Introduction to CorelDaw

Definition of Graphics Packages

A graphics package is an application that can be used to create and manipulate images on a computer.
There are two main types of graphic packages:
1. Painting packages: A painting package produces images by changing the colour of pixels on the screen.
Note: a pixel is the smallest unit of a digital image that can be displayed and represented on a digital display device.
2. Drawing packages: A drawing package produces images that are made up of coloured lines and shapes such as circles, squares and rectangles.

Examples of Graphics Packages

Graphic packages include:
a. MS Paint
b. PC Paintbrush
c. Adobe Photoshop
d. JASC’s Paint Shop Pro
e. CorelDraw
f. Micrographic Designer
g. AutoCAD.

Features of CorelDraw Environment

1. Title Bar: It is the first bar on the screen of any opened application. It gives information about the program which you are working on and also the name used in saving the document.
2. Menu bar: Menu bar is the area containing pull-down menu options.CorelDraw as a program has Eleven (11) menus, they include, File, Edit, View, Layout, Arrange, Effect, Bitmap, Texts, Tools Window and Help menu. Each menu has its function. When clicked on, the sub-menu list appears
3. Toolbar: A detachable bar that contains shortcuts to the menu and other commands
4. Property Bar: A detachable bar with commands that relate to the active tool or object. For example, when the text tool is active, the text property bar displays commands that create and edit text.
5. The Rule: The rule (horizontal and vertical rule) enables us to determine the size and position of objects in a drawing
6. Drawing page: The area inside the drawing window. It is the printable area of your work area. Any work done outside of the printable page will not be printed
7. Drawing window: The area outside the drawing page bordered by the scroll bars and application controls
8. Colour Palette: a dockable that contains colour swatches.
9. Docker: A window containing available commands to settings relevant to a specific tool or task
10. Toolbox: A floating bar with tools for creating, filling and modifying objects in the drawing
11. Status bar: An area at the bottom of the application window that contains information about object properties. The status bar also shows the current mouse position
12. Document Navigator: The area at the bottom of the application window that contains controls for moving between pages and adding pages.

CorelDraw Toolbox Tools and their Uses

Pick Tool
It contains the following tools

a. The Pick tool lets you select, size, skew, and rotate objects.
b. The Freehand pick tool lets you select objects by using a freehand selection marquee.
c. The Free Transform tool lets you transform an object by using the Free rotation, Free angle reflection, Free scale, and Free skew tools.

Shape edit tools
The shape edit tool contains the following tools:

a. The Shape tool lets you edit the shape of objects.
b. The Smooth tool lets you smooth curved objects to remove jagged edges and reduce the number of nodes.
c. The Smear tool lets you shape an object by pulling extensions or making indents along its outline.
d. The Twirl tool lets you create swirl effects by dragging along the edge of objects.
e. The Attract tool lets you shape objects by attracting nodes to the cursor.
f. The Repel tool lets you shape objects by pushing away nodes from the cursor.
g. The Smudge tool lets you distort a vector object by dragging along its outline.
h. The Roughen tool lets you distort the outline of a vector object by dragging along the outline.

Crop tools
It has the following tools

a. The Crop tool lets you remove unwanted areas in objects.
b. The Knife tool lets you slice objects, groups of objects, and bitmaps along any path you specify.
c. The Virtual segment delete tool lets you delete portions of objects that are between intersections.
d. The Eraser tool lets you remove areas of your drawing.

Zoom tools
The zoom tool contains:

The Zoom tool lets you change the magnification level in the drawing window.
The Pan tool lets you control which part of the drawing is visible in the drawing window.

Curve tools
It has:

a. The Freehand tool lets you draw single-line segments and curves.
b. The 2-point line tool lets you draw a straight two-point line segment.
c. The Bézier tool lets you draw curves one segment at a time.
d. The Pen tool lets you draw curves one segment at a time.
e. The B-spline tool lets you draw curved lines by setting control points that shape the curve without breaking it into segments.
f. The Polyline tool lets you draw lines and curves in preview mode.
g. The 3-point curve tool lets you draw a curve by defining the start, end, and centre points.
h. The Smart drawing tool converts your freehand strokes to basic shapes and smoothed curves.
i. The LiveSketch tool lets you sketch naturally with intelligent stroke adjustment.

Artistic Media tool

The Artistic media tool provides access to the Preset, Brush, Sprayer, Calligraphic, and Expression tools.

Rectangle tools
It contains:

The Rectangle tool lets you draw rectangles and squares.
The 3-point rectangle tool lets you draw rectangles at an angle.

Ellipse tools
It contains:

a. The Ellipse tool lets you draw ellipses and circles.
b. The 3-point ellipse tool lets you draw ellipses at an angle.

Object tools
It contains:

a. The Polygon tool lets you draw symmetrical polygons and stars.
b. The Star tool lets you draw perfect stars.
c. The Complex star tool lets you draw complex stars that have intersecting sides.
d. The Graph paper tool lets you draw a grid of lines similar to that on graph paper.
e. The Spiral tool lets you draw symmetrical and logarithmic spirals.
g. The basic shapes tool lets you choose from a full set of shapes, including a hexagram, a smiley face, and a right-angle triangle.
h. The Arrow shapes tool lets you draw arrows of various shapes, directions, and numbers of heads.
i. The Flowchart shapes tool lets you draw flowchart symbols.
j. The Banner shapes tool lets you draw ribbon objects and explosion shapes.
k. The Callout shapes tool lets you draw callouts and labels.

Text and Table tools
It contains:

a. The Text tool lets you type words directly on the screen as artistic or paragraph text.
b. The Table tool lets you draw and edit tables.

Dimension tools
It contains:

a. The Parallel dimension tool lets you draw slanted dimension lines.
b. The Horizontal or vertical dimension tool lets you draw horizontal or vertical dimension lines.
c. The Angular dimension tool lets you draw angular dimension lines.
d. The Segment dimension tool lets you display the distance between end nodes in single or multiple segments.
e. The 3-point callout tool lets you draw a callout with a two-segment leader line.

Connector tools
It contains:

a. The Straight-line connector tool lets you draw a straight connector line.
b. The Right-angle connector tool lets you draw a right angle connector line.
c. The Rounded right-angle connector tool lets you draw a right-angle connector line with curved corners.
d. The Edit anchor tool lets you modify connector line anchor points.

Interactive tools
It contains:

a. The Drop shadow tool lets you apply a drop shadow to an object.
b. The Contour tool lets you apply a contour to an object.
c. The Blend tool lets you blend two objects.
d. The Distort tool lets you apply a Push or Pull distortion, a Zipper distortion, or a Twister distortion to an object.
e. The Envelope tool lets you shape an object by dragging the nodes of the envelope.
f. The Extrude tool lets you apply the illusion of depth to objects.

Transparency tool
It contains:

The Transparency tool lets you apply transparencies to objects.

Eyedropper tools
It contains:

a. The Color eyedropper tool lets you select and copy a colour from an object on the drawing window or the desktop.
b. The Attributes eyedropper tool lets you select and copy object properties, such as line thickness, size and effects, from an object on the drawing window.

Interactive fill tools
It contains:

a. The Interactive fill tool lets you apply various fills.
b. The Mesh fill tool lets you apply a mesh grid to an object.
c. The Smart fill tool lets you create objects from enclosed areas and then apply a fill to those objects.