CHAPTER 1 What’s New in CorelDRAW X5?
The dozens of enhancements and improvements to CorelDRAW in version X5 aren’t as obvious on paper as you’ll experience; everything from significantly more precise drawing tools to a comprehensive color management system helps get what you envision down on the printable page. This version boasts something new and welcome to users at all skill levels and professions—both professional graphics designers and entrepreneurs with little artistic experience will be drawn to CorelDRAW.
Whether you’re new to CorelDRAW or an old hand, you should take a few moments and review the new features covered in this chapter. Although features are categorized, everyone will find something to like in the sections to follow. You’ll discover that “working smart” can also be a lot of fun.
NOTE
Download and extract all the files from the Chapter 01.zip archive to follow the tutorials in this chapter.
Features for the Graphics Designer
CorelDRAW X5 starts you off right with new drawings, with the New Document dialog box. From there, you’ll notice several enhancements to DRAW’s familiar design tools including new ones. Here’s an overview of what’s in store in this new version and covered in The Official Guide.
The Create a New Document Dialog Box
Unless you choose to override this feature, every time you choose File | New, or click the New button on the standard toolbar, the Create a New Document dialog box appears, as shown next. In the Create a New Document dialog you can choose color mode and color profile options, which alone are lifesavers when you have, for example, a dozen bitmap images to import and you need color consistency between what you draw, the color mode of the bitmaps, and the color profile of your intended output. Whether it’s to the screen as a web page, or to a commercial printer—color reproduction and color accuracy are at the heart of every document you begin. Chapters 27 and 28 are your guides to personal and professional printing.
Additionally, document resolution (in dpi, or dots per inch) can be declared before you begin a drawing. The usefulness of this enhancement becomes immediately clear when you need to draw something for commercial presses—the document would be 300 dpi—or for the Web, which usually uses from 72 to 96 dpi screen resolution. You also have the familiar page size and orientation options, and also you can convert an existing document’s color profile to a different one of your choosing.
Corel PHOTO-PAINT has the same dialog for new documents as CorelDRAW.
Drawing Tool Enhancements
One of the things you won’t see in version X5—that you’ll like—is the smoothness with which the Freehand and Artistic media tools produce paths. Corel Corp. has worked very hard to refine these curve tools, and you’ll find you might not even need to use the Reduce Nodes feature while drawing.
Also, arrowheads (and tails!) you apply to paths can now be scaled to suit the proportion you need when designing maps and other diagrams. Suppose you need to convince a friend who’s coming to visit you at your loft in SoHo in New York that the taxi will be much cheaper coming into Newark Liberty instead of JFK Airport—a fact only New Yorkers seem to know. Your intricate map needs 10-point outline paths, but the preset Arrowhead 2 is much too large to fit on East Houston Street and would cover part of Hamilton Fish Park. The solution is simple.
Scaling an Arrowhead
1. Select the 10-point path (with Arrowhead 2 applied), and double-click the Outline pen properties (nib) icon on the status bar to display the Outline Pen dialog.
2. Click the Options button below the arrowhead, and then click Attributes from the drop-down list.
3. Set the Length and Width interactively: put your cursor between the arrows to the right of the number field so the cursor becomes a double-headed arrow with the horizontal bar in the center, and then drag down in this example. Dragging up increases the Length or Width. This user interface element is called an elevator button; you can also enter values by typing them into the num boxes. At right, you’ll see the preview window change the size of the arrowhead. In this example when the Length is about 40 points and the Width is about 34, you can click OK, and then click OK to exit the Outline Pen dialog, and your arrowhead is scaled to your liking.
