Must-have guide book on CorelDRAW! 4.0

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): There's no doubt that CorelDRAW! is the most popular graphics illustration package for the Windows environment. It has consistently won Editor's Choice and other awards for this category time and time again.

Unfortunately, it's such a huge collection of drawing tools that not many of us know how to use the programs optimally to create exceptional illustrations.

Therefore, a book that covers this package from A to Z will be highly desirable, especially if it is written in clear, simple, and everyday language. Inside CorelDRAW! 4.0: Special Edition, by Daniel Gray, fits the bill perfectly.

The publisher of this US$34.95, 750-page book is New Riders Publishing 11711 N. College Ave., Suite 140 Carmel, IN 46032 U.S. There's a good chance the book is available in one of our leading bookstores in Jakarta.

Daniel Gray is a veteran in both traditional and electronic publishing, in which he has a 10-year track record. He's currently a graphic system analyst at Continental Corporation.

From A to Z

Some people say that a good place to start is at the beginning, and Daniel starts with a background introduction to object-oriented programs. You may recall one of my previous articles on the difference between vector drawing and pixel painting. This section basically highlights the same subject.

The book also explains where CorelDRAW! fits in within the desktop publishing arena. It briefly lists the names of other DTP programs that this particular package complements. Dan also introduces his readers to John DeLook, a hypothetical character who appears throughout the book to make discussions on various topics more related to real-life needs.

This book is an update of Version 4.0, so it's not surprising that Dan goes on by briefing us on the new tools and facilities found in this version.

Just to give you a taste of his thoroughness, on page 22 you can find tip on opening a CorelDRAW! clip-art file, and on page 23 you'll see a screenshot of the File, Open dialog box.

Practical side

Thick as it is, the book is full of useful tips. I had not been aware, for instance, that you could move from one object to another just by hitting the TAB key.

Its discussion on Bezier curve is very helpful, and so is the discussion on the rather complicated layering feature.

One of the first lessons I learned from this book was the creation of a starburst. I had not realized that it would be so simple! I know that embossing text or images with a paint program, such as CorelPHOTO-PAINT! or Micrografx Magic Paint, can be done easily with a couple of clicks.

I also learned from this book that creating the emboss effect with CorelDRAW! is just as straightforward. All you have to do is create two duplicate copies of whatever object you wish to emboss, and assign different colors to them. That's so simple.

Thoroughness

The book is packed with inspiring ideas of special effects. Dan explains succinctly how you can create beveled text, chrome type, two-tone type (black type on white background combined with white type on black background).

To complete his lectures on graphics illustrations (he prefers to call them 'graphics arts'), Dan has not forgotten to include suggestions on hardware and software that you should have at your disposal. His suggested configuration is a 846DX2 66 MHz machine with a 245 MB hard disk and 32 MB of RAM. I'll give you my comments on this in an upcoming article.

On the software side, Dan talks about various commercial as well as shareware programs that you may want to use to strengthen the power of CorelDRAW! 4.0. The discussion on trapping, a sophisticated method for printing color, is also included.

Using Object Linking and Embedding, or OLE, you can combine art works from CorelDRAW!'s other arsenals, such as CorelPHOTO- PAINT! and CorelTRACE!. Dan's coverage on these DRAW! companions is quite complete.

I can imagine, as a writer, that Dan must have had little energy left after completing the bulk of this enormous tutorial.

Shortcomings

The book cover boasts 32 pages of full-color CorelDRAW! illustrations from the world's top professionals. Unluckily, when I turned to the color pages inside the book, I found only three sample illustrations with no identification of the creator. It looks as if they had been prepared by the author himself.

The book is rather unnecessarily thick. I guess Dan has subconsciously followed the tradition of the people at Corel System, Ontario, Canada, who have been throwing everything into this illustration software package.

The tip on page 12, in my opinion, is wholly unnecessary. Anyone who intends to create a piece of computer art must already know how to open a saved file. Unfortunately, there are plenty of unnecessary elaborations of mundane steps throughout the book.

Furthermore, writing a good and comprehensive guidebook on a computer software program is far from being a piece of cake. That is one reason why this book has appeared on the shelves so close to the time of the arrival of a new update version.

If tradition is any cue, we can expect CorelDRAW! Version 5.0 to hit the market in two weeks.

In fact, this month's PC/Computing presents a report of this new version based on a beta release. The report claims Version 5.0 is such a full suite of publication tools it even includes an updated version of Ventura Publisher, called Corel Ventura.

You don't have to worry, though. Even today, one year after Corel System released CorelDRAW! Version 4.0, Version 3.0 is still on the market at a much lower price tag.

Based on this, I believe that Version 4.0 will remain available although Version 5.0 is already released. Furthermore, so far CorelDRAW! has largely kept the functioning of all their drawing tools consistent, so this book is likely to remain useful to you even when you decide to use Version 5.0.