CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide part 25 pdf

Pictured here on the toolbox, the Smart Drawing tool instantly translates rough drawings into shapes you’d usually consider drawing with the Rectangle tool or Ellipse tool—or with other

Drawing Scale, Windows Calculator, and Dimension Lines

1. Open The Neptune Soaker.cdr

2. For laughs, choose the Horizontal or Vertical dimension line tool, and drag it from the beginning of the body of the water pistol to the right, and then release the mouse button at the end of the water plug, the yellow piece of plastic to the left of the red cap Write this value down

3. The boss says the body is 7 ½" In this example, the body length should be 5.76" You launch Windows Calculator (or use the physical home version in your workshop): 7.5/ 5.76 = 1.302 percent This is the value by which this document’s Drawing Scale must

be adjusted, as you recall from the example earlier in this chapter

4. Right-click over a ruler, choose Ruler Setup, and then in the Ruler Options box, click Edit Scale

5 Page Distance should be 1 inch Type 1.302 in the World Distance field, and then

click OK to apply this new scale See Figure 7-15

6. Use the Horizontal or Vertical, the Parallel, and the Angular dimension tools to measure anything asked of you in this or your own drawing

204 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide

FIGURE 7-15 Adjust the World Distance scale to make measuring areas in photos and

drawings accurate to scale

Actual size is 7.50".

7.5/5.76 = 1.302

As Figure 7-16 shows, when Fraction styles are used in combination with reassigning

line and fill colors for text, you have a highly detailed, picture-perfect presentation for the

manufacturing department and even print ads

You’ve seen in this chapter that in addition to everyday paths and closed objects, there

are also lines for labeling and organizing objects You’ve also learned how to steer the power

of CorelDRAW’s rulers to suit your own design needs You can now use those old-fashioned

wooden rulers you have around the house for what they’re meant for: to stir house paint.

Come explore the basic shapes you can create (and then measure!) in Chapter 8, as you

get a feel for the speed and ease of CorelDRAW’s preset shapes—there are a lot of them—

and take the next step in creating visually complex illustrations

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FIGURE 7-16 Provide accurate object dimensions for a client—regardless of the print size of a

document—with the dimension tools

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C H A P T E R 8

Creating Basic Shapes,

Applying Transformations

207

This is the “You have to begin somewhere!” chapter: drawing vector paths with

CorelDRAW is all about creating objects that you then customize and refine through fancy fills and elegant outlines Therefore, it’s important to know the techniques for creating simple—and not so simple—geometric shapes, and to know how to edit your drawings to create exactly the shape you want to fill and stroke

Download and extract all the files from the Chapter08.zip archive to follow the tutorials in this chapter.

CorelDRAW X5’s Smart Drawing Tool

Even if you use a graphics tablet and stylus, you’re still drawing freehand, and using a mouse introduces even less precision when it comes to vector drawing Fortunately, the Smart Drawing tool takes the guesswork out of drawing polygonal and rounded objects—in

a nutshell, you sketch an approximation of what you intend, tune the options for the Smart Drawing tool a little, and in a jiffy you have a precise object of the proportions you need Pictured here on the toolbox, the Smart Drawing tool instantly translates rough drawings into shapes you’d usually consider drawing with the Rectangle tool or Ellipse tool—or with other tools that require more effort and skill

Ill 8-1

When the Smart Drawing tool is chosen, the property bar displays Shape Recognition Level and smoothing options (shown next) for setting the sensitivity CorelDRAW uses in translating your roughs into precise shapes

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Smart Drawing tool

Recognition and smoothing options

You control how precisely your sketch shape is translated into shapes by setting these

options:

● Shape Recognition Level This option sets how precisely your sketched shape is

matched to a recognizable shape and can be set to one of five levels ranging from

Lowest (sketched shapes are not easily recognized) to Highest (sketched shapes are

easily recognized), with Medium being the default; None turns the feature off

● Smart Smoothing Level After you’ve completed a sketch by releasing the mouse

button, a level of node smoothing is applied to make object recognition more, or

less, precise This option gives you total control over the smoothing action, much in

the same fashion as using the Reduce Nodes spin box on the property bar when a

path is selected with the Shape tool Choose from five options ranging from Lowest

(less smoothing applied) to Highest (more smoothing applied), with Medium as the

default; None turns the feature off

You can control the delay time interval between the moment you release the mouse

button and stop drawing and the moment DRAW X5 determines a recognizable

shape By increasing the delay time, you can sketch several separate lines or shapes

one after the other, and DRAW then recognizes them as a single compound path To

get to this option, double-click the Smart Drawing tool icon on the toolbox to open

Options The Drawing Assistance Delay slider can be set between 0 and 2.0

seconds The higher you set the delay time, the more time you’ll have to keep

drawing before CorelDRAW steps in to assist you.

Try the following steps to immediately get a leg up on drawing flawless objects

CAD: CorelDRAW-Assisted Drawing

1. Choose the Smart Drawing tool and use a click-drag action to sketch the shape of a

square or rectangle Try to keep the sides of the shape vertical and horizontal as you

draw; if the square shape looks like a melted ice cube, don’t worry! When you

release the mouse button, CorelDRAW X5 automatically translates your sketch into

a rectangle shape

2. Choose the Pick tool next, and check your status bar display The shape you

sketched is specified as a Rectangle, and the property bar shows options associated

with shapes created with the Rectangle tool

3. Choose the Smart Drawing tool(s) again, and sketch the shape of an oval or circle

Try to keep the shape parallel to the page orientation, but CorelDRAW can also

intelligently refine a sketch of an oval that’s rotated On releasing the mouse button,