New to version X5 is the B-Spline tool for drawing perfectly smooth curves. B-splines are unlike paths produced with the Bézier and other drawing tools; they don’t always have nodes directly on a path to steer a curve segment after or during drawing, and they don’t have control handles for the curve’s nodes. Figure 1-1 shows a creative example of B-splines—on a locked layer below the drawing is an image of a retro coffee table and chair, and the table is decorated with a design reflecting the art sensibilities of the late 1950s. The pattern was drawn with the B-Spline tool in Float control point mode. When you draw with this tool in Float control point mode, you’re best off clicking instead of click-dragging: a faint series of dashed line segments is produced off the curve with control nodes, also off the curve of the path you draw. You simply have to try this tool to appreciate its many uses. To end a path, double-click, and then use the Shape tool to refine the curve. Editing the curve is done by dragging the control nodes. In 3D modeling applications, these dashed lines connecting nodes are called “control hulls”—a hull shapes each path segment. At any time, you can put a control node directly on a path segment by clicking the Make Control Point Clamped button on the property bar. To make the path editable as you’d edit all other paths created with any of the Curve tool group, choose Arrange | Convert To Curves (CTRL+Q). However, unless you have a truly specific need for converting the control hull to nodes along a path, don’t do this, because it will destroy the smoothness of the path when you edit it with the Shape tool.
FIGURE 1-1 The new B-Spline drawing tool is like having a traditional French curve at your disposal in CorelDRAW.
New Corner Edits for Rectangles
CorelDRAW X5 has better and easier to use Fillet (rounded corner)/Scallop/Chamfer features on a docker whenever you want to embellish a sharp turn in a path. Now, these same features are available on the property bar whenever you’ve drawn a rectangle, even one you’ve drawn with the Smart Drawing tool. If you’re not familiar with editing corners of rectangles and other shapes, the steps aren’t Newtonian or anything:
1. If you’ve drawn a rectangle, choose the Shape tool for custom editing, and then click either the Fillet, Scallop, or Chamfer button on the property bar. This action sets all four corners of the rectangle to have an equal, predefined amount of corner alteration.
2. To change the amount of corner alteration, drag with the Shape tool on one corner control node, toward or away from the original corner. By default, the Edit Corners Together lock button on the property bar is switched on, and all edits you perform to one corner apply to all corners.
3. Let’s say you’re an asymmetrical sort of designer and want one corner more deeply cut than the other three. Unlock the Edit Corners Together button by clicking it. Now CTRL-click one of the corner control nodes and drag. You can also click a corner node to select it, and then release the mouse button, and then click-drag the control node to edit only that corner.
4. If you want to lop off the corners of a polygon created with, for example, the Polygon tool—or any freeform shape you’ve designed that has a sharp cusp turn along the path—you need to choose Window | Dockers | Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer. Choose one of the operations from the drop-down list, and then use the elevator button to increase or decrease the radius the docker uses to trim the corners. You’ll see a live preview in faint blue around the object, and you click Apply when you’re satisfied with the preview.
Figure 1-2 shows callouts for the buttons used for rectangles, and there’s also an illustration of a severely messed-up polygon or two, perfect for certificates and fancy badges. Corel didn’t cut any corners with the Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer feature in X5, but you will.
NOTE
The Relative Corner Scaling button is for when you want to change the size of a rectangle, with or without changing the corner work you’ve done. If the option is enabled, the corners of your rectangle scale proportionately when you use the Pick tool or other method to increase or decrease the rectangle’s size. When you turn this feature off, you can get some really weird and visually interesting effects. Imagine making deep corner cuts on a rectangle, and then making the rectangle half its original size…but the corners remain the same cut size.
FIGURE 1-2 Why settle for plain rectangles when you can fancy up the corners with the new rectangle features in X5?
Revamped Mesh Fill Tool
The Mesh fill tool has undergone some refinements, and it’s not only easier to work with, but it’s also a positive joy to fill an object and then move colors around in it, in a way that makes fountain fills look like kids’ stuff. Here’s a short example you can work through in less than 2 minutes: try to think of another way to get a feathered drop shadow that you can move anywhere on the drawing page!
1. Open Bowl of fruit.cdr and then choose Tools | Object Manager so you can arrange the object you’ll create to go behind the grouped bowl of grapes, but in front of the background rectangle. Click the little + symbol to the left of the Layer 1 entry so you can see the contents of Layer 1.
2. With the Ellipse tool, click-drag an oval that suggests the shape and size of a cast shadow beneath the bowl. Then click a dark shade of black on the Color Palette, and finally, right-click the “None” color well to remove the outline from the object.
3. On the Object Manager list, click-drag the Ellipse entry to below the Group of 137 Objects entry, but above the Rectangle entry.
