CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide part 35 ppsx

Once Weld, Trim, or Intersect is selected, the docker will display available options, shown here.. Leave Original is equivalent to “make a copy so I don’t lose my originals,” and the opt

fill and is ordered on top of the target objects Just click a foreground color on the color strip, and the new object will become immediately apparent

You can use shaping operations on bitmaps See Chapter 24 on how to create invaluable cropping effects on your photos using shaping operations and other techniques.

Using the Shaping Docker

Under the Arrange menu, you’ll find all the shaping commands Also, the Shaping command is

on this menu, which opens the Shaping docker in the workspace As with all dockers, you can detach (undock) this palette so it floats near your work (demanding fewer “mouse miles”), and this docker offers more options than when you use the shaping operations from the property bar Because of their operation, Simplify, Front Minus Back, and Back Minus Front only have an Apply button, and Create Boundary has Place Behind Selected and Leave Original check boxes The first three shaping commands in the selector are applied in slightly different ways from the others To Weld, Trim, or Intersect, you must have at least one object selected and another unselected (but still in view) for the commands to be available Once Weld, Trim, or Intersect is selected, the docker will display available options, shown here Clicking the docker command button begins the action

After: new object is moved Before Create Boundary

Shaping command selector

Preview window

Object options

Command button

The preview window on the docker doesn’t actually change; it’s an illustration that

shows the result of using each operation The Object options check boxes are what you use

to set what object, if any, remains after an operation Leave Original is equivalent to “make a

copy so I don’t lose my originals,” and the options are as follows:

● Source Object(s) When this option is selected, the object you selected before the

shaping operation remains after the command has been applied

● Target Object(s) With this option selected, the object you Trim, Weld to, or

Intersect with remains after the command has been applied

Let’s give this docker a spin First, create two shapes; the Rectangle tool is fine to make

shapes you won’t need later, so they’re expendable in this example:

1. If you haven’t already done so, create the objects on which you want to base your

new shape, and position them in such a way that the shape created by their

overlapping portions represents your new shape

2. Select one of these overlapping objects, and open the Shaping docker by choosing

Window | Dockers | Shaping

3. Choose Weld, Trim, or Intersect from the selector at the top of the docker

4. Choose which original object(s) you want to remain after the command has been applied

by clicking Source Object(s) and/or Target Object(s), and then click the command button

at the bottom of the docker to apply the command Notice your cursor has changed to

one of three targeting cursors, depending on your shaping operation

5. Click the object you want your selected object to Trim, Weld to, or Intersect with

Your new shape is immediately created based on the overlapping area of your

existing objects

The outline and fill properties of newly shaped objects are determined by the

properties of the target object.

Choosing Simplify, Front Minus Back, or Back Minus Front requires that at least two

objects are selected If only one object is selected, you’ll get an attention box politely telling

you so and asking if you’d like to try again With any of these commands, the shaping is

applied when you click the Apply button in the Shaping docker

Working Examples of Object Shaping

If you’ve seen some stunning CorelDRAW creations and said to yourself, “Wow, that

must’ve taken that artist ages to do all that work,” nope, it probably didn’t: the artist put

object shaping to work The following shows just three of thousands of creative possibilities

for shaping operations; these are just a few examples to kindle your efforts

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Here is an example problem and a solution using the Trim operation The chicken came first, then the need to make the chicken drawing look as though it’s peeking through the broken eggshell The chicken drawing is composed of several grouped sub-objects; the Trim operation trims all objects in a group Walk through the next set of steps to see how the Trim operation solves a lot of the manual effort of editing dozens of objects to visually integrate the chicken drawing into the scene All the shapes needed to perform the Trim operation have been added for you; just focus on how to use the Trim operation

Trimming a Chicken

1. Open Chicken.cdr The goal is to place the toy chicken drawing so that it looks as though it’s peeking out of the half-shell at right

2. With the Pick tool, drag the chicken group’s objects, and position them so the lower half of the chicken is over the eggshell

3. Choose Arrange | Shaping | Shaping to display the Shaping docker

4. Select the dashed outline shape If you were designing this composition from scratch, the Pen tool would be ideal for drawing such a shape The blue dashed outline is only to call attention to the object in this example—the shape can be any outline color or style

5. Choose Trim from the drop-down list Put a check in the Target Object(s) check box

so a copy of the whole chicken remains in the drawing Why spoil a perfectly good drawing?

