Corel DESIGNER 12 User Guide.pdf

8/15/2019 Corel DESIGNER 12 User Guide.pdf

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Corel DESIGNER® 12 User Guide

The contents of this user guide and the associated Corel DESIGNER software are the

property of Corel Corporation and its respective licensors, and are protected by

copyright. For more complete copyright information about Corel DESIGNER, pleaserefer to the About Corel DESIGNER section in the Help menu of the software.

Copyright 2000 – 2005 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved.

Corel, the Corel logo, Corel DESIGNER, ActiveCGM, CorelDRAW, CorelTUTOR,

Corel PHOTO-PAINT, CorelTRACE, CAPTURE, Grammar As-You-Go, Micrografx,

Natural-Media, Painter, Paint Shop, Perfect Shapes, PowerClip, Quattro Pro,

QuickCorrect, Scrapbook, Support Services, and WordPerfect are trademarks or

registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its subsidiaries in Canada, the U.S.

and/or other countries.

Adobe, Acrobat, Illustrator, Reader, Photoshop, PostScript, and Reader are registered

trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

Mac, Macintosh, QuickTime, and TrueType are registered trademarks of Apple

Computer Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. AutoCAD is a

registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc. Creo and Color Central are registered

trademarks of Creo Inc. in Canada. InstallShield is a registered trademark of

InstallShield Software Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Kodak

is a registered trademark of Eastman Kodak Company. Macromedia Flash is a

trademark of Macromedia, Inc. Microsoft, Visio, Visual Basic, Windows, and Windows

NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or

other countries. Netscape Navigator is a registered trademark of Netscape

Communications Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. PANTONE® and other

Pantone, Inc. trademarks are the property of Pantone, Inc. JavaScript is a registered

trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. TRUMATCH is

a registered trademark of Trumatch, Inc. Other product, font, and company names and

logos may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.


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Table of contents i

Table of Contents

Welcome to Corel DESIGNER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

What’s new in Corel DESIGNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Installing Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Changing the language of the user interface and Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Activating Corel products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Registering Corel products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Updating Corel products. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Corel Support Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Getting help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Documentation conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10VBA Programming Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Customer feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Other resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

About Corel Corporation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Workspace tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Corel DESIGNER terminology and concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Corel DESIGNER application window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Corel DESIGNER workspace tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Starting and opening drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Finding and inserting drawing content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Working with templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Undoing, redoing, and repeating actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Zooming and panning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Previewing a drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Working with views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Saving drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Backing up and recovering files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Accessing drawing information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Closing drawings and quitting Corel DESIGNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43


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Working with precision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Gravity snapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Using dynamic guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Using constrain keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Working with lines, outlines, and brush strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Setting default property values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Drawing lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Closing multiple line segments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Drawing flow lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Drawing dimension lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Drawing callouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Formatting lines and outlines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Applying linear pattern brush strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Spraying linear patterns along a line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Drawing shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

Drawing rectangles and squares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Drawing ellipses, circles, arcs, and wedges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Drawing polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Drawing predefined shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Projecting objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

Understanding projected drawing modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Using projected drawing modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Customizing drawing profiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Working with objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

Selecting objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Changing object properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Copying, duplicating, and deleting objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101Copying object properties, transformations, and effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Moving objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Sizing and scaling objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Rotating objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Flipping objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108


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Skewing objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Aligning and distributing objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Changing the order of objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Grouping objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114Combining objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Accessing and displaying geometric information about objects . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Shaping objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

Working with curve objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Shaping curve objects by using Reflect Nodes mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Shaping objects by using envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Splitting and erasing portions of objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Trimming objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131Filleting, scalloping, and chamfering corners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Welding and intersecting objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Creating new objects from boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Blending objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Creating PowerClip objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Reference: Shaping objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Working with symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145

Using symbols in drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Managing collections and libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Creating, editing, and deleting symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Sharing symbols between drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Reference: Working with symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Filling objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157

Applying uniform fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Applying fountain fills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158Applying hatch fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Applying pattern fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Applying texture fills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Applying PostScript texture fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Applying mesh fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Working with fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173


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Working with color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175

Choosing colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Creating custom color palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Opening and editing custom color palettes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181Setting color palette properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Understanding color models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Managing color for display, input, and output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .187

Understanding the Color management dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Working with color profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Choosing advanced color management settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Correcting colors for display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Working with color styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197

Creating and applying color styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Editing and sorting color styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Moving and copying color styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Adding three-dimensional effects to objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203

Contouring objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Applying perspective to objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Creating vector extrusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207Creating drop shadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Changing the transparency of objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215

Applying transparencies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Applying merge modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Using lenses with objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221

Applying lenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Editing lenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Working with layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .225

Creating layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Changing layer properties and stacking order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Moving and copying objects between layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Printing layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230


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Working with pages and layout tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231

Specifying the page layout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Choosing a page background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Adding, renaming, and deleting pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235Using the rulers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Calibrating the rulers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Setting up the grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Setting up guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Setting the drawing scale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Adding and formatting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245

Adding and selecting text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Encoding text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248Changing the appearance of text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Finding, editing, and converting text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Aligning and spacing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Shifting and rotating text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Moving text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Fitting text to a path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Formatting paragraph text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Combining and linking paragraph text frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264Wrapping paragraph text around objects and text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Embedding graphics and adding special characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Inserting special characters and spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Displaying nonprinting characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Working with Asian text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .273

Formatting Asian text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Using Asian line-breaking rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Managing fonts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .277

Substituting unavailable fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Working with bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .281

Converting vector graphics to bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Adding bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282


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Cropping and editing bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Working with colors in bitmaps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Applying special effects to bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

Applying color and tone effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289Transforming color and tone effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Removing dust and scratch marks from bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Changing the color mode of bitmaps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .293

