Make Corel's Help Files Easier to Read

One person asked:

Here's a no-doubt remedial question: how can I get the text size in the Help window of CorelDRAW bigger? On my high-res monitor it's almost unreadable. Is this a Windows Help System matter?

Os created a utility that allows one to adjust the font size for Corel's help files.

Misleading dialog when opening X4 files in X3

When opening newer CorelDRAW files in earlier versions, a dialog used to pop up. It warned that the file you were trying to open was created in a newer version of CorelDRAW. This is clear and true.

However, when attempting to open an CorelDRAW X4 file in CorelDRAW X3, this dialog doesn't give the operator any valuable info on why it isn't opening.

If a user had gotten used to the old warning dialog, they might now suspect the file is corrupt, which isn't the case.

This leads to the designer using CorelDRAW X4 being asked to re-email/FTP the artwork again, only for the X3 user to get the same dialog. Which can result in frustration – until it's sorted out which versions of CorelDRAW everyone is using.

click on image.

Thicker "El's" when Exporting PDF's From CorelDRAW

Some of you have run into this - a workaround I've used;

1. Save your document (to a new name if you want to be really safe. It's very easy to save your document by accident after the next step.)
2. Convert text to curves inside your CorelDRAW document.
3. Export as PDF.

A fast way to convert all text to curves on screen is with this macro.

Even though you might select "convert text to curves" in the PDF export dialog, the viewable result is different in Acrobat Reader than if you convert the text to curves manually on CorelDRAW's page. This includes the initial release of CorelDRAW X4. it might print OK, but it looks odd and as if something is "wrong".

Click on images below to see what I mean. Underlines are also thicker too.

CorelDraw.com or Cnews?

Corel Launched Coreldraw.com in May 2007. Many new faces and names showed up, excited by the new resource for CorelDRAW users. New... relative to what? The Cnews Newsgroups.

Corel's Cnews Newsgroup Server has been in existence for perhaps 10-15 years. However, unless someone was at least at an intermediate computer user level, they probably wouldn't have known about these newsgroups or how to access this older resource.

Recently a question was asked at CorelDRAW.com about why there are 2 very different places to post questions and read answers. Gerard Metrailler is the Director of Product Management for the Graphics Division at Corel Corporation. Fortunately he wrote that Corel plans to keep the Cnews server, as he rightfully recognizes that there are lots of great posts there which still hold great value.

The hard-core Corelians are likely viewing both places, so if you have a question, post anywhere you feel comfortable. One thing that's not mentioned as a CorelDRAW selling feature is the excellent and mature support from professional users. They seem to be on the edge of their seats waiting to help others in their time of need, for free! If you're a CorelDRAW user at any level, there is someone, somewhere that can help you!

You can read posts at CorelDRAW.com on a web page, but I love the speed of NNTP. The other key thing of NNTP is the ability to hide posts you've read with a newsreader program. This allows to you to focus on and reply to new items only. There's no clutter of posts you've already seen before. Outlook Express and Thunderbird can be set up for this. You can view both the Cnews Newsgroups and CorelDRAW.com this way. They are working on hiding read posts for web viewing of Coreldraw.com, but this is a technical challenge.

I've had trouble posting to CorelDRAW.com with Thunderbird. I simply click the link in the bottom of the message to go to the CorelDRAW.com web page that the message is on and reply that way.

One advantage of CorelDRAW.com is that you can view the posts from any computer connected to the 'net with greater ease. Especially for those who use public computers, or who have some time on their lunch break to check things out using an office computer. All you need is your login and password.

There are a variety of other places to read and learn about CorelDRAW, such as unleash.com. The overall benefit is that there seems to be great interest in our favorite software.

Free Print Merge Video for CorelDRAW

Here is a short video that walks a person through the steps of merging data from an Excel file to a CorelDRAW print merge. It's FREE, go have a look!

Fountain Fills in Draw - Something you probably didn't know

Special rare information from Alex Vakulenko, edited a bit:

NOTE: this does not apply to CorelDRAW X3 or X4..

CorelDRAW has two different ways of applying fountain fills - through the Fountain Fill Dialog as well as using the Interactive Fill Tool. The results are different!

The Interactive Fill tool was introduced in CorelDRAW 8. Using the Fountain Fill Dialog was the only way to apply the fill in prior versions. Fills applied to the object with the Interactive Fill Tool and Dialog also behave differently.

When a fountain fill is applied using the Fountain Fill Dialog, the fill is drawn based on the bounding box of the selected object. When the fill goes from, say, black to white, then the black color will be at one end of the bounding box, and the white will be on the opposite. This is easy understand when the fill angle is 0° (horizontal).

However, when the fill is at an angle, then the color transition is built so that the beginning & end of the fill are at the utmost points of bounding box when viewed at the given angle. For example, if the bounding box of the object is a square and fill goes diagonally at 45°, then it will start at lower left corner of the bounding box and end at the upper right corner.

When you apply a horizontal fill to a rectangle and then rotate the rectangle, the fill rotates with it too (fill angle is changed accordingly). However, the bounding box of the rotated object changes and the fill appears differently. See the attached illustration.

The Interactive Fill tool works differently – the fill goes from the beginning of the shape to its end and the object's bounding box is ignored. So, when a fill has been applied to a rectangle with the Interactive Fill tool and the rectangle is rotated, the vector rotates along with the object and the rotated fill looks exactly the same way on the rotated rectangle as on the original one.

Hence, to fix the problem, before rotating an object with a fountain fill, select the object with the Interactive Fill tool to apply a fill vector to the object. Then you can rotate the object all you want and its fill will rotate with it without change of appearance.

Click on image for a clearer view:

Extracting Components From Postscript Fills

A fellow was wondering about how to do this. Here you go!

Click on image for a clear view.

PSI Service required for CorelDRAW X4 to Run

Most users wouldn't notice this kind of thing, but the hard-core folks who like to run their computers lean & mean should take note.

I have a registered ver of X4. I was doing some intense stuff where I wanted all unnecessary processes killed, incl. the PSI service.

When I went to launch X4 later that day, I saw the warning below. At first, I thought "Oh man, there goes 30 minutes of my life re-installing this thing".

BUT.... if this warning pops up for anyone, only a reboot may be required. The PSI service will load again. You may not need to reinstall the whole suite as the warning suggests.

Click on image for a clear view.