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The Toolbox
and Its Property Bar
Here is where things get interesting, and for us author types, very trying.
Many of these controls have to be used to be understoodno amount
of rambling on our parts can help the learning curve. Not that its
steep, but there is really only one way to learn these thingsby
working them.
Pick Tool
With the Pick tool selected, the property bar allows you to select several
options: preset image positions, top-left corner position, width and height
for the selected object, whether to maintain the objects aspect
ratio, units of measurement, and tiling options.
Imposition
Layout Tool
The Signature Layout and N-Up tools from DRAW 8 have been melded into
one and renamed the Imposition Layout tool. With this tool selected, you
can choose an imposition layout from the list of preset imposition standards,
create and save a custom imposition, delete an imposition, preview a template
or document, set the number of pages across and down, toggle the double-sided
layout, set gutter spacing, set sheet order, set the page sequence number,
and define page rotation.
You can also select N-Up format, save a new format, delete an existing
format, preview a template or document, set the number of rows and columns,
toggle clone frames, maintain document page size, define gutter spacing,
toggle auto-gutter spacing, set top and left margins, set bottom and right
margins, and choose from equal margins or auto margins. And, if that wasnt
enough, in DRAW 9 you can now set bindery options, custom gutters, fold
and trim options, and edit page placement. Whew!
This new Imposition Layout tool is quite powerful, and there should be
no imposition that you cannot create and save either directly through
the input boxes on the property bar, or interactively using the Imposition
Layout tool on the preview pages themselves.
Marks Placement
Tool
This is a subset of the Prepress page, with buttons for toggling all
of the various and sundry marks that can be scattered around the page.
One control not found in the dialog is the ability to move the marks up
and down and left and right. Why you would want to do this is beyond us,
but hey, we just write about it...
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| WARNING If youre
printing butt-cut business cards or some similar layout with no gutters,
remember to turn the Page Number button off. If you dont, the
page number will print within your card. Not good!
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Zoom Tool
These buttons in order are: Zoom In, Out, To 100%, To Selection, To Fit,
To Page, To Width, To Height, and Open the Zoom Dialog.
Putting It All Together:
CreatingaPrint Style
You can save settings by name and recall them for use at a later date
by creating a master print style. Your style can include just about every
option covered in this chapterthe only exceptions being the choices
you make from the General page of the Print dialog.
The process of making a print style is quite simple. From the General
tab on the Print dialog, after selecting the desired options, click the
Save As button. Or, from the Print Preview window, again select all the
options needed to properly print your document and then, before exiting
back to your drawing or to the main Print dialog, go to File Ø
Save Print Style As. Either of these methods then opens the dialog shown
in Figure 26.9.
FIGURE
26.9 The writing team needed to quickly print
thumbnails of all images in a chapter. A custom print style was the answer.
Certain settings, such as Layout style, are not automatically included
in a print style. It is a simple matter to add the ones that arent
saved by default (or, for that matter, to remove some settings from the
style). You work this tree-structured menu like you would DRAWs
main Options dialog, or the Windows Registry, or just about any application
setup program that offers installation options.
To include every possible setting in a category without reviewing them,
just click on the little check-box icon until it is checked and unshaded.
Once you determine the settings, enter a name for your print style, and
it is saved for posterity. You can also delete it by choosing File Ø
Delete Print Style in the Print Preview window.
You can also save and delete print styles in the full Print Preview window
by clicking on the big plus and minus buttons at the left end of the Standard
toolbar. The pull-down to the left of these indicates which print style
you are using. Curiously, you cannot delete print styles from the Print
dialogonly from Print Preview.
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| WARNING A saved
print style will remember that you turned on separations, but it will
not remember if you activated only some of the colors. All of the
colors in the drawing will be activated when you initially turn on
separations.
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Once you have defined a print style, its settings are there for you whenever
you need them, at the click of the mouse. You can verify or change the
settings as needed by going through the Print Options dialog. When you
want to use the style, just select it right from the main Print dialog,
and all the options in the style are implemented automatically for that
print job.
Print Styles Go Portable
In DRAW 9 each print style is now saved as a separate file, making
your print styles portable between systems and users. In Figure
26.9, the print style we created for this book is safe and sound
in the Corel90 network of folders. We would find it in Custom\Print
Styles, named MCD9 Thumbnails.prs. Other
writers on the team, upon receiving the file, would need only to
place it in the same folder on their systems to be able to load
it.
A print style is less than 1.5KB in size, and it is all ASCII.
We didnt need to be rocket scientists to identify PrintEmptyPlates=0
as the line that disables the imaging of empty color plates during
separation printing. Advanced users might find it easier to open
the file and change the 0 to a 1 than to wade through the dialog,
make the change, and then resave the print style.
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This is a very popular feature with those who do a lot of repetitive
printing. For example, a company that uses DRAW to design and produce
packaging labels could make efficient use of print styles. And if you
add in a Corel or VBA script, the label project could be almost completely
automated.
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| TIP You can
also save custom impositions for later use or for sharing with others.
Impositions are stored in .cly files, located in Custom\Layouts.
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