Changing the color mode of bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Changing bitmaps to black-and-white images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Changing bitmaps to the paletted color mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Changing bitmaps to duotones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Creating Web-enabled objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .303

Optimizing bitmaps for the World Wide Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Creating rollovers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Creating Web-compatible text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Working with bookmarks and hyperlinks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Publishing to the Web. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .311

Preparing files and objects for Web publishing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Publishing to HTML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Working with object data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315

Setting up the project database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Managing object data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Applying CGM data to objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .329

Printing your work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Laying out print jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Previewing print jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Applying print styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Fine-tuning print jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Printing colors accurately. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Printing to a PostScript printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337


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Table of contents vii

Commercial printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .343

Working with imposition layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Printing printer’s marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Maintaining OPI links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347Using Preflight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Publishing to PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349

Saving documents as PDF files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Including hyperlinks, bookmarks, and thumbnails in PDF files . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Reducing PDF file size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

Working with fonts in PDF files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Specifying the encoding format for PDF files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Setting the number of fountain steps in PDF files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355Choosing an EPS file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Outputting objects in PDF files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Preparing PDF files for a service bureau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Viewing Preflight summaries for PDF files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Optimizing PDF files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Object linking and embedding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .361

Inserting linked or embedded objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Editing linked or embedded objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Importing and exporting files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .365

Importing files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Exporting files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Customizing your application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .373

Saving defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Using multiple workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Customizing keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376Customizing menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Customizing toolbars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Customizing the property bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Customizing the status bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Customizing feedback sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387


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viii Table of contents

Customizing filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Customizing file associations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Automating application tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .391

Automating by using VBA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Using VBA macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

Working in the Visual Basic Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Installing add-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .395


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Welcome to Corel DESIGNER 1

Welcome to Corel DESIGNER

Corel DESIGNER® 12 is a precision graphics application created for the technical

illustrator. Its intuitive user interface lets you get started quickly to produce

professional results — whether you are creating a new illustration or repurposing a

legacy graphic.

In this section, you’ll learn about

• what’s new in Corel DESIGNER

• installing Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 applications

• changing the language of the user interface and Help

• activating Corel® products

• registering Corel products

• updating Corel products

• customer support services

• getting help

• documentation conventions

• VBA programming guide

• customer feedback

• other resources

• Corel Corporation

What’s new in Corel DESIGNER

Corel DESIGNER 12 includes new features and enhancements to boost yourproductivity.

Complete graphics solution

Corel DESIGNER is now a part of Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12, which

includes the following applications and utilities to offer you a complete graphics

solution.


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2 Corel DESIGNER 12 User Guide

• Corel PHOTO-PAINT® — a complete image-editing application that lets you

retouch and enhance photos as well as create original graphics

• CorelTRACE® — an application for converting bitmaps to vector graphics. It is

especially useful when you need to recreate scanned drawings.

• Corel CAPTURE™ — an application for capturing images from your computer

screen

• Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Applications (6.3) — an application for developing

custom solutions. It is available in Corel DESIGNER and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

• Writing Tools — multilingual utilities that let you correct errors in spelling and

grammar and help to refine your writing style

Projected drawing

The new drawing profiles let you project objects onto drawing planes and create theillusion of a three-dimensional graphic. You can choose from among 10 preset drawing

profiles, or you can create custom drawing profiles. You can then choose a drawing plane

and draw objects on projected planes, using a projected drawing mode. For information

about projected drawing, see “Projecting objects” on page 89.

Precision

The enhanced gravity snapping and dynamic guides let you draw and edit objects with

even greater precision.

• Gravity snapping lets you snap the pointer to various points in objects, making iteasy to create and position objects accurately. You can now snap the pointer to

perpendicular and text baseline points as well. For more information, see “Gravity

snapping” on page 45.

• Dynamic guides are temporary guidelines you can pull from the following snap

points in objects — center, node, quadrant, and text baseline. For more

information, see “Using dynamic guides” on page 49.

• You can display dynamic guides that are tangent, perpendicular, or parallel to

objects. For more information, see “To display dynamic guides” on page 52.

• With the help of parallel dynamic guides, you can easily draw parallel lines. Formore information, see “To draw parallel lines” on page 54.

Drawing tools

• The B-spline tool lets you draw curved lines by setting control points that shape

the curve without breaking it into segments. For more information, see “To draw a

B-spline” on page 63.

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• Corel DESIGNER introduces three new types of dimension lines — segment,

radial, and diameter dimension lines. Segment dimension lines let you measure the

distance between nodes in single or multiple segments. Radial and diameter

dimension lines let you measure the radius and diameter of a circle. For more

information, see “Drawing dimension lines” on page 66.

• Enhanced line styles are especially useful for illustrating stitch patterns and

drawing parallel lines. For more information, see “Formatting lines and outlines”

on page 73.

Hatch fills

Hatch fills consist of hatch patterns that are composed of vector-based lines and are used

for representing different types of materials in a drawing. The new hatch fill support

lets you preserve hatch fills in drawings created in Corel DESIGNER 9 and earlier

versions. You can also apply hatch fills to objects. For more information, see “Applyinghatch fills” on page 160.

Editing

Editing objects is made even easier by the following enhancements:

• You can now use scallops, fillets, and chamfers to shape objects. For more

information, see “Filleting, scalloping, and chamfering corners” on page 133.

• The improved Transformations docker lets you project and unproject objects withprecision. To access the Transformations docker, click Window >Transformations, and choose a command.

• When you are drawing non-freehand lines or curves, the status bar displays the

segment length and the total length of all segments contained in the curve.

• The enhanced Eyedropper tool lets you copy color, object properties, effects, andtransformations from one object to another. For information about using the

Eyedropper tool, see “Copying object properties, transformations, and effects” onpage 102.