4. Choose the Mesh fill tool from the toolbox; it’s in the group with the Interactive fill tool. With the ellipse selected, you’ll see mesh nodes and a dashed outline depicting the default two rows and two columns of mesh areas for the fill within the ellipse.
5. Marquee-select the entire object with the Mesh fill tool, and then on the property bar click the Transparency button to the right of the num box to reveal the slider—drag the slider to 100% transparency.
6. Click the pasteboard area of the workspace, the area outside of the page, to deselect everything, and then click the center mesh intersection node.
7. Click-drag the Transparency slider on the property bar to 0% transparency, all the way to the left.
8. Have some fun shaping the ellipse to make it a little more irregular and less like an ellipse. You’ll see that the Mesh fill’s transparent regions change as you reshape the ellipse, and you can make the fill even more intricate by click-dragging any of the mesh intersection node control handles. You can also recolor and specify a different transparency by clicking a path and then editing it. Figure 1-3 shows some of the editing in progress.
If you’d like to open and examine a complex illustration that demonstrates the creative use of the Mesh fill tool, check out wet.cdr, as shown in Wireframe and Enhanced views in Figure 1-4. On occasion a Linear or Radial fountain fill will complete a graphic idea you have in mind, but it you want to approach painting-like compositions and photorealistic drawing of natural shapes, the enhanced Mesh fill tool in version X5 is your ticket.
FIGURE 1-3 Work with the Mesh fill tool to make color and transparency transitions in a way that regular fountain fills cannot match.
FIGURE 1-4 Use the Mesh fill tool on objects you want to make look reflective, semitransparent, or just less like “computer art.”
More Power to PowerTRACE
The auto-trace feature in X5 has been supercharged in this new CorelDRAW version to the point where it rivals—if not exceeds—the smoothness and accuracy of Vector Magic, a favored late entry in the stand-alone bitmap-to-vector application field of software. The feature set will seem familiar, but you’ll be pleased at the new results. As an acid test, the author enlarged a single character from a shareware font and deliberately aliased the copy. Figure 1-5 shows the results of a very challenging assignment for PowerTRACE. The result actually was a usable character for a typeface, and as you can see here, even with all the jaggy bitmap aliasing, Corel PowerTRACE maintained smoothness and accuracy in the trace and produced far fewer control points than were in the original typeface!
FIGURE 1-5 The improved PowerTRACE feature can smoothly trace even poor copies of bitmap images.
If you’d like to try this little experiment, open Tracing.cdr. At right is the bitmap; you select it, click the Trace Bitmap button on the property bar, choose Outline Trace from the drop-down list, and then try the Detailed logo setting. At left in this file is the finished trace—the objects were combined so the trace is one combined path that could be exported as a TrueType character, but the font already exists as shareware, so case closed on this one.
New Pixel View
Under View you have a new entry in X5: the Pixel view of everything on your page. This is a welcome addition to DRAW for everyone who needs to preview a button or other web graphic before exporting it. Pixel view works hand-in-hand with the new graphic resolution settings: you’ll clearly see a preview of individual pixels on the page when you zoom in if your document is defined at a screen resolution such as 72 or 96 pixels per inch (ppi).
New Document Palette
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a collection of the colors you’ve used in a document all neatly arranged for future use? Corel thought so, too, and now X5 sports the Document palette, accessed via Window | Color Palettes | Document Palette. You can add a color to the palette by dragging one from an existing palette, you can eyedropper-sample anything in the workspace—including anything on a docker—and you can even move CorelDRAW’s application window down to then sample your Windows desktop or other application—and add a sample to the Document palette.
Colors can be deleted, the palette can be saved as a global palette, and other operations are performed through the palette’s menu—click the triangle icon to open the menu list.
Eyedroppers All Over the Place
Corel has simplified the task of getting the color you need at a moment’s notice by adding eyedropper tools to several of the dockers, tool option palettes, and possibly the front door to Corel’s offices in Ottawa. When you need a color, X5 has you covered.
