CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide part 21 potx

● Change Page Size/Orientation of All Pages In Page Sorter view, the property bar displays typical page property options for applying standard or custom page sizes and for changing the o

● Copy Page(s) To copy pages—and their contents—holdCTRLwhile click-dragging the page to a specific location During dragging, a vertical I-beam appears, indicating the insertion point for the page copy or the first page of the selected sequence of pages

● Name or Rename Page To add a new name or change an existing page name, click the page name below the page to select it; click a second time to highlight the page title and enter a new name; then pressENTER You can also rename a page by right-clicking a specific page and choosing Rename Page from the pop-up menu to highlight the page name for editing

● Change Page Size/Orientation of All Pages In Page Sorter view, the property bar displays typical page property options for applying standard or custom page sizes and for changing the orientation between Landscape and Portrait

If you want to change the orientation of all of the pages in the document, click the All Pages button on the property bar, and then click either the Portrait or the

Landscape button to change all pages to that orientation

● Change Page Size/Orientation of Selected Pages If you want to change only the orientation of some of the pages, click the Current Page button Then select the pages you want to change, and click the Portrait or Landscape button to change the page(s) to the desired orientation, as shown

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Changing the orientation in the Page Sorter not only changes the view, but also changes how the pages themselves are oriented in the document As you can see, the second and last pages have drawings that look better in Portrait view; youCTRL-click pages 2 and 4 in this example, click Current Page, and both the Page Sorter view and the pages themselves are re-oriented If you want to rethink this dynamic change, repeatedly pressingCTRL+Z(Edit | Undo) restores your document

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Portrait Landscape All Pages

Current Page

Exiting Page Sorter view is easily done; click the Page Sorter View button, or click any

tool on the toolbox Any changes applied while in the Page Sorter are applied to your

document

To exit the Page Sorter and immediately go to a particular page in your document,

double-click the page.

Page definition, sorting pages, margins, bleeds, and enough other options have been

discussed to fill a book! Now that you know how to set up a page, how large do you want

that drawing you just created on the page? And how do you precisely move the drawing if

you want it perfectly centered on the page? Fortunately, the answers are in the next chapter,

which covers measuring and drawing helpers

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C H A P T E R 7

Measuring and Drawing

Helpers

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More than likely, a project you are beginning is composed to a specific page size Within the design you’ve envisioned, you have graphics that need to be aligned, spaced, and proportioned to exact dimensions Moreover, you might need to label what you’ve designed, adding callouts and even the dimensions of parts of a sketch so manufacturing can order the right size of packaging Today is your lucky day: CorelDRAW not only has more ways of measuring objects than you can shake a stick at, but it also makes it easy for users of all skill levels to turn out professional, tightly composed pieces In this chapter, you’ll learn how to measure, scale measurements, align objects, work with guidelines, create your own guidelines, add measurements and callouts, and get objects to snap to other objects with pinpoint precision Leave “a smidgeon,” “a pinch,” and “just a touch to the left” behind as you enter the world of CorelDRAW accuracy and layout perfection

Using the Ruler

Although property bars and toolbars offer information about the size and position of an object (to three decimal places), something about using rulers bounding a page has tangible and easy to understand qualities Additionally, CorelDRAW rulers are a resource for pulling nonprinting guidelines Later in this chapter the Dimension and Connector tools, guides, and guidelines are covered Now let’s look at how rulers are configured and manipulated, and how they invaluably assist in your design work

Accessing Rulers and Ruler Properties

Straight out of the box, CorelDRAW displays rulers on the top and left side of the page window However, if someone experimented with your installed copy and turned rulers off, it’s easy to restore their visibility You can choose View | Rulers from the main menu, but a quicker way is via the pop-up menu With any tool chosen except the Zoom tool, right-click over a blank area of the page (or outside of the page), and then choose View | Rulers from the pop-up menu

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Pop-up menu

Rulers in CorelDRAW look like physical rulers with major spacing (inches, for example)

and minor spacing (the ticks between whole number amounts, such as 3/8 and 1/4) CorelDRAW

detects when a mouse scroll wheel is active, and if you zoom the page in and out, you’ll see an

additional ruler nicety—the ruler ticks between major spacing have labels for fractional amounts

when your zoom level is large enough to display them

CorelDRAW rulers (see Figure 7-1) can be broken down into three components: the

vertical ruler, the horizontal ruler, and the ruler origin If you ever need the location of your

cursor onscreen, you’ll see a dotted line on the rulers, and the numerical value is right at

hand on the status bar CorelDRAW uses the standard convention of displaying horizontal

position values as X values on the property bar, and vertical values as Y For example, you

create a rectangle using the Rectangle tool, and you’re not sure you put the rectangle in the

center of an 8½×11" page A quick glance at the property bar will tell you that if the rectangle’s

X position is 4.25" and the Y position is 5.5", its center is at the center of the page

The origin is the intersection of the vertical and horizontal rulers at the top left of the

workspace The origin is the page position reference where all measurements begin, but it

does not represent the zero point for measuring the page By default, the lower-left corner of

your page represents the ruler origin 0 position Try this: Create a shape near the center of

the page Then with the Pick tool move the shape up and to the right, while watching the