• You can create object duplicates where you want in the drawing window. For more

information, see “To duplicate an object” on page 101. You can also move objects

while you are drawing them by using the right-mouse button. For more

information, see “To move an object while drawing” on page 105.

Customizing your application

To help you quickly improve your productivity, Corel DESIGNER offers additional

workspaces. For example, you can select a workspace with the look and feel of

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preserved in the imported files. For more information, see “Corel DESIGNER

(DSF) technical notes” in the Help.

• Export for Office — This new feature lets you optimize drawings for exporting to

Microsoft® Office or WordPerfect® Office. For more information, see “To export

to Microsoft Office or WordPerfect Office” on page 370.

• AutoCAD® Data Interchange Format (DXF) and AutoCAD Drawing Database

(DWG) — AutoCAD 2004 files are supported.

• Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) — You can choose a variety of new options when

exporting a drawing to the SVG file format. For example, you can choose a

Unicode encoding method. You can also embed information in an SVG file or store

information in externally linked files. The SVG color palette available in the

application lets you choose SVG colors. For information about SVG files, see

“Scalable Vector Graphics” in the Help.

• Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) — You can now publish a drawing to a

PDF file that is compatible with Adobe® Acrobat 6.0®. When you import a PDF

file, all layers, fills, and text attributes, including transparency applied to text, are

preserved. The original colors of the PDF file are reproduced accurately.

• Adobe® Photoshop® (PSD) — Support for duotone images has been added. For

more information, see “Adobe Photoshop (PSD) technical notes” in the Help.

Installing Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 applications

The installation wizard makes it easy to install Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12

applications and components. It lets you

• install any applications included in your software package. You can install multiple

language packs so that you can change the language of the user interface and Help

in the installed applications.

• add and delete components in the current installation

• repair the current installation by reinstalling all application features

• uninstall Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12

To install Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 applications

1 Close all applications.

2 Insert the CD in the CD drive.


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If the installation wizard does not start automatically, click Start on theWindows® taskbar, and click Run. Type D:\Setup, where D is the letter thatcorresponds to the CD drive.

3 Follow the InstallShield® wizard instructions for installing the software.

To add or delete components in a Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12

installation


2 On the Windows taskbar, click Start > Control panel.

If your operating system is Windows 2000, click Start > Settings > Control Panel.

3 Double-click Add or remove programs.4 In the Add or remove programs dialog box, choose

Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 from the list, and click Change.

5 In the InstallShield wizard, enable the Modify option.

6 Click Next, and follow the instructions that appear.

To repair a Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 installation



If your operating system is Windows 2000, click Start > Settings >Control Panel.

3 Double-click Add or remove programs.

4 In the Add or remove programs dialog box, chooseCorel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 from the list, and click Change.

5 In the InstallShield wizard, enable the Repair option.

6 Click Next, and follow the instructions that appear.

To uninstall Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12


If your operating system is Windows 2000, click Start > Settings > ControlPanel.


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2 Double-click Add or remove programs.

3 In the Add or remove programs dialog box, chooseCorel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 from the list, and click Remove.

You can remove user files such as presets, user-created fills, and customized

files during the uninstall process. To do this, click Change in the Add orremove programs dialog box, and then enable the Remove option. ClickNext, and enable the Remove user files check box.

Changing the language of the user interface and Help

If multiple language packs are installed, you can change the language of the user

interface and Help at any time.

To change the language of the user interface and Help

1 Click Tools > Options.

2 In the list of categories, click Global.

3 Choose a language from the Select the language for the user interface list box.

If you want to be able to change the language of the user interface and Help as you

start the application, enable the Ask me the next time the software starts checkbox.

4 Restart the application.

Activating Corel products

To use Corel products, you must activate them. Activating a product generates a unique

activation code for the computer by profiling the system and using the product serial

number. Activating a product helps enforce the terms of the licensing agreement.

You can activate a product online, by phone, or by using a previously attained product

activation code. When you activate a product online, the process is anonymous,

requiring no personal information.


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VBA Programming Guide

The VBA Programming Guide for Corel DESIGNER can help you use Microsoft Visual

Basic for Applications to automate tasks and create custom solutions. If your

installation of Corel DESIGNER includes VBA, then the guide is accessible from a linkin the VBA Help included with Corel DESIGNER.

Customer feedback

If you have any comments or suggestions about Corel DESIGNER, you can send them

by e-mail to [email protected]. You can check the product Web site for the latest

news, tips and tricks, and product upgrade information. Go to www.corel.com, and

follow the links to the product site.

Other resources

Corel has training partnerships with other firms and provides professional services for

its software products.

Corel customized training

Once you have Corel applications running on your computers, our team of expert Corel

Training Specialists can help you make the most of them with customized training,

tailored to the specific needs of your work environment. We will help you develop a

custom curriculum which is practical and relevant to the needs of your organization. For

more information about Corel Customized Training, please visit www.corel.com/

customizedtraining.

Corel Training Partners (CTPs)

CTPs are independent, officially accredited local organizations that provide training in

using Corel products and are located worldwide for your convenience. To find a partner

near you, please visit www.corel.com/trainingpartners.

Corel Corporate Services

Corel is committed to getting you up and running quickly with time- and money-

saving workflow solutions. To simplify the process of deploying Corel applications

across your organization, our Corporate Services department offers a comprehensive

range of cost-effective services to meet your technology needs. This group brings

together highly skilled experts from across the company who are dedicated to providing

mailto:[email protected]://www.corel.com/http://www.corel.com/customizedtraininghttp://www.corel.com/customizedtraininghttp://www.corel.com/trainingpartnershttp://www.corel.com/http://www.corel.com/trainingpartnershttp://www.corel.com/customizedtraininghttp://www.corel.com/customizedtrainingmailto:[email protected]


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top-notch solutions. Our knowledgeable team is ready to offer assistance through all

stages of your project, from application development and support to software systems

integration and training.

For more information on Corel Corporate Services, please [email protected].

