Using the Symbols Library

For an easy starting point to creating a simple drawing, nothing beats DRAW’s online Symbols library. To access it, choose Tools Ø Symbols and Special Characters, or press Ctrl+F11. From there you can browse through several categories of symbols. When you find one that you like, click on it, then just drag it out of the docker and drop it on the page. Creating the army of candles shown in Figure 3.4 is quite easy:

1.  Choose Household from the drop-down list of themes.

2.  Check Tile Symbol/Special Character from the drop-down menu at the top-right of the docker (activated by the small right-pointing arrow next to Household).

3.  Drag the desired symbol to the page. When you tile symbols, the one at the top-left is the master, and all others are clones of it. Any change you make to the master changes all the others.

4.  Select the master object, click again, and rotate it slightly.

5.  Using the on-screen color palette, select a color for the interior (Button 1) and for the outline (Button 2).

FIGURE 3.4  Light up someone’s life with these candles, all created in one operation by choosing and tiling a symbol from the docker.

DRAW’s Scrapbook

The Scrapbook helps you organize and access favorite elements you use often. Whether you have certain photos, clipart, 3D models, fills and outlines, or even FTP sites you use frequently, you can save them to DRAW’s Scrapbook and then access them easily as you work. To start working with the Scrapbook, choose Tools Ø Scrapbook and then choose the command you want from the submenu that appears. Figure 3.5 shows the dialog that appears when you choose the Browse command from the Scrapbook pop-up submenu.

FIGURE 3.5  The Scrapbook offers quick access to resources you use often.

You can quickly open any file in the Scrapbook by double-clicking on its icon, or you can drag the icon into your current drawing to import the file. If you leave the Browse page set to the directory where you keep your current project, you will have instant access to those files.

The second tab of the Scrapbook, Clipart, takes you to the Samples directory. You may want to navigate to the Corel Clipart CD or some other directory or disk where you have additional clipart files. To change the location in which Corel looks for clipart, click the down-arrow beside the Look In box and choose the drive or folder from the displayed list. The Scrapbook provides preview images of clipart on the disk or in the directory you select. When you find the image you want, drag it into your drawing.

The Photos tab also opens to the Samples directory. You may want to change the directory in the Look In box to the Photos directory on the Corel CD. You can then navigate to the photo image you want and drag it to the Corel work area to add it to your current file.

The Favorite Fills and Outlines tab enables you to store your favorite fills and outlines for easy access when you want to reuse them. Details about this are found in Chapter 29.

The 3D Models tab enables you to store and select 3D models you create or import from other sources. Lastly, the FTP Sites tab gives you easy access to FTP sites you use to download files for use in your projects. Both the 3D Models tab and the FTP Sites tab were added to the Scrapbook in DRAW 8. Now you can connect directly to an FTP site from the Scrapbook and download files for use in your illustrations without needing or starting up a dedicated FTP client of your own.

Using Fills and Outlines

One of the first things that new DRAW users do to selected objects is apply fills and outlines, undoubtedly because the controls of the on-screen color palette are right there in front of their noses. Although the Outline and Fill dialogs and dockers have considerable depth, it’s easy (as usual) to perform the basic moves. To apply a fill to a selected object, try this:

1.  Open Kiddy105.cdr from the \Collection\Sports\Baseball subdirectory of CorelDRAW 9’s CD No. 2.

2.  Zoom in on and then select the glove on the boy’s hand. Because the components of this clipart are grouped (as is the case with all of Corel’s clipart), in order to select the glove, you need to hold Ctrl while you click it.

3.  Find Dark Brown on the color palette at the right side of the screen, and click on it with Button 1 (see Figure 3.6). Voilà!

4.  To create a red outline around the glove, click on red on the palette, using Button 2.

Any object can be outlined, but until version 8, only objects that were closed could be filled. A closed object is one whose outline begins and ends in the same place, such as a circle or a rectangle. Chapters 6 and 7 offer considerable detail on filling and outlining, respectively.

FIGURE 3.6  Once an object is selected (note the round handles, indicating that the glove is within a group), changing its appearance is easy with the on-screen palette.

Selecting Multiple Objects

DRAW allows you to select literally thousands of objects at one time for the purposes of grouping, combining, welding, moving, duplicating, deleting, or mass editing of fills and/or outlines.

If the objects are in close proximity and are well defined, you can drag a marquee around them to select them. If you need to select certain objects amid others that you don’t want to select, the trick is to use the Shift key, like this:

1.  Select the first object.

2.  Hold down the Shift key.

3.  Click on another object. Now both objects are selected.

4.  While still holding Shift, click on any other objects you want. As long as you continue to hold Shift, any previously selected objects will remain selected. If you click on an already selected object while holding Shift, you deselect that object.

NOTE And you thought a marquee was just for displaying movie titles! In, DRAWspeak you create a marquee when you click and drag diagonally to outline a rectangular area. A marquee created with the Pick tool selects all objects that are completely inside the marquee. If you hold the Alt key down, the marquee also selects objects it touches in addition to the ones completely inside. You’ll hear the term often, as in “drag a marquee” or “marquee-select several objects.” Another use of marquees is with the Zoom tool, discussed later in this chapter.