CorelWorld 2007

Recently I returned home from my first CorelWorld.

Pros: Many.

Cons: None.

I gotta say that everything went super-smooth. Here are some highlights from my viewpoint as an instructor;

• Travel arrangements were nailed down, no misunderstandings
• Excellent hotel and food. Spotless environment, great customer service.
• Everything ran on time and was coordinated well.
• All presentation equipment worked as expected, in suitable environments.

In short, everything was drama-free and allowed me to do my best.

First up, after Gerard's Keynote: My Heavy Metal class. It was jammed. Chairs filled fast, and more kept coming. :-) I crammed all three of these into one hour:

http://www.unleash.com/jeffh/vectormetal/index.asp
http://www.unleash.com/jeffh/goldfactory/index.asp
http://www.unleash.com/jeffh/makingstuff/index.asp

The course was successful - so well enjoyed that one of the students showed enthusiasm and uploaded a portion of my conference materials to Rapidshare within hours of the end of the conference!

When Foster advised her that the info is strictly copyrighted, she removed the link. Oh well, she was really excited about what I was teaching, and rightfully so. Ha Ha :-)

I was impressed with Rick Altman's presentation style, it was precise & concise. It was a surreal moment to share the stage for the Workspace Modification session. This is because it was because of him that I really took the plunge into modifying my workspace several years back. Foster thinks I modify too much. :-) Compared to the default workspace, what I do is "out there" all right.

The thing I hope Rick & I were able to cement into the student's minds is the fact they should dip their toes in the water and try a few quick modifications of their own.

Being video interviewed by Gérard Métrailler was enjoyable and a career highlight, and also hanging out with the personable & legendary Tony Severenuk.

It was cool to meet some folks that hang around the old Corel Newsgroups.

I'd jammed in 34 tips in one hour for the CorelDRAW Powertips session. Non-stop, tip after tip - just the way I like it. :-) I picked a few of the many tips available in these tutorials;

Powertips I
Powertips II
Powertips III


Overall, a great success. Next year is already looking good!

Printing from any Windows Program to a Bitmap

There may be times when no matter what you do, complex files are not being translated properly into something you need for production.

I prefer vectors whenever possible. However, if you've tried getting imagery out of any program into CorelDRAW without success, this little program may be worth looking at.

http://www.zan1011.com/

Under tight deadlines, with the customer not wanting to pay for anything for conversions, this may be a great time-saver for prepress techs.

For large runs, it's worth rebuilding properly. What about the little jobs where the customer brings in a Publisher file and just wants 100 copies? Rather than chewing off your fingernails worrying that something is missing in a PDF conversion, simply making a hi-res bitmap and dumping it into Draw may be the ticket.

I have no reservations about making a 600 DPI greyscale bitmap, and outputting it on a digital color copier. I believe the customer will be happy with the result. For full color, a 600 DPI files will take awhile to RIP, so saving as a 400 DPI bitmap would be more prudent. Try a few tests, and watch the result on small fonts.

Of course, the customer should sign off on the bitmap output. Since it's fast to print a bitmap of their file, they can stand at the front counter while you prepare their proof. Then they see the "real deal" right off the machine.

Many of you are surely wondering: Why not print from Publisher directly to the copier? Impositioning is everything to a small print shop.

Few people on the street know this, but the shops are billed by the "click". Each sheet of paper going through the machine counts as a "click".

So, it's the same cost (from Xerox/Canon) for the shop to print an 8.5" x 11" sheet as a 12" x 18". A shop is reluctant to ever print 8.5" x 11" if they can put 2-up on 11" x 17". This is because a print shop's Click Charge is the same either way.

Bak 2 Basiks

One of my favorite things to do is see people get excited by CorelDRAW's powerful capabilities. However, there was a time when I was learning like everyone else. Here's a situation that had me scratching my head for a while: I wanted to separate a circle into pieces. Check it out!

The Bak 2 Basiks tutorial may develop into a series if there is interest. Let me know if you enjoyed it by commenting below. The series is intended for beginners.

Perhaps you've hit an entirely different roadblock in CorelDRAW and don't know how to proceed. That might me a good topic for me to cover in the future too!

You may also want to eat a sardine & cheese sandwich before continuing - that's what fueled me to create this. :-)

Click on the image for a larger version.