About Corel Corporation

Corel Corporation provides innovative software solutions that help millions of value-

conscious businesses and consumers in over 75 countries improve their productivity. The

Company is renowned for its powerful software portfolio that combines innovative

photo-editing and graphics-creation, vector-illustration and technical-graphics

applications along with office and personal productivity solutions. Corel's flagshipproducts include the CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite, the WordPerfect Office Suite, the

Corel® Painter™ Natural-Media® painting and illustration software and the Paint

Shop™ Family of digital photography and image-editing software. For more

information, please visit www.corel.com.

mailto:[email protected]://www.corel.com/mailto:[email protected]://www.corel.com/


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Workspace tour 13

Workspace tour

Becoming familiar with the terminology and workspace of Corel DESIGNER will help

you easily follow this user guide’s concepts and procedures.


• Corel DESIGNER terminology and concepts

• Corel DESIGNER application window• Corel DESIGNER workspace tools

Corel DESIGNER terminology and concepts

Before you get started with Corel DESIGNER, you should be familiar with the

following terms.

Term Description

object An element in a drawing, such as an image,

shape, line, text, curve, or symbol

drawing The work you create in Corel DESIGNER:

for example, technical drawings, schematics,

and diagrams

vector graphic An image generated from mathematical

descriptions that determine the position,

length, and direction in which lines are

drawn

bitmap An image composed of grids of pixels or dots

artistic text A type of text to which you can apply special

effects, such as shadows


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Corel DESIGNER application window

When you launch Corel DESIGNER, the application window opens, containing a

drawing window. The rectangle in the center of the drawing window is the drawing

page where you create your drawing. Although more than one drawing window can be

opened, you can apply commands to the active drawing window only.

The Corel DESIGNER application window appears below. A description of its partsfollows.

paragraph text A type of text to which you can apply

formatting options, and which can be edited

in large blocks

Term Description

itle bar

Menu bar

Toolbox

Ruler

Drawing

window

rawing

age

Document

navigator

Status bar Navigator

Docker

Property

bar

Toolbar

Color

palette


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Workspace tour 15

Part Description

Menu bar The area containing pull-down menu

optionsProperty bar A detachable bar that contains properties of

the active tool or object. For example, when

the text tool is active, the text property bar

displays commands that create and edit text.

Toolbar A detachable bar that contains shortcuts to

menu and other commands

Title bar The area displaying the title of the currently

open drawing

Rulers Horizontal and vertical borders that are used

to determine the size and position of objects

in a drawing

Toolbox A floating bar with tools for creating and

modifying objects in the drawing

Drawing window The area outside the drawing page bordered

by the scroll bars and application controls

Drawing page The rectangular area inside the drawingwindow. It is the printable area of your work

area.

docker A window containing available commands

and settings relevant to a specific tool or task

Color palette A dockable bar that contains color swatches

Status bar An area at the bottom of the application

window that contains information about

object properties such as type, size, andresolution. The status bar also shows the

current mouse position.

Document navigator The area at the bottom left of the drawing

window that contains controls for moving

between pages and adding pages


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To toggle between displaying and hiding the status bar, click View >Toolbars > Status bar.

To toggle between displaying and hiding the rulers, see “To hide or display the

rulers” on page 237.

Corel DESIGNER workspace toolsApplication commands are accessible through the menu bar, toolbars, toolbox, property

bar, and dockers. The property bar and dockers provide access to commands that relate

to the active tool or current task. The property bar, dockers, toolbars, and toolbox can

be opened, closed, and moved around your screen at any time.

You can customize many of these workspace tools to suit your needs. For more

information, see “Customizing your application” on page 373.

Standard toolbar

The standard toolbar contains buttons that are shortcuts to many of the menu

commands.

The standard toolbar displays by default. For information about customizing the

position, contents, and appearance of toolbars, see “Customizing toolbars” on page 381.

Navigator A button at the bottom-right corner of the

drawing window that opens a smaller display

to help you move around a drawing

Click this button To

Start a new drawing

Open a drawing

Save a drawing

Part Description


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Workspace tour 17

More about toolbars

In addition to the standard toolbar, Corel DESIGNER has toolbars for specific kinds of

tasks. For example, the Text toolbar contains commands relevant to using the Text tool.If you use a toolbar frequently, you can display it in the workspace at all times.

For information about customizing the position, contents, and appearance of toolbars,

see “Customizing toolbars” on page 381.

The table below describes toolbars other than the standard toolbar.

Print a drawing

Cut selected objects to the Clipboard

Copy selected objects to the Clipboard

Paste the Clipboard contents into a drawing

Undo an action

Restore an action that was undone

Import a drawing

Export a drawing

Set a zoom level

Start Corel applications

Open the Web connector docker

Click this button To


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Toolbar Description

Drawing plane Contains commands for choosing a drawing

plane and a drawing profile, and lets youaccess the Projected axes docker. This

toolbar is displayed by default.

Text Contains commands for formatting and

aligning text

Zoom Contains commands for zooming in and out

of a drawing page

Internet Contains commands for Web-related tools

for creating rollovers and publishing to the

Internet

Transform Contains commands for skewing, rotating,

and mirroring objects

Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Contains commands for editing, testing, and

running VBA commands


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Workspace tour 19

Exploring the toolbox

The Corel DESIGNER toolbox shows the active tool

and the available categories of tools in the upper area.The options symbol indicates that there are

additional tools or options.

When you choose a tool, any additional tools or

options appear in the options area at the bottom ofthe toolbox. When you choose a tool in the options

area, it becomes the active tool.

For example, if you click the Curve tools button in theupper area, you see its associated tools in the options

area. If you click the 2-point line tool in the optionsarea, it becomes the active tool, and its icon appears on

the Curve tools button in the upper area.

You can use flyout menus instead of the

options area. Click Tools > Options, clickToolbox in the Workspace list of categories,and enable Display tool groups as flyout menus.

