CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide part 11 doc

Opening and Saving Templates
You can open any template file that has a .CDT
extension you’ve saved from X5 or from any
previous version for editing, and change its actual
template format and/or its content. Use the File |
Open command and choose CorelDRAW Template
(CDT) as the file type. Before the file opens, a
dialog (shown at right) will ask whether you want
to open the template as a new document or for
editing. If your aim is to open a new document
based on the template content and structure, leave
New From Template selected in combination with
the With Contents option. If your intention is to
edit the template file itself, choose Open For Editing.
When saving an edited template file, performing a Save command automatically saves
the file as a template without opening any dialogs—and without the need to re-specify the
file as a CDT template file in the Save dialog. Additionally, a CDT file you opened will
appear on the File | Open Recent list, and if you choose it, it will simply open without the
dialog shown in the illustration.
Clipboard Commands
As you probably already know, the Windows Clipboard is a temporary “place” that’s
capable of storing the last objects copied and is a feature of your computer’s operating
system. While the data you copied or cut is stored in your
system’s RAM, you can “paste” duplicates of the data into
your document. The three most common Clipboard commands
you’ll likely use are Copy, Cut, and Paste—each of which is
accessible either from the Edit menu or from the standard
toolbar, as shown here. Cut, Copy, and Paste are also standard
Windows commands, so you can use the keyboard shortcuts
CTRL+C (Copy), CTRL+V (Paste), and CTRL+X (Cut) to speed
up your work.

To create duplicates of your selected objects immediately, press the
+ key on your
keyboard’s numeric keypad. Copies immediately are placed in front of the selected
objects in the document and in exactly the same page position. This action does not
use Windows’ Clipboard, so your current Clipboard contents remain intact.
64 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide
Ill 3-4
Cut Copy
Paste
Ill 3-5
Copying vs. Cutting
Each time an object is copied to the Windows Clipboard, the previous Clipboard contents
are overwritten. To copy selected objects onto your Clipboard, choose Edit | Copy. Better
yet, click the Copy button on the standard toolbar, or use the standard
CTRL+C shortcut. The
older Windows
SHIFT+INSERT shortcut also works. After being copied, the items remain
unaltered in your document.
Windows 7 only supports a Clipboard Viewer under a virtual machine such as one
running XP, so Windows 7 users can’t see important content that might be on the
Clipboard from moment to moment. However, Karen Kenworthy offers a free
Clipboard Viewer at It’s a
good idea to download it and to thank Karen.
The Cut command automatically deletes the selected items from your document and puts
a copy on the Clipboard. To cut items, click the Cut button in the standard toolbar, choose
Edit | Cut, or use the standard
CTRL+X shortcut. The older Windows SHIFT+DELETE shortcut
also applies.
If what you’ve copied to the Clipboard is something that you will use again in this
document or that might be useful in future creations, consider saving it to the scrapbook

covered later in this chapter, or as a symbol, which is covered in Chapter 13.
Paste vs. Paste Special
Copies of items on your Clipboard can be placed into your current document by using the
Paste command. Each time you use the Paste command, another copy is pasted. When an
item is pasted into CorelDRAW, it is placed on the very top or front of the active layer. To
paste Clipboard contents, perform one of these actions: click the Paste button in the standard
toolbar, choose Edit | Paste, or use the
CTRL+V shortcut. The older Windows SHIFT+INSERT
shortcut also applies.
Paste Special in the Edit menu is used to place “unusual” data into a CorelDRAW
document: text that is specially formatted, a graphic that the Clipboard doesn’t completely
understand, or data that CorelDRAW has no way of clearly understanding as text, vector art,
or bitmap data. Windows Clipboard can assign any of 27 data types, frequently more than
one type, to media that is copied to it; one of the ways that the mechanism Paste Special
operates is to offer you a choice as to how the media on the Clipboard is interpreted by
CorelDRAW as it puts a copy of this media on a page.
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Paste Special should be used on three occasions (possibly more) when you need
something in a CorelDRAW document that wasn’t created in CorelDRAW and pressing
CTRL+V results in nothing pasted:
●
When you’ve copied formatted text from WordPerfect, MS Word, or a desktop
publishing application, and you do not want the text formatted. Suppose you’ve
created a table and used fancy bullets and an equally fancy font in your word-
processing program, and you want the text imported to CorelDRAW via the
Clipboard only. You want to reformat the data in CorelDRAW with different fonts,
you don’t want bullets, but you also don’t want to retype the text. You use Edit |
Paste Special, and then choose Rich Text Format, or better still you choose Text, and
then click OK.

