Thursday Tip: Treat As Filled

There are a handful of default settings in CorelDRAW that I absolutely detest. I can argue that they are the wrong settings for me, but other users really like these settings so they do have value to someone. Today I'm going to vent about the Treat as Filled setting. When this is activated, all objects are treated as if they have a fill. This means you can click inside of them and they will be selected. Sounds simple enough.

Where the function really fails for me is that if an unfilled object is above other objects, it makes it a lot more difficult to select those objects. Back in early versions of CorelDRAW, the only way to select an unfilled object was to click on its outline. Turning off Treat as Filled will revert to that behavior. Seems simple enough to me and then I'm not frustrated trying to select one object and accidentally selecting something else.

For several versions there was a button on the Property Bar to toggle this option on and off. In CorelDRAW X4, it is absolutely buried in the Options dialog box. Press Ctrl + J to bring up the Options dialog. Then navigate to Workspace | Toolbox | Pick Tool. There you will find an option labeled "Treat all objects as unfilled". It is checked by default making it more difficult to select objects. If you uncheck it, you will have to click the outline of an object to select it. That's the way I prefer it!

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