The following table provides descriptions of the tools in the Corel DESIGNER toolbox.

Pick tool

The Pick tool lets you select, size, skew, and

rotate objects.

Shape tool

The Shape tool lets you edit the shape of

objects.

Curve tools

The 2-point line tool lets you draw a

straight two-point line segment.


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The 3-point curve tool lets you draw a

curve by defining the start, end, and center

points.

The Multi-point line tool lets you drawlines and curves one segment at a time in

preview mode.

The Bézier curve tool lets you draw curves

one segment at a time.

The B-spline tool lets you draw curved lines

by setting control points that shape the

curve without breaking it into segments.

The Freehand curve tool lets you drawsingle line segments and curves.

The 2-point connector line tool lets you

join two objects with a straight line segment.

The Multi-point connector line tool lets

you join two objects with a multipointed

line.

Rectangle tools

The 2-point rectangle tool lets you draw a

rectangle by dragging diagonally.

The 3-point rectangle tool lets you draw a

rectangle by dragging to set the height and

width.

Circle tools

The Center-point circle tool lets you draw

a circle by specifying the center and a pointon the circumference.

The Center-radius circle tool lets you draw

a circle by specifying a value for the radius

and then clicking where you want the center

to be.


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Workspace tour 21

The 3-point circle tool lets you draw acircle by specifying three points on the

circumference.

Ellipse tools

The 2-point ellipse tool lets you draw an

ellipse by dragging diagonally.

The 3-point ellipse tool lets you draw an

ellipse by dragging the centerline and then

specifying the width.

Polygon tool

The Center-point polygon tool lets you

draw a polygon by dragging from the center

to a point (vertex) on the polygon.

Text tool

The Text tool lets you add a line of text,

create a paragraph text frame and type

within it, or add text along a path if a curve

is selected.

Dimension tools

The Horizontal or vertical dimension tool

lets you draw horizontal or vertical

dimension lines.

The Parallel dimension tool lets you draw

slanted dimension lines.

The Angular dimension tool lets you draw

angular dimension lines.

The Segment dimension tool lets you

display the distance between end nodes in

single or multiple segments.

The Radial dimension tool lets you display

the radius of circles or circular arcs.


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The Diameter dimension tool lets you

display the diameter of circles or circular

arcs.

Callout tools

The 1-leg callout tool lets you draw a

callout with one leader line.


callout with a two-segment leader line.


callout with a three-segment leader line.

The Text source button lets you entercallout text interactively, from the

Clipboard, from object properties, or

incrementally:

Interactive text option

Clipboard text option

Object property text option

Increment text option

Perfect Shapes™ tools

The Basic shapes tool lets you draw shapes

such as triangles and parallelograms.

The Arrow shapes tool lets you draw arrows

of various shapes.

The Flowchart shapes tool lets you draw

several standard flowchart shapes.

The Miscellaneous shapes tool lets you

draw ribbon objects and explosion shapes.

Linear pattern tools


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Workspace tour 23

The Linear pattern sprayer tool lets you

draw chains, hoses, pipes, and similar

objects.

The Linear pattern brush tool lets youapply brush strokes to a curve and create

sweep arrows and similar objects.

The Linear pattern preset tool lets youdraw curves using preset strokes.

Interactive tools

The Extrusion tool lets you give objects a

three-dimensional look.

The Blend tool lets you blend one object

into another through a series of intermediate

shapes.

The Envelope tool lets you distort the shape

of an object by applying an envelope to it

and shaping the envelope.

The Transparency tool lets you apply a

transparency to an object.

The Contour tool lets you create a series of

concentric shapes radiating into, or out of, an

object.

The Drop shadow tool lets you create the

illusion of lighting in a two-dimensional

drawing by adding a shadow to an object.

You can adjust properties such as feathering,

opacity, edge style, and color.

Deletion tools

The Virtual segment delete tool lets you

delete portions of objects between

intersecting lines.


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Property bar

The property bar displays the most commonly used functions that are relevant to the

active tool or to the task you’re performing. Although it looks like a toolbar, the

property bar content changes depending on the tool or task. For example, when you

The Eraser tool lets you erase portions of an

object.

The Knife tool lets you break an object into

separate objects.

Interactive fill tools

The Interactive fountain fill tool lets you

apply fills to a selected object.

The Interactive mesh fill tool lets you

apply a mesh fill to simple objects, curves,

and bitmaps.

Eyedropper tools

The Eyedropper tool lets you select object

properties, such as fill, line thickness, size,

and effects, from an object on the drawing

window.

The Paintbucket tool lets you fill an object

with a color selected from another object

using the Eyedropper tool.

Zoom tool

The Zoom tool lets you change the

magnification level in the drawing window.

Pan tool

The Pan tool lets you control which part of

the drawing is visible in the drawing

window.


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Workspace tour 25

click the Text tool in the toolbox, the property bar displays only text-relatedcommands, such as text, formatting, alignment, and editing tools.

You can customize the contents and position of the property bar to suit your needs. For

more information, see “Customizing the property bar” on page 384.

Common property bar buttons

The Add preset button lets you save the

current settings for reuse.

The Delete preset button lets you delete

the item selected in the Presets list box.

The Fill button lets you open a dialog box

where you set up a fill to apply to an object.

The Outline button opens a dialog box

where you set line properties.

The Geometric properties button opens

the Property manager docker and lets you

set coordinates for the selected object.

The Apply as default button lets you use

the current settings as the defaults for new

objects.


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Dockers

Dockers display the same type of

controls as a dialog box, such ascommand buttons, options, and list

boxes. Unlike most dialog boxes, you

can keep dockers open while working

on a document, so you can readily

access the commands to experiment

with different effects.

An example is the Property manager docker. When this docker is open, you

can click an object in the drawingwindow and view formatting,

dimensions, and other properties of the

object.

