Chapter 13
The Envelope, Please

Featuring

Although DRAW’s Envelope command is similar to Perspective, you are likely to find it more interesting and versatile. Like Perspective, Envelope reshapes objects without actually adding new elements to your drawing. When you apply an envelope to an object, the object becomes elastic. You can then stretch the envelope, and the object stretches with it.

Envelopes can be applied to any object or group—even to open curves and text. Shaping text is probably one of the most common applications of envelopes, and you observed in Chapter 10 how both artistic and paragraph text can be enveloped, with strikingly different results.

	NOTE Chapter 10 is required reading for anyone wishing to learn about the Envelope command. We covered quite a bit of material there, and the technique for enveloping text is the same as for enveloping other objects.

But first, an interesting question, to which we’re not sure we know the answer. At last year’s CorelWORLD User Conference, the subject came up in one of the presentations: Why is it called Envelope? Our lead author fumbled his way through an explanation about how an envelope implies that you put something inside of something else, and if necessary, you fold the contents to have them fit in the envelope. It was somewhat underwhelming.

Then a woman stood up, and with one sentence, turned the light bulb on within all of us. “I think it would be better,” she said, “if you thought of the word as a verb, not a noun. This command creates a container that envelops the object.”

“So the name of the feature is actually a misspelling?” Rick responded.

“Exactly,” she said. “Corel made a typo!” Everyone laughed.

Actually, our theory gained additional credence when we learned that envelope is the Canadian spelling for the verb envelop. So Corel didn’t misspell the word after all, and maybe its creative team really did want the effect to be known as a verb; the other special effects are all active verbsBlend, Extrude, Contour, etc.

Consider this your useless piece of information for the day, and if you care to, start pronouncing this the Envelop command.

Creating an Envelope

As with most of DRAW’s tools, learning the mechanics of enveloping is not difficult; mastering the tool is. In its gradual, and now completed, move away from roll-ups, Corel has contained all of Envelope’s functionality on the property bar. You won’t find an Effects Ø Envelope command on the menus (although you can build it back in if you want; see Chapter 34).

Figure 13.1 shows the battlefield we will use for exploring envelopes in this chapter. The first thing you must do to apply an envelope is select the object or group of objects you want to envelope (you can envelope multiple objects as long as they’re grouped or combined or welded into one object). Then choose the Envelope icon (fourth one on the Effects flyout, looks like a double-jointed rubber band). We show you the cursor in the image so you can see how DRAW cues you that you are about to apply the effect.

Your creative options with Envelope are virtually unlimited, but your choice of controls is well defined. The four buttons that are active on the property bar represent the envelope-editing modes. To their right, the drop-down box and the Keep Lines check box both serve to further define the enveloping effect. The first three modes—Straight Line, Single Arc, and Double Arc—allow you to change the shape of one side of an object or group. The fourth button, the so-called “unconstrained mode,” is a Shape tool look-alike, and for good reason: this mode lets you work an envelope as if it were a curve. With this mode, you are quite literally node-editing an envelope; you can select and move several nodes at once, adjust control points to change the curvature of the nodes, and change the node type to line, cusp, smooth, or symmetric.

FIGURE 13.1  Can these simple objects show you everything there is to know about the Envelope tool? Stick around.

Because this mode can create any type of envelope shape, it is the default mode when you invoke the effect. We polled the members of our team, and most never change from unconstrained mode.

Enveloping Fundamentals

In the age of the interactive tools, clicking on Apply buttons is largely a thing of the past. When you invoke the tool and select an object, you’re ready to go: start pulling and tugging on nodes and watch the enveloping begin.

Notice that while in the unconstrained mode, all of the node-editing tools are available.

	NOTE Do you miss the conventional controls, with the Apply button? They are still there; they’re just hiding. Corel did not place the Envelope docker on the Effects menu, but you can customize it back in, or just press Ctrl+F7. While the engineers kicked Envelope off the menu, they didn’t take away its hotkey.

Once you have enveloped a shape, conventional node-editing is not possible without first converting the object to curves. Were you to click the Shape tool with an enveloped object selected, DRAW would promptly transfer you to the Envelope tool. This is actually quite handy, because it means you can simply press F10 (the hotkey for the Shape tool) to continue work on an envelope. You can also double-click an enveloped shape, and DRAW will promptly switch you from the Pick tool to the Envelope tool.

If you do convert the object to curves, using Ctrl+Q or the button on the Envelope property bar, DRAW leaves the shape as is, but “turns off” the Envelope function (not unlike the Separate command). Once done, you can then use the Shape tool to node-edit.

That is all you need to know to begin experimenting with Envelope, except perhaps the far-right button on the property bar, which removes the Envelope from an object. The next few sections explore the options.