●
When you’ve copied data from an application that creates things that are completely
inappropriate for CorelDRAW to import. For example, you own a 3D modeling
program and want to use a model you’ve created in a CorelDRAW page. CorelDRAW
has no 3D tools, but it will accept a special pasted interpreted bitmap copy of the
model. In this case, the Special Paste of the model cannot be edited in CorelDRAW,
but the bitmap interpretation of the model program’s data can be scaled, moved,
rotated, and the document will print with the bitmap and any other CorelDRAW
media on the page.
●
When you want to update data you need to paste, especially with text. By default,
CorelDRAW’s Paste Special dialog is set to Paste, not to Paste Link, and you really
need to think carefully and read this section twice before choosing Paste Link and then
clicking OK. Paste Link embeds, for example, a section of MS Word text that can be
later edited using MS Word, and not CorelDRAW. The data you Paste Special and
Paste Link falls into that fuzzy category of data that doesn’t actually “belong” to the
CorelDRAW document—the data requires both a valid link to its source, and that the
application that was used to create the data is still installed on your computer a month
from now when it’s editing time. A linked pasted object is not directly editable in
CorelDRAW, although it can be printed, moved, and scaled as an embedded object.
To edit the object, you double-click it with the Pick Tool, and the program you used to
generate this media pops up…and you can edit away. When you’re finished editing,
you save the document in the program, you can close it, and when you come back to
CorelDRAW, the media has been updated. If you work extensively with CorelDRAW
and a word processor, and your client requests revisions as often as leaves fall from
a tree, the Link Paste Special feature can be a charm. However, if you don’t save
documents regularly or uninstall programs frequently, do not use the link feature. The
next time you open the document, the link might not be linked, and there goes part of
your design. Figure 3-6 shows the Paste Special dialog and the different options on the
list when (at left) a 3D model has been copied to the Clipboard, and when (at right) a

word-processing document has been copied.
66 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide
Paste Special does not have a keyboard shortcut assigned to it by default. It can be
handy to assign it one yourself by using the Customization | Commands section of
the Options dialog.
Undoing and Redoing Changes
Albert Einstein might have said (under his breath) that for every action, there is an equal and
opposite mistake. Then again, Mr. Einstein probably never used CorelDRAW, so he was
unaware that you have several ways to undo a mistake. Or to redo something you originally
thought was a mistake, and even to back up and undo a mistake you made a dozen steps ago.
It’s a shame that Life isn’t as forgiving as CorelDRAW.
Basic Undo Commands
Choose Edit | Undo or use the standard CTRL+Z shortcut. To reverse an Undo command,
choose Edit | Redo or use the
CTRL+SHIFT+Z shortcut. CorelDRAW takes both of these
commands further by offering Undo and Redo buttons in the standard toolbar; they can be
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FIGURE 3-6 Paste Special is for data that cannot be imported as regular data, and for when
you want to use an editor other than CorelDRAW.
Paste 3D model data as a picture. Paste Link text as a Word document.
used either to undo or redo single or multiple commands. The buttons even have drop-down
menus, as shown next. Clicking the toolbar button applies to the most recent action; clicking
the toolbar button’s drop-down arrow lets you choose a specific Undo or Redo command. To
reverse either an Undo or Redo action using the drop-downs, click one of the listed commands.
Doing so takes your composition back or forward to the point you specified in the drop-
down. Undo and Redo drop-downs show your most recent actions at the top of the listing.
Ill 3-6
You can customize the number of Undo levels CorelDRAW performs. The default
setting records your 20 most recent actions, but this value can be set as high as