Dockers can be either docked or

floating. Docking a docker attaches it

to the edge of the application window.

Undocking a docker detaches it from

other parts of the workspace, so it can be easily moved around. You can also collapse

dockers to save screen space.

Status bar

The status bar displays information about selected objects, such as width and height,

cursor position, and relevant commands. While you are drawing a non-freehand line or

curve, the segment length and total length for all segments are displayed.

See “Customizing the status bar” on page 386 for information about customizing the

contents and appearance of the status bar.

The graphic shows some of the information displayed in a status bar.


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Getting started 27

Getting started

Drawings are the work that you create and edit.


• starting and opening drawings

• finding and inserting drawing content

• working with templates• undoing, redoing, and repeating actions

• zooming and panning

• previewing a drawing

• working with views

• saving drawings

• backing up and recovering files

• accessing drawing information

• closing drawings and quitting Corel DESIGNER

Starting and opening drawings

When you start Corel DESIGNER, you can choose a workspace with which you feel

comfortable. For example, you can choose a workspace that has the look and feel of

Micrografx Designer 9. If you are new to Corel DESIGNER, it is best to choose the

default workspace, on which all procedures in the Help and user guide are based.

Corel DESIGNER lets you start a new drawing from a blank page, a template, or an

existing drawing. A blank page gives you the freedom to specify every aspect of a

drawing. A template provides you with a starting point and leaves the amount of

customization up to you. The templates included with the program are available under

the following categories:

• ANSI (American National Standards Institute)

• Architectural

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• DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung)

• Engineering

• ISO (Industry Standards Organization)

For more information about creating and using templates, see “Working withtemplates” on page 30.

Basing a new drawing on an existing drawing lets you reuse objects and page settings.

You can open existing drawings saved to a variety of file formats. For information about

the file formats you can open, see “File formats” in the Corel DESIGNER Help.

If the drawing you are opening is from an earlier version of Corel DESIGNER and

contains text in a language different from that of your operating system, you can choose

code page settings to ensure text is converted into Unicode characters properly. Code

page settings help you correctly display text outside the drawing window, such askeywords, file names, and text entries in the Object manager and Object datamanager dockers. To correctly display text in the drawing window, you need to useencoding settings. For more information, see “Encoding text” on page 248.

To start Corel DESIGNER

1 Click Start > Programs > Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12 > Corel DESIGNER 12.

In Windows XP, click All programs on the Start menu.

2 In the Select workspace dialog box, choose a workspace from the list box.

If you do not want the Select workspace dialog box to appear each time you startCorel DESIGNER, enable the Do not show this dialog box on startup checkbox.

Procedures in the Help and user guide are based on the default workspace.

You can change the workspace after you start the application. For more

information, see “To choose a workspace” on page 375.

To start a drawing

To Do the following

Start a drawing from a blank page Click File > New .


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Getting started 29

You can specify a layout style (template) by clicking Layout > Page setup,clicking Layout in the Page list of categories, and choosing a layout style fromthe Layout list box.

To open a drawing

1 Click File > Open.

2 Locate the folder where the drawing is stored.

3 Click a filename.

4 Click Options >> to display additional options and file information.

If the drawing is from an earlier version of Corel DESIGNER and contains text in a

language different from the language of your operating system, choose the

corresponding option from the Code page list box to ensure that text is properlyconverted into Unicode characters.

5 Enable either of the following check boxes:• Extract embedded ICC profile — lets you save the embedded International

Color Consortium (ICC) profile to the color folder where the application is

installed

• Maintain layers and pages — lets you maintain layers and pages when youopen files. If you disable the check box, all layers are combined into a single layer.

6 Click Open.

You can also open a drawing by clicking the Open button on the toolbar.

If you want to view a thumbnail of the drawing, click the Preview check box.

Finding and inserting drawing content

You can use vector and raster graphics stored on your hard drive, network, Corel CDs,

or online.

Start a drawing from a template Click File > New from template, click the

tab that corresponds to the template

category you want, and choose a template.

To Do the following



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You can also access online images directly from Corel on the Web through the

Scrapbook™ docker.

To browse for vector and raster graphics1 Click Window > Scrapbook > Browse.

2 Insert a Corel contents CD into the CD drive.

3 Double-click an icon in the CD list and navigate to a folder.

To browse for images online, you must be connected to the Internet.

To change your browsing view in the Scrapbook docker, click the flyoutarrow, click View , and choose a view type.

To search for vector and raster graphics

1 Click Window > Scrapbook > Search.

2 Insert a Corel contents CD into the CD drive.

3 Type a keyword in the Search for text box.

To insert a graphic file

• Drag the graphic file to the drawing window.

Working with templates

A template is a set of styles and page layout settings that govern the layout and

appearance of a drawing. You can use the default template (“Blank Generic Corel

DESIGNER Document”) or choose one from a wide variety of preset templates

available in the application. For information on starting a drawing from a template, see

“Starting and opening drawings” on page 27. If none of the preset templates meets your

You can also

Browse for files on your computer or

network

Double-click the Desktop icon, and

navigate to a folder.

Browse for images online Click the Content on the Web button.

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Getting started 31

requirements, you can create a template based on styles you create or styles taken from

other templates. For example, if you regularly put together a schematic diagram, you

can save the schematic’s page layout settings and styles to a template.

You can edit a template by making changes to the styles, page layout settings, orobjects. For example, if you like a template but want to make it more versatile, you can

add styles that you’ve created or that you’ve taken from another template. For

information on setting page layout options, see “Specifying the page layout” on

page 231.

After you have started a drawing with a template, you can load a different template.

When you load a template, you can choose to load just the styles or to load styles, page

layout settings, and objects.

When you create a new drawing using a template, the program formats the page using

the template’s page layout settings and loads the template’s styles in the new file.

