Starting CorelDRAW, marks the beginning of our CorelDRAW Lessons and Tutorials.
My name is Lalit Adhikari and we are at LTY. Let’s begin!
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CorelDRAW Interface
The User-Interface of CorelDRAW is simple and easy to understand. The home screen in CorelDRAW is called Welcome Screen.
Application Window
| Number | Part Name |
|---|---|
| 1 | Toolbox |
| 2 | Document Tab |
| 3 | Title bar |
| 4 | Menu bar |
| 5 | Toolbar |
| 6 | Drawing window |
| 7 | Porperty bar |
| 8 | Docker |
| 9 | Rulers |
| 10 | Document Palette |
| 11 | Document Navigator |
| 12 | Drawing Page |
| 13 | Status Bar |
| 14 | Navigator |
| 15 | Color Palette |
Welcome Screen
It is a centralized location for product information, alternative application workspaces, learning resources and plug-ins etc.
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CorelDraw Terms
| S. No. | Term | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Object | It is an element in a drawing such as an image, shape, line, text, curve, symbol or layer. |
| 2 | Drawing | It is the work we create in CorelDRAW. |
| 3 | Vector graphic | It is an image generated from mathematical descriptions that determine the position, length and direction in which lines are drawn. |
| 4 | Bitmap | It is an image composed of grids of pixels. |
| 5 | Docker | It is a window that contains available commands and settings relevant to a specific tool or task. |
| 6 | Flyout | It is a button that opens a group of related tools or menu items. |
| 7 | List box | It is a list of options that drops down when a user clicks the down arrow button. |
| 8 | Artistic text | It is a type of text to which you can apply special effects, such as shadows. |
| 9 | Paragraph text | It is a type of text to which you can apply formatting options and which can be edited in large blocks. |
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Workspace
CorelDRAW offers a collection of workspaces which are designed to help increase productivity with quick access to mostly-used tools.
Some of available workspaces are:
| S. No. | Workspaces | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lite | For beginners, Lite workspace is ideal for getting started with CorelDRAW. It makes most commonly used tools and features more accessible. |
| 2 | X6 Inspired | It is almost identical to default CorelDRAW workspace. Mainly for experienced CorelDRAW users who are looking for a seemless transition to a modern CorelDRAW. |
| 3 | Default | It has been redesigned to provide a more intutive placement of tools and controls. It is ideal for users with experience in other Vector Graphic Software. |
| 4 | Touch | It is optimized for touch enabled devices. |
| 5 | Illustration | It is designed to make the process of creating Book Cover design, Magazine Ads, Stroyboards and other types of illustrations more intutive and efficient. |
| 6 | Page Layout | It is optimized for arranging graphics and text objects so it can be easier to create compelling layouts for business cards, branding materials, product packaging or multipage documents such as brochures and newsletters. |
| 7 | Adobe Illustrator | It simulates the Adobe Illustrator by positioning the CorelDRAW features where you would find the equivalent feature in Adobe Illustrator. It is ideal if you recently switched from Adobe Illustrator to CorelDRAW and you are not familiar with the CorelDRAW. |
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Components in Application Window
| Number | Components | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toolbox | A docked bar with tools for filling, creating and modifying objects in the drawing. |
| 2 | Document Tab | A tab display for each open document to allow us to quickly move between documents. |
| 3 | Title Bar | A bar that displays the title of the present chosen drawing. |
| 4 | Menu Bar | The are containing drop-down menu options. |
| 5 | Toolbar | Shortcuts to commands and menu can be obtained from this detachable bar. |
| 6 | Drawing Window | The area outside the drawing page bordered by the scroll bars and application controls. |
| 7 | Property bar | A detachable bar with commands that relate to the active tool or object. |
| 8 | Docker | A window containing available commands and settings relevant to a specific tool or task. |
| 9 | Rulers | To determine the size and position of objects in a drawing. Horizontal and vertical borders are used as rulers. |
| 10 | Document Palette | A dockable bar that contains color swatches for the current document. |
| 11 | Document Navigator | The area that has the controls for moving between pages and adding pages at the bottom-left of the application window. |
| 12 | Drawing Page | The rectangular area inside the drawing window. It is the printable area of our work area. |
| 13 | Status Bar | An area at the bottom of the application window that holds the information about object properties such as size, color, resolution, type and fill. The status bar also displays the current cursor position. |
| 14 | Navigator | A button at the lower-right corner that opens a smaller display to help us move around a drawing. |
| 15 | Color Palette | A dockable bar that contains color swatches. |
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Toolbox
The toolbox contains tools for drawing and editing objects. Some of the tools are visible by default while most of the tools are grouped inside flyouts.
These tools can be accessed by clicking the small arrow in the lower-right corner of the tool.
