fountain fills.
• Select both of them.
• Go to Arrange > Combine
• Both the circles are combined.
• Now please carefully observe the fountain fill.
• When grouped, the fill are separate with two centers in each rectangle.
• After combine command is applied, both the circles are treated as one single object and hence the two fills are turned into one single fountain fill.
• This fill has one center and both the circles are treated as big one single circle.
• Go to Arrange > Break Curve Apart
• The object is separated again and we have two different rectangles with two separate radial fills.
Intersection command
Intersect command creates an area where two objects overlap. The shape of this object depends on the objects you intersect.
Here is an example of intersect command.
• Draw a circle
• Draw a rectangle overlapping the circle as shown below:
• Select both rectangle and circle
• Go to Arrange>Shaping>Intersect
• A new object will be created as shown under:
Transformation of an object.
Transforming of objects means positioning, resizing, rotation, scaling and distortion of object.
Transformation of object is done by Pick Tool itself. By selecting an object with Pick tool you can resize it, rotate it and can distort object.
Here is an example which will explain the transformation of object with Pick tool.
Open any drawing
. Select both rectangle and circle
For selecting one single object: For selecting one single object click on that object with pick tool. For example if you want to select rectangle click on rectangle with pick tool.
Above you can see the anchor points only on rectangle . It means the rectangle is selected.
For selecting multiple objects:
If you want to select multiple objects Press Shift key and press on the objects you want to select.
You can also select multiple objects by dragging marquee around the objects as shown below.
For rotating and skewing objects:
If you want to rotate object double-click the mouse. Rotation anchor points occur on your screen as given below:
You can see the rotation angles on the left and right of the figure shown above. These angles are for rotating objects.You can also see the skewing angles in the center of the figure shown above. These angles are for skewing objects.
Besides this for Transformation of objects you can go to Arrange Menu and click on Transformation.
For positioning:
. Select an object.
. Transformation Docker will occur on your screen:
. Disable the Relative position check box.
. Type values in the following boxes:
. H - lets you specify a value for the horizontal position of an object
. V - lets you specify a value for the vertical position of an object
. Enable the check box that corresponds to the anchor point that you want to set.
. Click Apply.
Note: If you enable the Relative position check box on the Transformations docker, the H and V boxes identify the position of the center anchor point as 0,0. On specifying different values in the H and V boxes, the values represent a change from the object's current position as measured from the center anchor point.
Rotation: To give rotation to the object one should use rotation command.
For rotation:
. Select an object.
. Click>Arrange>Transformations>Rotation or Click Alt+F8
. Transformation Docker will occur on your screen:
. Type the value in the angle box
. Type values in the H and V boxes to specify the horizontal and vertical positions.
. Disable the Relative center check box. For rotating an object around a point relative to its current position, enable the Relative center check box.
. Click on Apply Button.
Scale:
For increasing or decreasing dimensions of an object in percentage we use scale transformation.
For scaling any object:
. Select an object.
. Click>Arrange>Transformations>Scale or Click Alt+F9
. Transformation Docker will occur on your screen:
. Specify percentage values in the H and V boxes to specify scaling in horizontal and vertical .
. Disable the Non-proportional check box, if you want to maintain the aspect ratio.
. Click on Apply button.
Size:
For increasing or decreasing dimensions of an object in size we use size transformation.
To change or to give size for an object:
. Select an object.
. Click>Arrange>Transformations>Size or Click Alt+F10
. Transformation Docker will occur on your screen:
. Specify values in the H and V boxes to specify size of object in horizontal and vertical .
. Disable the Non-proportional check box, if you want to maintain the aspect ratio.
. Click on Apply button.
Skew
For skewing an object, you specify the degree by which you want to slant the object.
To skew an object:
. Select an object.
. Click>Arrange>Transformations>Skew
. Transformation Docker will occur on your screen:
. Specify the number of degrees in the H and V boxes by which you want to skew the object horizontally and vertically.
. If you want to change the anchor point of the object, enable Use Anchor Point.
To transform the duplicate of an object
. Select an object.
. Click Arrange >Transformations, and click any of the commands.
. Choose the settings you want in the Transformation docker.
. Click Apply to duplicate.
Clear Transformations:
If you want to clear any transformations or effects given in the object Click>Arrange>Clear Transformations
Powerclip on Object
A container in CorelDRAW can be any object - for example, artistic text or a rectangle. When you place an object into a container that is larger than the container, the object, called the content, is cropped to fit the form of the container. This creates a PowerClip object.
Applying PowerClips
PowerClips place a selected object inside another object. The object that is inserted into another object is placed in what CorelDRAW calls a container. The source for the container can be a closed path, a shape, or artistic text (but not paragraph text).
PowerClips do not change the size of either the container object or the target object. So if you copy a large object into a small one, it will get cropped to fit the size of the target object. If you copy a small object into a large object, it will not fill the target object completely.
You apply a PowerClip by first creating the container object. Fill that object. Edit it. Touch it up, keeping in mind that you're about to use it to fill another object. Then create the object into which you will inject the PowerClip.
. Select both rectangle and circle
With both the container and target objects created, select the container object with the Pick tool. Choose Effects | PowerClip | Place Inside Container. As soon as you do, a large black arrow appears on your screen. Point that arrow at the target for the PowerClip and click. The container object gets injected into the target object.
Insert a PowerClip into Artistic Text
. Use your artistic skills to create pattern that looks attractive. Make the pattern wider than your Drawing page (the shaded page area in the Drawing window).
. Use your