To create a template

1 Click File > Save as.

2 Type a name in the File name list box.

3 Choose CDT - Corel DESIGNER template from the Save as type list box.

4 Locate the folder where you want to save the template.

5 Click Save.

To edit a template


2 Choose CDT - Corel DESIGNER template from the Files of type list box.

3 Locate the folder where the template is stored.

4 Double-click a template filename.

5 In the Open dialog box, enable the Open for editing check box.

To preview the contents of a template, enable the Preview check box.

To create a new file based on a saved template


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2 Choose CDT - Corel DESIGNER template from the Files of type list box.

3 Locate the folder where the template is stored.

4 Double-click a template filename.

5 Enable the New from template check box in the Open dialog box.

If, in addition to loading the template’s styles, you also want to load page settings

and objects, enable the With contents check box.

Undoing, redoing, and repeating actions

You can undo the actions you perform in

a drawing, starting with the most recentaction. If you don’t like the result of

undoing an action, you can redo it.

Reverting to the last saved version of a

drawing also lets you remove one or more

actions. Certain actions applied to

objects, such as stretching, filling,

moving and rotating, can be repeated to

create a stronger visual effect.

Customizing the undo settings lets youincrease or decrease the number of actions

that you can undo or redo.

The Undo manager docker

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Getting started 33

To undo, redo, and repeat actions

When you undo a series of actions, all actions listed below the action you

choose are undone.

When you redo a series of actions, the action you choose and all actions listed

between it and the last undone action are redone.

You can repeat an action on another object or group of objects by selecting the

object or objects and clicking Edit > Repeat. You can also undo or redo actions by clicking the Undo button or Redo button on the Standard toolbar.

To customize the Undo settings


2 In the Workspace list of categories, click General.

3 Type a value in the Regular box.

The value you specify is limited only by your computer’s memory resources.

The higher the value you specify, the greater the demand on memory resources.

To Do the following

Undo an action Click Edit > Undo.

Redo an action Click Edit > Redo.

Undo or redo a series of actions Click Window > Undo manager. Choose

the action that precedes all the actions you

want to undo, or choose the last action you

want to redo.

Revert to the last saved version of a drawing Click File > Revert.

Repeat an action Click Edit > Repeat.


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Zooming and panning

You can change the view of a drawing by zooming in to get a closer look or by zooming

out to see more of the drawing. You can experiment with a variety of zoom options to

determine the amount of detail you want.

Another way in which you can view specific areas of a drawing is by panning. When you

work at high magnification levels or with large drawings, you may not be able to see

the whole drawing. Panning lets you move the page around in the drawing window to

view areas not previously displayed.

While you are panning, you can zoom in and out. While you are zooming, you can pan.

This saves you from having to alternate between the two tools.

You can specify zooming and panning settings to zoom in quickly to detailed parts of a

drawing and zoom out to the larger context.

To zoom

1 Click the Zoom tool .

2 On the property bar, click one of the following buttons:

• Zoom in

• Zoom out

• Zoom to all objects

• Zoom to selected • Zoom to page

• Zoom to page width

• Zoom to page height

The Zoom to selected tool is available only when you select one or moreobjects before you choose the tool.

If you choose the Zoom in button, move the pointer to the drawing windowand click to zoom in or right-click to zoom out. To zoom in on or out of an area,drag while holding the left or right mouse button respectively to marquee-

select the area.

You can also zoom in by double-clicking or dragging anywhere in the drawing

window using the Pan tool . To zoom out, right-click in the drawingwindow.



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Getting started 35

Use the following keyboard shortcuts to zoom during any task, such as when

you are drawing an object:

• F2 — zoom in around the pointer

• F3 — zoom out around the pointer• F4 — zoom to all objects

• F5 — refresh the drawing window

• F6 — zoom to selected objects

• F7 — zoom to the page

The F2 and F3 shortcut keys let you zoom in and out around the pointer.

To pan in the drawing window

1 Click the Pan tool .

2 Drag in the drawing window until the area you want to view appears.

If you want to pan in the drawing window while you are zoomed in on the

drawing, click the Navigator button in the lower-right corner of thedrawing window. Drag the crosshair pointer around in the Navigator pop-up

window.


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Using the Navigator (lower-right), you can display any part of a drawing

without having to zoom out.

To establish default settings for zooming and panning


2 In the Workspace list of categories, double-click Toolbox, and click Zoom, pantool.

3 To specify what you want the Zoom or Pan tool to do when you right-click it inthe drawing window, enable one of the following options:

• Zoom out — zooms out by a factor of two• Context menu — displays a menu of commands that you can choose from tozoom to a specific level

4 Enable the Zoom relative to 1:1 check box to make the Zoom tool operaterelative to real-world distance.

Previewing a drawing

You can preview a drawing to see how it will look when you print and export. When

you preview a drawing, only the objects on the drawing page and in the immediate areaof the drawing window are displayed, and you can see all layers that are set to print in

the Object Manager. If you want to get a closer look at specific objects in a drawing,

you can select and preview them, too. When you preview selected objects, the rest of

the drawing is hidden.

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Getting started 37

Before you preview a drawing, you can specify the preview mode. The preview mode

affects the speed at which your preview displays and the amount of detail that is

displayed in the drawing window.

You can also display consecutive pages on the screen at the same time and create objectsthat span two pages.

To preview a drawing

• Click View > Full-screen preview .

Click anywhere on the screen, or press any key, to return to the application window.

To preview selected objects

1 Select the objects.

2 Click View > Preview selected only.

3 Click View > Full-screen preview .

Click anywhere on the screen, or press any key, to return to the application window.

If Preview selected only mode is enabled and no objects are selected, Fullscreen preview displays a blank screen.

You can disable Preview selected only mode after you return to theapplication window by clicking View > Preview selected only.