Adobe Application Compatibility
If you have a client or coworker who uses Adobe applications such as Photoshop or Illustrator, file types such as PSD, PDF, and AI seamlessly import and export from and to these programs, to and from CorelDRAW X5. Try starting a new document using sRGB as the color settings. Click the Color Settings double down-arrow in the Create a New Document dialog if sRGB is not apparent as a choice, and then import Hot ideas.psd. As shown in Figure 1-6, this layered bitmap file was originally composed in Photoshop CS 5, saved in Photoshop with maximum backward compatibility enabled, and it imports to a CorelDRAW page as a bitmap group, with all the user names of the layers preserved.
FIGURE 1-6 Work with Photoshop layers in CorelDRAW as easily as done in Adobe programs.
You can easily do the sort of editing shown in this figure:
1. After importing and placing the layered bitmap on a page, open Tools | Object Manager, right-click the PSD filename entry, and then choose Ungroup All.
2. Add some text. In this figure, the font Neon is used with a small glow applied using the Drop Shadow tool.
3. Drag the text entry down on the Object Manager list to just above the bottom layer in the PSD file. In this example, by doing this, one of the brush handles intrudes on the text, making the composition more integrated and dimensional.
You can also move layer contents around, and when you create a new document you need to export as a PSD bitmap file, every layer you create in CorelDRAW can appear as a separate layer when someone opens the exported file in Photoshop. The same is true of Illustrator—CorelDRAW preserves layers and layer order.
Introducing Corel CONNECT
Ever since Corel stopped direct support of DRAW’s Scrapbook, some diehard fans just prefer to connect to drawings—and also to fonts, images, and media on the Web—by using new Corel CONNECT. Corel CONNECT is a media browser that runs as a stand-alone application and also can be called from inside DRAW and PHOTO-PAINT. Corel CONNECT can be configured in only moments to display the contents of offline media (such as Flickr and your Corel Graphics Suite installation DVD), the contents of any folder on your hard disk, and to create a favorites list for quick access. For even quicker access, CONNECT features a tray where you can drag and drop content you frequently need—you then access the tray’s contents from CONNECT, or as a docker from within DRAW and PHOTO-PAINT.
Here’s a quick tour of how you set up and use Corel CONNECT in tandem with CorelDRAW to find a piece of artwork you created a year ago and want to use as part of a new composition.
Connecting with Your Content
1. If you can’t find Corel CONNECT in Windows’ Start application list, launch CorelDRAW and then click the Application Launcher icon on the standard toolbar.
2. If this is the first time you’ve run Corel CONNECT, you’ll see a welcome screen in the main viewing pane, your Favorite Folders list at left is probably empty, and the tray at the bottom of the interface is empty. Display the “expand list” triangles next to the items in the Folders list by moving the mouse to that area. Click the triangle to the left of “Computer” in the Folders list area (bottom left) to expand the tree, and then navigate down until you find a folder that you know contains saved CorelDRAW illustrations. Put a check in the box to the left of the folder, and before you know it, the main preview window is populated with not only CorelDRAW artwork files, but everything Corel CONNECT can recognize as vector art, bitmap images, typeface files, and over 100 other file types, complete with preview thumbnails.
3. Let’s limit the search to only CorelDRAW files. In the Search field at top right, type the wildcard *.CDR and then press ENTER. Bingo, other vector file types are ignored, and you now see only CorelDRAW preview thumbnails. Hover your cursor over a thumbnail to see a larger version and file info associated with the file. To zoom your view of all the main pane’s contents, use the slider below the main pane.
4. Let’s say you want quick access to these files: you make them a favorites location. Drag the folder from the Folders area into the Favorite Folders area, and then click the newly dragged folder in the Favorite Folders area. Only the Favorite Folders location you’ve clicked has its contents displayed in the main preview pane.
5. You are bound to have at least one or two favorites that you want immediate access to in DRAW or PHOTO-PAINT. Put these items in the tray—drag a thumbnail from the main pane when you have your favorites folder selected, and then drag it down to the tray. Right-clicking any tray item gives you access to shortcut commands such as opening the media in DRAW or PAINT, and opening the location of the file as it resides on your hard disk. Corel CONNECT organizes your files, but it doesn’t move them from their original folder location. At the left side of the tray are launch commands and also the Remove button. Clicking the Remove button removes the item from the tray, but it doesn’t delete any of your work from your hard disk. Figure 1-7 shows a labeled layout of Corel CONNECT.