CorelDRAW X5 translates your sketched shape into an ellipse shape

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4. Choose the Pick tool and check your status bar The shape you sketched is specified

as an Ellipse, and the property bar shows options associated with shapes created with the Ellipse tool, such as the Ellipse, Arc, and Pie properties

You can alter your sketched shapes on-the-fly using the Smart Drawing tool to

The shapes you draw can also have special editing properties; use Figure 8-1 as a visual reference when you use the tool

● Rectangles and ovals produced by using the Smart Drawing tool become CorelDRAW objects, identical in editing properties to the objects you draw with the Rectangle and Ellipse tools

● Trapezoids and parallelograms produced with the Smart Drawing tool become Perfect Shapes, explained in a moment

210 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide

FIGURE 8-1 Perfect Shapes retain their properties even when you extensively edit their

appearance

Sketched Shapes Translated Shapes

Rectangle—becomes a CorelDRAW object

Ellipse—becomes a CorelDRAW object

Isosceles triangle—becomes a regular closed path

Parallelogram—becomes a Perfect Shape

Trapezoid—becomes a Perfect Shape

● Other shapes you draw—triangles, arrows, stair steps, and so on—become regular

curved objects, but the Smart Drawing tool intelligently smoothes out curves and straightens nearly straight line segments

properties They feature “glyph” nodes (by default, a red-filled diamond)—which are different from regular nodes along a path—and the nodes can be manipulated to modify the shape without destroying any of its unique geometric properties

Now that you’ve created at least one Perfect Shape and know how to make others, try

these next steps to create variations on the basic appearance of a Perfect Shape

Reshaping a Perfect Shape

1. Using the Smart Drawing tool, sketch the shape of a trapezoid (refer to Figure 8-1;

two sides are parallel, the other two sides converge) When you release the mouse button, CorelDRAW translates your sketch into a Perfect Shape

2. Choose the Pick tool and then look at the status bar The shape is identified as a Perfect Shape, a special category of shape Use the Shape tool next to click-drag the glyph node You’ll see that the parallel sides remain parallel, and the converging sides slope away and toward each other By duplicating this Perfect Shape, you can edit with the Shape tool and create an array of trapezoids, all different in appearance but all editable indefinitely, and all retain the geometric structure of a Perfect Shape

To learn more about creating Perfect Shapes and manipulating glyph nodes, see

“Using Perfect Shape Tools,” later in this chapter.

The Smart Drawing tool helps you quickly draw and translate a variety of sketched shapes

into different, geometrically flawless shapes more efficiently than using multiple tools Each of

the translated shapes has its own special properties, which you’ll learn in detail in the sections

that follow

Using the Rectangle Tool and Property Bar

The Rectangle tool is simple enough to use, but it doesn’t just create a four-sided,

right-angle polygon—it creates a rectright-angle that has special properties in CorelDRAW, and these

special properties extend to rectangles drawn with the Smart Drawing tool You’ll find the

Rectangle tool in the toolbox, or you can quickly select it by pressingF6

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Rectangle tool

Rectangle shapes offer you the option to apply corner “roundness” based on a percentage value Roundness can be set either manually by dragging a corner with the Shape tool, or

by using the property bar Corner Radius option available while a rectangle is selected By default, you round all four corners equally and together However, if you unlock the Edit Corners Together toggle button, you can manually enter different values for each of the four corners, discussed in the following section

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You can also choose the Rectangle tool while any shape-creation tool is selected (the Ellipse tool, for example) by right-clicking a blank space on the document page and choosing Create Object | Rectangle from the pop-up menu.

Drawing a Rectangle

To create a rectangle, choose the Rectangle tool from the toolbox, and click-diagonal drag in any direction to define its corner positions, as shown here The act of click-dragging begins

by defining the first two corners As you drag, the corner positions can be redefined,

depending on where your cursor is on the page; and then, before you release the mouse button, you’ve defined the position for the remaining two rectangle corners

Ill 8-5

While the Rectangle tool is selected, notice that the cursor is a crosshair with a small rectangle shape at its lower right As you click-drag using the cursor, you’ll also notice that

212 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide

Edit Corners Together

Corner Radius (roundness) values

Top left

Bottom left

Top right

Bottom right

Rectangle tool cursor

the status bar and property bar show coordinates, width, and height properties of your new

object shape

Setting Rectangle Corner Properties

Round Corner is one of three different effects you can apply and dynamically edit when

you’re into rectangles Round Corner, as well as the Scalloped Corner and Chamfered

Corner styles, can be applied to a rectangle from a value of 0 to about one half the overall

length of one of its sides If we think about this, a 2" rectangle can’t have more than a 1"

rounded corner on each side! The Corner Radius amount can be changed anytime while the

shape remains a native rectangle; that is, it has not been converted to curves By typing 0

into any of the size boxes while the rectangle is selected, you remove the corner style

Round, Scalloped, and Chamfered Corner can be set uniformly for all corners (the default)

or independently when the Edit Corners Together lock option is in the unlocked state

Double-clicking the Rectangle tool button in the toolbox instantly creates a

rectangular border around your current document page.

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Constraining Shapes While Drawing

Just like most Windows applications, CorelDRAW takes advantage of keyboard

modifier keys you can use to modify shapes as you draw them Holding modifier keys

as you click-drag various tool cursors makes drawing your new object shape easier,

you get more options at your cursor tip, and you work faster These shortcuts are

worth committing to memory:

● HoldCTRLwhile drawing new objects to constrain their shape to equal width

and height

● HoldSHIFTwhile drawing new objects to draw their shape from the center

outward This is particularly useful, for example, when you need a rectangle

whose center is positioned at a specific point on the page

● HoldCTRL+SHIFTwhile drawing new objects to constrain their shape from the

center origin, and to equal width and height simultaneously.

It helps to mentally associateCTRLwith “constrain” andSHIFTwith “additional or

added feature.”