6. Because only one object is selected, you now click Trim on the Shaping docker, and

the docker queries you on what you want trimmed

7. With the special cursor, click over the chicken.

8. With the Pick tool, move the lower (whole) chicken out of the way to see the results

Try a click-drag over the wing

Figure 11-1 shows a combination Weld and then a Trim, although Back Minus Front

would work as the second step, too The problem in this composition is that a specific font

is needed in stencil style, but the artist doesn’t have such a typeface So Arial is first used,

and then:

1. Draw several rectangles over areas that need to be removed from the text to create

the stencil effect

2. Create duplicates of one narrow rectangle by using the drop-a-copy technique: drag

a rectangle to a new location, and then tap both mouse buttons before releasing both

buttons Doing this keeps consistency between areas to be removed from the text

3. After all the rectangles are in position, marquee-select the rectangles, and then use

the Weld command to make a single object out of the rectangles

4. Remove the single shape from the text by using it as the Source object in the Trim

operation The text is trimmed

5. Finally, use Effects | Add Perspective to make the text appear as though it’s on the

3D crate The text probably could use some rotation, but you get the idea

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Target object retained and moved

With the outline selected, click Trim, and then click the chick.

Figure 11-2 uses Back Minus Front, Weld, and an Arrow shape (covered in Chapter 16)

to create a complex-looking design for a corporate logo First, a circle is drawn using the Ellipse tool in combination with holdingCTRL(to constrain ovals to perfect circles) Then,

to put a smaller circle centered inside the first, you holdSHIFT, drag the original circle’s corner-bounding box handle toward the center, then right-click before releasing the left mouse button to create a scaled duplicate Back Minus Front is chosen on the Shaping docker with both objects selected; click Apply and you have a perfect doughnut object The Arrow shapes come in all four directions on the property bar; four arrows are dragged to create with this tool, they’re arranged, and then all four arrows are selected The Weld operation is chosen on the Shaping docker Then with the large arrow cursor, the doughnut is clicked to indicate it’s the target object This could be the end of the story, but in only a few clicks, the resulting shape can be extruded and rotated See Chapter 19 for the complete details on object extrusion—3D is yours to experiment with within CorelDRAW

FIGURE 11-1 Weld and then Trim are used to make a stencil treatment out of the text

Black rectangles are welded.

Welded rectangles trim text.

Effects | Add Perspective plus transparency

The Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer docker can be displayed by choosing it from Window | Dockers,

and with it, you have your choice of truncating sharp corners of an object you draw This

docker will not alter a curved path segment: a shape that consists of straight paths is the best

to use with this feature; objects with a combination of curved and straight segments will

only be affected along the convergence of two straight path segments

When Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer evaluates sharp direction changes along a path, it “rounds

off” the point of a convex area toward the inside of the path and increases concave areas

This is a terrific feature for quickly building elegant objects such as furniture pieces,

machine parts, and nice ornaments for desktop publishing documents When you enter a

positive value in the Radius field (or use the elevator buttons on the docker), you see a faint

outline preview in your document, and then you click Apply when you’re happy with the

preview Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer is a destructive operation, unlike the shaping operations, so

if you want to keep your original object, duplicate it before using this docker

● Fillet Rounds the corners of an object

● Scallop Trims a semicircle from the corner of an object

● Chamfer Lops a straight angle off a corner at an angle perpendicular to the

interior angle of the corner

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FIGURE 11-2 Complex illustrations don’t need to take a lot of time Get to know the Shape

tools, and what you envision is only a few clicks away

Back (larger circle)

Minus Front Weld arrow

shapes to doughnut object.

Extrude with bevel edge.