99,999 actions (provided your system has the available resources). To access Undo
options, open the Options dialog (click the Options button on the standard toolbar),
and then at left click Document | General.
Using the Undo Docker
For even more control over your most recent actions, you might try the Undo docker opened
by choosing Window | Dockers | Undo. The Undo docker, shown in Figure 3-7, provides
different views of your drawing as it appeared before certain recent actions. The Undo
docker can also be used to save your recent actions as a Visual Basic for Applications
(VBA) macro, which is terrific when you want to apply, for example, a dozen complex edits
to different objects in different documents (on different days!).
The Undo docker displays your most recent actions in reverse order of the Undo and
Redo drop-down menus, with recent actions placed at the bottom of the docker list.
Selecting a command on the list shows you a view of your document as it appeared before
your most recent actions were performed.
Clicking the Clear Undo List icon clears the entire list of actions in the Undo docker list,
providing you with a clean slate. You cannot clear or delete some of the actions; clearing is
an all or nothing decision. By default, an alert dialog, shown in the following illustration,
appears, warning you that clearing the Undo list can’t be undone. Having a robust Undo list
68 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide
Click to undo/redo last action.
Click to open drop-down menu.
Most recent action
can be a much-needed safety net, so don’t clear the list unless you have so many undos in
the list that it is bogging down your system resources.
Ill 3-7
When you save and then close a file, the Undo docker list is automatically cleared—you
will be starting fresh when you reopen the document. If you Save the document but don’t
close it, and continue to work on the file, the actions in the Undo docker remain, and your
new actions continue to be added to the list.
The Undo docker is also a great way to create VBA macros. Clicking the Save List To A

VBA Macro button in the docker opens the Save Macro dialog, where you provide a name
and description for the new macro and store it either with your open document or to
CorelDRAW’s main Global Macros list. Keep in mind when naming your macros that
spaces are not valid characters, but underscores are.
Scrapbooks, An Old Favorite
If you are a longtime user of CorelDRAW, you may also be a fan of the Scrapbook docker,
which can be used to store and retrieve drawings, photos, text, or floating photo objects. Many
users have found it useful for searching through vast collections of clip art. The Scrapbook
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FIGURE 3-7 The Undo docker features all sorts of ways to undo or redo recent actions.
Actions arranged from the
oldest action at the top to the
most recent at the bottom
Save list to a VBA macro Clear Undo list
docker is still available for you to use, but is no longer installed by default—the Symbol
Manager docker is proving to be a better feature for storing work because in X5 all the Corel
clip art and your own work can be searched for using XP and Vista’s native search engines.
But it’s natural to stick with what works for you; if you want to use the Scrapbook, you can
use CorelDRAW’s customization options to bring the Scrapbook out into the open. Here’s how.
Revealing the CorelDRAW Scrapbook
1. Click the Options button on the standard toolbar, and then choose Workspace |
Customization | Commands in the tree on the left.
2. Click the Search icon (the one with the binoculars on it) next to the drop-down list in
the center of the dialog.
3. In the Find What field of the Find Text dialog, type in Scrapbook and then click the
Find Next button. The Scrapbook command is highlighted in the list of commands.
Click the close box for Find Text.
4. Click-drag the Scrapbook command out of the list, and drop it on the toolbar or menu
of your choice. The standard toolbar is a good location if you use the Scrapbook often.