X, Y position values on the property bar; the values increase Conversely, if you move the shape

down and to the left, the values decrease—eventually, if you move the shape off the page

(down and left), you’ll see negative X, Y values on the property bar, as the shape travels

beyond the origin

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FIGURE 7-1 Elements of CorelDRAW’s rulers

Ruler origin

Vertical ruler (Y value)

Cursor position indicators

Cursor

Page border

Horizontal ruler (X value)

As with a physical ruler, you can move rulers in CorelDRAW to assist you in your design needs Additionally, you can leave the rulers where they are and just move the origin

of the rulers This is something that cannot be done with a physical ruler; working with these features is covered in the sections to follow

Setting the Ruler Origin

Say you’re uncomfortable with measuring from the bottom left and prefer a more conventional set of rulers that start at the upper-left corner of a page Click-hold your cursor on the origin, and then drag to a point at the upper-left corner of the page Doing this thwarts the ability to use the property bar for easy-to-read X, Y positions for objects, because by convention—in drawing applications, CAD applications, and most advanced design programs—Y, the vertical measurement of space, always travels up in a positive direction However, moving the origin not only can make the rulers suit your intuitions, but it’s also a handy technique for measuring relative distance between objects, measured against each other and not as an absolute measurement against the page

Two Inches to the Right, Please

1. Create two shapes; any shapes will do

2. Move the shapes using the Pick tool so that they’re horizontally aligned, and let’s try

5 inches from each other

3. You need the centers of the objects to be 2 inches apart You click-drag the origin so that it’s horizontally centered on the first object The zero horizontal point is now at the center of the first object

4. You move the second object so that its center is at the 2-inch major mark on the horizontal ruler

5. With this shape still selected, take a look at the X, Y fields on the property bar If the

X value is not exactly 2.000, type 2.000 in the X field, and then pressENTER See Figure 7-2

It’s easy to undo what you’ve done: to restore the origin of the rulers to the default setting, double-click the origin

A more dramatic change you can make to the rulers is to actually reposition them in the

workspace, not simply change where the units appear To undock the rulers (they come as a set; you cannot undock only one ruler), holdSHIFTand then drag the ruler origin to where you want the rulers to begin You’ll see a dashed-line preview onscreen for the intended new location of the rulers; release the mouse button, and the rulers move to this position To restore the rulers (to dock them), you holdSHIFTand then double-click the ruler origin See Figure 7-3

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FIGURE 7-2 Specify a different origin for the rulers to measure relative distances between the

centers of objects

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FIGURE 7-3 Rulers can be repositioned on the page

SHIFT +click-drag the ruler origin to undock and move.

Hold SHIFT and double-click to redock.

Once the rulers are undocked, you’re free to move them as needed, by holdingSHIFT

while dragging the origin Regardless of where you place the rulers in the workspace, the zero for the increments on the rulers remains constant To see this, move the view of the page by using the scroll bars at the right and bottom of the screen, or use the Hand tool (H); the increments on the undocked rulers move as you move your view If you need to move the origin while the rulers are undocked, drag the origin

Setting Unit Measure

In CorelDRAW, you have the same unit measurements as in the real world: millimeters,

yards, and so on Units of measure is the name of the setting in CorelDRAW, and they affect

the look of the rulers as they increase and decrease in frequency with your view magnification setting The actual units of measure are specified according to the drawing units currently defined on the property bar To set the drawing unit measure, choose the Pick tool (click an empty area on your page to make sure nothing is selected), and then use the Units drop-down list on the property bar to specify anything from picas to kilometers

Drawing units control the units displayed on rulers and also for other areas of

CorelDRAW X5 where dimensions are displayed: page size, shape size, and nudge and duplicate offset commands

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Setting Ruler Options

Options for measuring in CorelDRAW can be found in Tools | Options | Document | Rulers; but the faster route is to double-click a page ruler, or to right-click a ruler and then choose Ruler Setup from the pop-up menu.In the Rulers area of the Options box, you’ll find options in addition to the increments displayed on rulers See Figure 7-4

Nudging

At the top of the Rulers page are Nudge options, worth covering first here, although indirectly related to the page rulers themselves When we nudge things in the real world, our intention

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Drawing units

is to move an object by a small, but fairly arbitrary distance—and we estimate the measurement.

In CorelDRAW, however, nudging objects is precise, not at all arbitrary, and on the Rulers

page you can set the distance for normal, Super, and Micro nudging Nudging can be performed

on a shape, several shapes at the same time, and even on a node or several nodes on a path

when they are selected using the Shape tool

Once you’ve specified values for nudging in the Rulers area:

● You set the normal nudge distance of an object by choosing the object(s) with the

Pick tool or by choosing the node(s) using the Shape tool, and then pressing the

keyboard arrow keys to nudge up, down, or across; one keyboard stroke equals one

nudge distance

● Super-nudging is performed the same way as normal nudging, except you hold the

SHIFTkey while pressing any arrow key

● Micro-nudging is performed the same way as regular nudging, except you hold the

CTRLkey while pressing any arrow key

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FIGURE 7-4 The Rulers area of Options is where you can set units, the independent display of

units on rulers, nudge distance, and more