Related Topics:
- Principles of Design
- List of websites for Royalty Free Images
- List of websites for Royalty Free Raw images
Property Bar
Property bar displays the most commonly used functions related to active tool or the object. It resembles the toolbar but content on Property bar changes depending on active tool or object.
For Example: If we chose Text tool in Toolbox. The Property bar will display options such as formatting, editing text and alignment etc.
Toolbar
By default, the standard toolbar contains buttons and shortcut controls for many of menu commands. Any toolbar can be displayed in the workspaces at all times if needed.
| S. No. | Toolbar | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Text | A bar with relevant commands for formatting and aligning text. |
| 2 | Zoom | It contain commands for zooming in and out of a drawing page by specifying percentage of original view, select Zoom tool and selecting a page view. |
| 3 | Internet | It contain commands for web related tools for creating rollovers and publishing to the internet. |
| 4 | Print Merge | It contain commands for print merge items that combine text with a drawing such as creating and loading data files, creating fields for variable text and inserting print merge fields. |
| 5 | Transform | It contain commands for skewing, rotating and mirroring objects. |
| 6 | Macros | It contain commands for editing, testing and running macros. |
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Dockers
Dockers provides control such as options, list boxes and command buttons are displayed in Dockers. They are similar to controls in dialog boxes. They can be kept open to access commands to experiment different effects while working on an object which ia not possible in most of the dialog box controls.
Dockers have features similar to panels in any other graphics program.
Dockers can be either docked or floating in the application window. When a docker is attached at the edge of the application window, palette or toolbox, it is termed as docked docker.
On the contrary, floating dockers are not attached to any workspace element.
When working on a document, if two or more dockers are opened, they appear nested and display only one docker at a time. We can click on the docker’s tab to access a hidden docker.
Dockers can be moved or collapsed to save screen space.
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Status Bar
Status bar displays information of selected objects which includes fill type, color, cursor position, out line etc and document color information such as Color Profile and Color Proofing status etc.
Similarities between Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW
Both these software, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW, are Vector Software having many similarities. Hence making it easy to move from one application to another.
Related Topics:
- How to Create silver metallic effect in illustrator
- How to Create Flower using Gradient Mesh in illustrator
- How to Recolor Artwork in illustrator
Comparing Tools
Many tools of both the software produce the same results, even if there mode of operation and names differ.
| S. No. | Adobe Illustrator Tools | CorelDRAW Tools |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Selection tool, Scale tool, Skew tool, Rotate tool | Pick tool |
| 2 | Add Anchor | Point tool Shape tool |
| 3 | Pencil tool | Freehand tool |
| 4 | Paintbrush tool | Artistic media tool or Brush tool |
| 5 | Rectangle tool, Rounded Rectangle tool | Rectangle tool |
| 6 | Type tool, Area Type tool, Path Type tool | Text tool |
| 7 | Reflect tool | Mirror buttons |
| 8 | Scissors tool | Knife tool |
| 9 | Star tool | Polygon tool or Star shapes |
| 10 | Symbol Sprayer tool | Artistic media tool |
| 11 | Twist tool | Interactive twister distortion tool |
| 12 | Warp tool | Smudge Brush tool or Envelope tool |
| 13 | Convert Anchor Point tool, Delete Anchor Point tool, Direct Selection Tool, Reshape tool | Shape tool |
| 14 | Line Segment tool | Freehand tool |
| 15 | Blend Tool | Interactive Blend tool |
| 16 | Ellipse tool | Ellipse tool |
| 17 | Drop Shadow tool | Interactive Drop Shadow tool |
| 18 | Gradient tool, Paint bucket tool | Interactive Fill tool |
| 19 | Mesh tool | Interactive Mesh Fill tool |
| 20 | Measure tool | Dimension tool |
| 21 | Rectangular Grid tool | Graph Paper tool |
| 22 | Wrinkle tool | Roughen Brush tool |
Related Topics:
- How to Create Metallic Effect in illustrator
- How to Create a Pressure sensitive brush in illustrator
- How to Set brush pressure in illustrator
Comparing Terms
| S. No. | Adobe Illustrator Terms | CorelDRAW Terms |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anchor Points | Nodes |
| 2 | Artwork | Drawing |
| 3 | Compound object | Combine |
| 4 | Gradient Fill | Fountain Fill |
| 5 | Mask Power | Clip |
| 6 | Outline view | Wireframe view |
| 7 | Path | Curve |
| 8 | Placing images | Inserting images |
| 9 | Rasterizing | Converting to a bitmap |
| 10 | Stroke | Outline |
| 11 | Swatches Palette | Color Palette |
| 12 | Unite | Weld |
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Sir, i am happy to learn with you. Your article is very helpful for us. I am glad because you are my teacher.
Thankyou sir.
Thank you…it means a lot to me…!!.. 🙂