Information Sheet No. 1: Introduction To Coreldraw
Information Sheet No. 1: Introduction To Coreldraw
1
Introduction to CorelDRAW
Learning Outcomes:
After reading this Information Sheet, you must be able to:
Application commands are accessible through the menu bar, toolbars, property
bar, dockers, and toolbox. The property bar and dockers provide access to commands
that correspond to the active tool or current task. Tooltips provide information about
the icons and buttons found in the program. To view a tooltip, position the pointer
over an icon, button, or other application control.
The property bar, toolbars, and toolbox are locked in place by default. You can
unlock them and reposition them on your screen at any time. In addition, dockers can
be open, closed, and moved around your screen at any time.
Toolbars
Click this
To
button
Open a document
Save a document
Print a document
CorelDRAW also has toolbars for specific kinds of tasks. For example, the
Text toolbar contains commands relevant to using the Text tool. If you use a
toolbar frequently, you can display it in the workspace at all times.
The following table describes toolbars other than the standard toolbar.
Property Bar
The property bar displays controls that are commonly used with the
active tool or for the task you’re performing. Although it looks like a toolbar, the
property bar has content that changes depending on the tool or task. For
example, when you click the Text tool in the toolbox, the property bar displays
only text-related commands. In the example below, the property bar displays
text formatting, alignment, and editing tools.
Dockers
If you open several dockers, they usually appear nested, with only one
docker fully displayed. You can quickly display a docker hidden from view by
clicking the docker’s tab.
An example of a docker
layers.
Left: Docked and nested dockers. Right: A floating docker. To dock a
floating docker, click the docker’s title bar, and drag to position the pointer on
the edge of the drawing window. To close a docker, click the X button at the
upper-right corner; to collapse or expand a docker, click the arrow button at the
upper-right corner.
Status Bar
The status bar displays information about selected objects, such as
color, fill type, outline, and relevant commands. The status bar contains two
flyouts: one to choose whether to display cursor position or object details, and
one to choose whether to display information about the currently selected tool
or color information.
Color palette
A color palette is a collection of color swatches. You can choose fill and
outline colors by using the default color palette, which contains 99 colors from
the default CMYK color model. The selected fill and outline colors appear in the
color swatches on the status bar.
The following table describes how to choose a color from the default color
palette.
To Do the following
View more colors in the default color Click the arrow at the bottom of the
palette color palette to expand it.
Toolbox
The toolbox contains tools for drawing and editing images. Some of the
tools are visible by default, while others are grouped in flyouts. Flyouts open to
display a set of related CorelDRAW tools. A small flyout arrow in the lower-
right corner of a toolbox button indicates a flyout. You can access the tools in a
flyout by clicking the flyout arrow. After you open a flyout, you can easily scan
the contents of other flyouts by hovering over any of the toolbox buttons which
have flyout arrows. Flyouts function like toolbars when you drag them away
from the toolbox. This lets you view all the related tools while you work.
In the default workspace, clicking the flyout arrow on the Shape tool
opens the Shape edit flyout.
Tool Description
The Pick tool lets you select and size, skew, and rotate
objects.
The 2-point line tool lets you draw a straight two - point
line segment.
The Pen tool lets you draw curves one segment at a time.
The Smart fill tool lets you create objects from enclosed
areas and then apply a fill to those objects.
The Graph paper tool lets you draw a grid of lines similar
to that on graph paper.
The Basic shapes tool lets you choose from a full set of
shapes, including a hexagram, a smiley face, and a
right-angle triangle.
The Banner shapes tool lets you draw ribbon objects and
explosion shapes. These controls are available from the
Property bar.
The Text tool lets you type words directly on the screen
as artistic or paragraph text.
The Edit anchor tool lets you modify the connector line
anchor points of objects.
Opens the Outline dialog box, where you can set outline
properties
Opens the Fill dialog box, where you can set the fill
properties
The Mesh Fill tool lets you apply a mesh grid to a vector
object. Each node in the grid can include a unique color.