Figure 11-3 shows the effects of the Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer docker on the same zigzag object created with a single-click and the Pen tool Because the Radius of this trimming effect is measured in page units, it’s usually a good idea to keep rulers visible in your document, and to refer to them to achieve the exact degree of corner truncation you need

FIGURE 11-3 Use the Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer docker to take the corners off an object with

intricacy and classic style

Use the page rulers.

CorelDRAW PowerClips change the appearance of a shape by hiding certain areas of its exterior

with a different shape This, unlike other reshaping operations, is completely nondestructive, and

the clipping object can release the inner clipped object(s) at any time Consider the usefulness

of PowerClips: You can hide most of an object from view and put other objects behind the

PowerClip You can play a dozen possible scenarios for the composition you have on a page, and

never commit to any of them, unlike with trimming an object

To give you an idea of the creative power of PowerClips, follow these steps with a

document whose objects have already been created for you The assignment is to put a

design on the bottom of a flower vase, stencil-style, so parts of the vase’s original color still

show through in different regions It’s not hard work when you’re familiar with PowerClips

PowerClipping a Design onto an Object

1. Open Flower and Vase.cdr To the left you’ll see a grouped pattern with transparency

Below it is the same pattern with an envelope applied to make the pattern look bulged, as

it would when viewed on the surface of a round shape such as the vase drawing here At

right, over the vase, is a thin yellow outline shape that is a fairly accurate trace over the

vase This will be your PowerClip shape for the pattern—it will hide all shapes outside of

it If you’d like to use the Envelope tool to experiment with the non-enveloped grouped

pattern, Chapter 20 provides the complete documentation on this feature

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Pattern with transparency

Clipping object Pattern with transparency and an envelope

2. Select the bottom pattern with the Pick tool, and then drag it over so it’s on top of the yellow outline object, making certain that all parts of the pattern overlap the outline You don’t want gaps in the pattern as it’s displayed on the vase

3. Choose Effects | PowerClip | Place Inside Container

4. A huge arrow becomes your cursor Click the cursor over the yellow outline, and the pattern scoots inside the container object

5. The container object is now selected Right-click over the No Fill color well on the Color Palette to remove the outline, or alternatively, choose None for the Outline Width from the drop-down list on the property bar See Figure 11-4

Although the preceding example shows how to mask the exterior of a group of shapes,

a PowerClip container can also have an outline width, color, and a fill In any case, the nondestructive property of PowerClips will serve you in a number of design situations

FIGURE 11-4 Let empty areas in patterns and other complex drawings show through a

PowerClip object

Occasionally, an object “inside” the PowerClip container might not be aligned perfectly

relative to your overall composition You also might like to do a little editing to the contained

object(s) This is not directly done on the page Here are the editing options for a PowerClipped

object:

● To reveal the object for editing or repositioning relative to the PowerClip object,

right-click over the object, and then choose Edit Contents from the pop-up menu A

blue outline indicates the size and position of the PowerClip container When you’re

done editing, right-click and then choose Finish Editing This Level

● To undo the PowerClip effect, you can pressCTRL+Zright after making the command,

or right-click over the PowerClip object, and then choose Extract Contents Your

PowerClipped object(s) and the container are restored to their original condition, but

not always to their original position on the page

● To quickly reposition the contents of a PowerClip container, right-click and then

choose Lock Contents To PowerClip This is a toggle on and off state: when it’s

unlocked, you can reposition the container by dragging with the Pick tool You can

also scale and rotate the container without affecting the contents When it’s locked,

the contents travel with the container objects wherever you drag

The Knife Tool

The Knife tool functions like a knife you’d use in the real world—except you can run with it

and it requires no sharpening— and feels quite natural to use You begin by hovering over an

object area where you want to begin the cut, your cursor changes its appearance to signify it

is ready, and then you click-drag to the end of the cut, the other side of the object The result

is two separate closed objects As with many of CorelDRAW’s tools,SHIFTandCTRLcan be

used as modifier keys as you work with the knife, and in the case of the Knife tool, these

modifier keys add precision to your cuts You’ll find the Knife tool in the toolbox grouped

together with the Crop, Eraser, and Virtual Segment Delete tools

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Knife tool