To specify the full screen preview mode


2 In the Workspace list of categories, click Display.

3 Enable one of the following options:

• Use draft view — displays the drawing without PostScript® fills, high-resolution bitmaps, or anti-aliasing• Use enhanced view — uses anti-aliasing to display a sharper version of

drawings with and without PostScript fills

You can have PostScript fills display when you preview in Enhanced mode by

enabling the Show PostScript fills in enhanced view check box.



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To view facing pages

1 Click Layout > Page setup.

2 In the Document, Page list of categories, click Layout.

3 Enable the Facing pages check box.

4 Choose one of the following settings from the Start on list box:• Left side — starts the document on a left-facing page• Right side — starts the document on a right-facing page

Working with views

As you work, Corel DESIGNER lets you display a drawing in any of the following

modes:• Simple wireframe — displays an outline of the drawing by hiding fills, extrusions,

contours, drop shadows, and intermediate blend shapes; also displays the bitmaps

in monochrome. It lets you quickly preview basic elements in a drawing.

• Draft — displays a drawing’s fills and bitmaps using a low resolution; eliminatessome detail to allow you to focus on the color balances in a drawing.

• Enhanced — displays a drawing with PostScript fills, high-resolution bitmaps,and anti-aliased vector graphics.

From left to right: Simple wireframe , Draft , and Enhanced views

The view you choose affects the amount of time it takes for a drawing to refresh or open.

For example, a drawing displayed in Simple wireframe view takes less time to refreshor open than does a drawing displayed in Enhanced view .



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Saving drawings

You can save a drawing as you work. Corel DESIGNER offers advanced options that let

you assign notes, keywords, and thumbnails to drawings so that you can find them more

easily.

By default, drawings are saved to the Corel DESIGNER file format (DES); however,

advanced save options let you choose other file formats as well. If you are saving a

drawing to use in another application, you must save it to a file format that is supported

by that application. For information about supported file formats, see “File formats” in

the Corel DESIGNER Help. For information about saving files to other formats, see

“Exporting files” on page 369.

If you are working on a large drawing, saving only the selected objects reduces the file

size, which can decrease the time it takes to load the drawing.

A drawing can also be saved as a template, allowing you to create other drawings with

the same properties. You can choose to save only selected objects in a drawing. For

information about saving a drawing as a template, see “Starting and opening drawings”

on page 27.

To save a drawing


2 Locate the folder where you want to save the file.• If you want to save notes or keywords with the file, type them in thecorresponding box.

• If you want to specify advanced settings, click Advanced, and specify thesettings you want in the Options dialog box.

3 Type a filename in the File name list box.

4 Click Save.

If you want to save changes made to a previously saved drawing, click File >Save.

You can also save a drawing by clicking the Save button on the Standard toolbar.

To save only selected objects

1 Select the objects.

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Getting started 41


3 Enable the Selected only check box.

4 Locate the folder where you want to save the file.

5 Type a filename in the File name list box.

6 Click Save.

Backing up and recovering files

The program can automatically save backup copies of drawings and prompt you to

recover them when you restart the program in the event of a system error.

The auto backup feature saves drawings that you have open and modified. During any

working session, you can set the time interval for automatically backing up files andspecify where you want the files to be saved: by default in your temporary folder or to

a specified folder.

You can recover backed-up files from the temporary or specified folder when you restart

the program. Backup files are stored in either the temporary or the user-specified folder.

You can choose not to recover a file; however, that file is automatically erased when you

shut down the program normally.

To specify auto backup settings1 Click Tools > Options.

2 In the Workspace list of categories, click Save.

3 Enable the Auto-backup every check box, and type a value in the Minutes listbox.

4 In the Always back-up to area, enable one of the following options:• Users temporary folder — lets you save an auto backup file in the temporary

folder

• Specific folder — lets you specify the folder for an auto backup file You can also

Create a backup file every time you save Enable the Make backup on save check

box.

Disable auto backup Choose Never from the Minutes list box.


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Auto backup files are named autobackup_of_filename and can be saved inany folder you specify. Backup files created when you save a drawing are named

backup_of_filename and are always stored in the same folder as the original

drawing.

All open or modified files not in Corel DESIGNER (DES) file format arebacked up as Corel DESIGNER files.

You can cancel the creation of an auto backup file by pressing Esc while savingis in progress.

To recover a backup file

1 Restart Corel DESIGNER.

2 Click OK in the File recovery dialog box.

3 Save and rename the file in a specified folder.

Recovered files are named GraphicX.des, where X is the numberedincrement.

If you click Cancel, Corel DESIGNER ignores the backup file and deletes it

when you exit the program normally.

Accessing drawing information

As you work, you can access drawing information such as the number of pages, fonts,

text statistics, color models used, and the types of objects the drawing contains. You can

also save and print this information.

To access drawing information

1 Click File > Document info.

2 Enable the check box beside each type of information you want to display.

You can also

Save drawing information Click Save as, specify a folder and filename,

and click Save.


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Getting started 43

Closing drawings and quitting Corel DESIGNER

You can close one or all open drawings at any time before quitting the program.

To close drawings

To quit Corel DESIGNER

• Click File > Exit.

You can also quit the program by pressing Alt + F4.

Print drawing information Click Print.

To close Do the following

One drawing Click File > Close.All open drawings Click File > Close all.

You can also


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Working with precision 45

Working with precision

Precision is essential for technical graphics. Using gravity snapping, dynamic guides

and constraining, Corel DESIGNER lets you create and position objects accurately.

When drawing or modifying objects, snapping allows you to specify the exact

placement of a point. When drawing objects, constraining affects their shape or the

angle that lines are drawn. For example, when drawing a rectangle you can constrain it

to be a square.

You can use these features for all drawing and editing operations. For example, before

rotating an object, you can snap the center point to another object’s corner, and then

rotate the object around that point.


• gravity snapping

• using dynamic guides

• using constrain keys

Gravity snapping

Gravity snapping is the attraction of the pointer to a snap point. Snap points are precise

mathematical draw

Documents

Corel DESIGNER 12 User Guide.pdf