FIGURE 1-7 Use Corel CONNECT to organize your work and access most-used items from within DRAW and PHOTO-PAINT.
6. Once you have even one item in CONNECT’s tray, this item is automatically synchronized to show in DRAW and PHOTO-PAINT when you open them and choose to display the application tray; the command is Windows | Dockers | Tray. Open CorelDRAW now, perhaps create a rectangle and apply a texture fill, and then open the tray so you can add a foreground object (or group of objects) to the composition.
7. Drag the thumbnail onto the page. CorelDRAW copies the content, and presto, your composition is hours ahead of any other method for adding content to a composition.
NOTE
Corel CONNECT’s Search field does more than filter for specific file types. If, for example, you insert your CorelDRAW Graphics Suite DVD into an optical drive, and then choose the disk from the Libraries list, you can type the name of a file in the Search field to hone in on the DVD content you want. Type flower as an example, and the main preview window will display all images and vector files whose metadata tags (created for you by Corel) have “flower” as a keyword. A file doesn’t have to be named “flower” for CONNECT to locate and display it. This is also why it’s a good idea when saving your own files to fill in keywords; choose File | Document Properties and then type anything that will help you recall the file into the Keywords field. Then press CTRL+S.
For the Business Professional
If you’re a new user, or a professional who needs graphics but doesn’t illustrate, X5 bundles not only outstanding tools to make complex drawing go very simply, but also a handsome collection of ready-to-use artwork. The following sections describe what’s new and what’s been fortified in X5.
Clip Art and Photographs
The CorelDRAW Graphics Suite DVD comes with over 10,000 drawings and beautiful digital images to complement a banner, brochure cover, or any other collateral material for a small to medium business. Much of this content is all new, and this is another good reason to learn to use Corel CONNECT— without some organization you’d be like a wealthy tycoon drowning in a vault of gold pieces!
Fonts
Over a thousand new OpenType fonts have been added to the already comprehensive list of typefaces you can install from the DVD. In particular, the complete Helvetica family is at your beck and call, a very classic, clean font family, perfect for sales materials. And there’s also Frutiger, a nice alternative to Helvetica, more contemporary, with a sleek and slick look in any graphics use.
Templates
The DVD comes with 2,000 templates for vehicles, and 350 other templates for business use. Use Corel CONNECT to browse these goodies for the template you need, and then choose File | New From Template to get up and running in no time.
X5 Extras
The DVD provides extra media brushstrokes and bitmap fills, which will appeal to both business users and graphics professionals. You’ll also want to check out the over 2 hours’ worth of training tutorials on the DVD; again, use Corel CONNECT to browse for the tips and tricks you needed yesterday.
For anyone who has enjoyed watching animated Flash banners on the Web and said, “I gotta learn this Flash stuff…someday,” your day has come. The install DVD has a copy of SWiSH miniMax, a limited edition of SWiSH miniMax’s popular Flash-generating software. SWiSH miniMax takes the mind-boggling details out of Flash animation creation, and you might also want to check out Chapter 28, where The Official Guide walks you through, step-by-step, how to produce a vector animation complete with audio.
NOTE
As you travel through this book’s examples, you’ll be asked to change certain CorelDRAW settings, and as a (happy) consequence, your copy of CorelDRAW X5 will no longer be set at its factory defaults. There’s nothing wrong with using a nonstandard configured copy of DRAW, but if your boss or coworker insists that you undo changes to settings and options, hold F8 before you launch CorelDRAW, and continue to hold until you see the splash screen. This action restores CorelDRAW to all of its default settings, which is something you’ll want to think about with due deliberation, without the distraction of playing Lady GaGa on your iPod at 124 decibels, operating heavy machinery, or having a tooth extracted with an “As Seen on TV” device.
You could call this chapter the tip of the iceberg, if your idea of a fun time is an iceberg (Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t). Kidding aside, there are a lot of pages under your right thumb, and it’s all good stuff. Bring along some curiosity and a design idea or two, and shift into second gear.