Here are some more tricks that you can do with CorelDRAW!

Here are some more tricks that you can do with CorelDRAW!

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Here are some more things that you can do with
CorelDRAW!. You can use any of these tricks to create stunning
company logos or eye-catching headlines for your newsletter.
Among the things I have created in the accompanying illustration,
only Objects C and D needed the feature of CorelDRAW! 5.0. The
rest can be accomplished with Version 4.0.

Both the Intersect and Trim commands are new features of
CorelDRAW! 5.0. When I intersected Rectangle A with Ellipse B, I
obtained Cutout D. That's pretty straightforward. But if you
experiment with different shapes, such as a rectangle and a
letter "a", you can get an object that will make a good base for
a logo. Try it.

Here's an example of what you can use the Trim command for.
Using Ellipse B for trimming Rectangle A gave me Object C. This
is a powerful command that can produce nifty results.

To apply the Intersect or Trim commands, you have to select
both the object to be trimmed and the trimmer. You can use the
marquee select technique to do this. Or, you can select the first
object, press and hold down the Shift key, and select the other
one. The only thing to remember is that the trimmer object should
be placed on top of the object to be trimmed.

You can trim only one object at a time; if you'd like to trim
multiple objects using the same trimmer, you'd have to apply the
command repeatedly. Trim is an extremely helpful command when
you're drawing a map of a housing complex, for instance.

Blend

The blend command is another powerful tool that's available in
most of today's graphics illustration programs. In CorelDRAW!,
you can specify the number of intermediate objects that create
the blend look. You can also rotate the intermediate objects in a
pre-specified degree, and you can even apply different intermedi
ate colors.

To create Object E, I first drew a horizontal line. I created
a duplicate of this line by pressing Ctrl-D. Or, I could have
just clicked on the Duplicate command, found under the Edit menu
item. I placed the two lines on top of each other by using the
Align command. Then I opened the Blend Roll-up, which can be
found under the Effect menu item (or I could just press Ctrl-B).
I entered 18 for the number of steps and 180 degree for the
rotation. That gives me an intermediate line every 10 degrees.
The result is as shown in the illustration. Actually, you can
enter any number for the intermediate steps as long as it is an
even number, as an odd number will cause a missing spoke.

Object F is actually the same as object E, only this time I
started with a rectangle instead of a line. The fill of the
starting and ending rectangles were different, though. One rec
tangle was filled with 50 percent black, and the other 100 per
cent white. I had entered 12 for the number of steps and 180
degree for rotation.

Object G can already be used as a logo, can't it? The tech
nique used was the same, except that I started with a letter "A"
in USABlack font instead of a segment of line or a rectangle. I
filled the letter with 100 percent black. I created its dupli
cate, filled it with 30 percent black, placed the black letter on
top of the gray one, align and blended them. Only this time I
entered 30 for the number of steps and 360 degree for the rota
tion. To make the black letter A really stand out, I selected the
ending one and changed its outline color into white. I really
like this effect. By the way, if we use the white outline for
both starting and ending letters, the result would look like
Object J.

Objects H and I were created in the same way as the previous
blended objects. I started with a stretch of line for Object H
and a rectangle for Object I. The only difference was that to
create Objects H and I, I moved the ending object away from the
starting one. If I move the upper horizontal line of Object H on
top of the lower one, I will get exactly Object E.

If you use two different colors to fill the rectangles to be
blended, you can even specify that the intermediate rectangles
should be filled with rainbow color. You can even specify whether
the rainbow colors should follow a clockwise or counter-clockwise
path in the color fill. Just click on the middle button on the
top left corner of the Blend Roll-up. In creating object I, I
filled the starting rectangle with solid blue color and the
ending one with pink. The resulting object really looked pretty
on the screen. It's a pity I still don't own a color printer yet.

Emboss

Embossing, or creating a carved impression on a surface, can
be created automatically in most bitmap editing programs, such as
CorelPHOTO-PAINT, Micrografx Photo-Magic, Image-Palls, Harvard
Graphics, and of course Photoshop. With these programs, creating
the emboss effect is just a single click operation. With a little
trick, however, you can also create the same effect with a vec
tor-based graphics program as well. Take a look at the "Corel
DRAW!" banner in K.

The emboss in K actually consists of four elements. A rec
tangle as the background, and three text objects identical in
font and font size. To create the text objects, all you have to
do is create the first one and duplicate it twice.

The secret is to give different fill to each of the text
objects. In the illustration, I filled one of them with the same
level of gray as the background rectangle. The next text object
was filled with white, and the last with black.

I aligned the three text objects with the Align command, but
then I moved the white one a little bit up and to the right and
the black one down and to the left. I suggest that you use the
nudge technique--moving the selected object using the arrow keys
on the keyboard. However, don't forget to set the nudge distance
very small. In case you don't know how to do this, click on
Special, Preference. Choose General, if it's not already on top.
I used 0.010 inch for this purpose, and I had to hit the arrow
keys three to four times to move the object sufficiently far.

Once the horizontal and vertical positions of the objects were
correct, I proceeded to order them so that the gray one stood in
the front, followed by the black and the white. The Order
command, found underneath Arrange, was the tool I used for this
purpose; it enabled me to put these objects in the right order.

In creating the emboss effect, we have to make sure that we
don't overdo things. If too much of the white text is shown, or
too little of it, the effect would look unnatural. You need some
experimentation to get the subtle emboss effect such as the one
in the illustration.

Plain shadow

The shadow effect such as the one in Object L is very easy to
use. I guess you don't have to be taught how to create this.
However, just in case you're truly a beginner, here's how to
create it anyway: Enter the text using the font and font size of
your liking. Fill it with light gray, and give it no outline.
While it is still selected, create a duplicate by pressing Ctrl-
D. Fill the new object with 100 percent black. Then position it a
little bit to the left and to the top of the gray one. Presto!

Contour

Contour is another powerful tool in CorelDRAW! 4.0 and 5.0.
It's a tool with which you have to practice in order to create
interesting effects. Contour gives you a blend-like effect, but
the intermediate duplicate objects are concentric. These objects
have different fills as well.

The word MORE (Object M) was first created using Bodnoff font,
60 points. I called up the Contour Roll-up. I specified 0.003
inch for the offset and I entered 20 for the number of contoured
objects. I also chose To Outside in the Roll-up before I pressed
the Apply button. The result was as you can see in the
illustration.

Uebung macht Meisters.

There's so much truth in this old German saying. Now that
you've learned some more tricks in CorelDRAW! you can continue
your exploration. Experiment with different options and different
settings to see their effects. Remember that you should not
overuse a tool all the time to get the best results. Finally,
perhaps you can also share your creations and the techniques
you've discovered with other readers of this column.