5. Click OK to close the Options dialog.
Ill 3-8
70 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide
Drag icon to add it to a toolbar.
Importing and Exporting Files
CorelDRAW’s Import and Export filter collection is one of the largest in any graphics
application. Here is a list of the document types that version X5 can import and export.
Support for new file formats:
●
Microsoft Publisher (versions 2002, 2003, and 2007)
●
Microsoft Word 2007
●
AutoCAD DXF
●
AutoCAD DWG (versions R2.5 to 2007)
●
Corel Painter 11
Enhanced export options when working with Adobe products including:
●
Adobe Photoshop CS4 and previous versions
●
Adobe Illustrator CS4 (you can now choose to export text to Illustrator as Curves or
as Text; compressed Illustrator files are not currently supported)
● PDF 1.7, PDF/A (an ISO-approved format for long-term document archiving)
●
Adobe Acrobat
Filters are data translators for files created in other applications or in formats not native
to CorelDRAW. Import filters take the data from other applications and translate that data
into information that can be viewed and edited from within CorelDRAW. Export filters

translate data from your CorelDRAW document to a format recognized by a different
program or publishing medium. As with Import filters, Export filters frequently contain
dialogs where you set up options to export the precise data you need for the target
application or publishing medium.
When you export a file, the new file format may not support all the features that
CorelDRAW’s native file format (CDR) supports. For this reason, even when
exporting work, you should always save a copy of your work in CorelDRAW’s
native file format.
Set Up Color Management Before Importing
Earlier, in the “Create a New Document that Suits You” section, the importance of color
management was discussed. Enabling and using a color profile is your best bet to ensure
color consistency between your monitor, CorelDRAW, and your personal or commercial
printer. Because CorelDRAW can import so many different graphics file types, especially
documents created with Adobe products, you will want to be alerted when importing a photo
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that was tagged with a color profile. Go to Tools | Color Management | Default Settings right
now. In Figure 3-8 you can see four check boxes toward the right of the dialog: check them.
You can always uncheck these alert options if you feel pestered by them in your work, but
you really shouldn’t. When you import, for example, a coworker’s Photoshop PSD file, the
chances are very good that this image was saved with a color profile. The chances are also
fairly good that this color-profile tagged photo won’t have the same color profile as the
CorelDRAW document you’ve created. When an imported image has a profile that doesn’t
match the current CorelDRAW document’s color profile, the imported photo might look
dull, overly saturated, or too dark or too light. And it will print that way, and then you have
an unhappy client, coworker, or most importantly, you have an unhappy you. Fortunately, it
only takes two seconds to be happier.
Now that the alerts have been checked, here’s what happens when you import a PSD,
TIFF, JPEG, and even CDR and Corel CMX documents that have been embedded with a
color profile: you click to import it (the exact method is covered in the following section),

and before anything happens, a dialog appears. In this box, you’re told exactly what color
72 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide
FIGURE 3-8 Enable an alert that gives you the chance to correct a mismatched or missing
color profile when you import a document.
Check to display
attention box on
opening and
pasting.
profile the incoming document is tagged with, what your current document’s color profile is,
and you have three options (shown next) to choose from to remedy the mismatch:
●
Ignore the import’s color profile and assign it the CorelDRAW document’s profile.
This is not the best solution if the imported photo or graphic is really important to
the design and your client.
●
Convert the document’s color profile to match your CorelDRAW document’s color
profile. This is a much better option; see “Create a New Document that Suits You”
for the reason why and the color conversion CorelDRAW uses.
●
Convert the CorelDRAW document’s colors to accommodate the imported
document’s color profile. Don’t choose this option if you’ve worked for hours on
other native elements in your CorelDRAW document design, but consider this
option if the import is the first element you’re working with in a new document.
Ill 3-9
Click OK with the confidence that you’ve just accessed one of the most powerful, new
features in CorelDRAW X5.
Importing Files and Setting Options
You import a file by clicking File | Import, clicking the Import button on the standard
toolbar, or using the
CTRL+I shortcut. All of these moves open the Import dialog (see left,

Figure 3-9), which can show thumbnails, provide information such as date and file size
depending on which Windows view you have the panes set up for, and options for importing
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