Tips on recreating scanned charts, logos with CorelDRAW

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): You're the computer whiz in the office. You know how to create all sorts of graphics in CorelDRAW. So, one morning, your boss throws a fax containing a chart under your nose.

He's going to make a presentation at a client's office in the afternoon and he wants to include the chart that he has just received through the fax in his PowerPoint slide show. He wants you to do it for him.

Well, because you're the only guy in the office who knows everything there is to know about the computer and the programs (at least, that's what they think), you do get some privileges.

Among other things, you have a full control over a decent scanner.

But, hey, can you simply scan a chart from the fax and insert it into the slide?

A glance at the curly paper tells you that it will not be so easy. The chart is too plain and the resolution is so poor. Some of the text is not legible at all.

To make matters worse, there are blotches everywhere. Clearly, before faxing the chart, the sender had to photocopy it from a magazine page.

Your boss's slide show is a smashing one. You know this because it was you who prepared it. Now, if you only scan this poor quality chart and just add it to the slides, you'll be ruining everything -- perhaps including his business prospects.

And your own career, maybe.

What can you do? You only have two hours before lunch. Well, not to worry.

Just scan the chart and save it in a TIFF file. Then call up CorelDRAW. Create a new file and import the scanned image into the blank page. Place it in the center.

Enlarge it as much as you can. Don't worry about the resolution right now. Then, go to View and select Wireframe.

CorelDRAW allows you to combine bitmap images with vector graphics. When you import a bitmap file, it will become an object in the drawing.

You can adjust the resolution level of the display, usually to get faster screen refresh. In the new CorelDRAW 8.0, you even have five levels of display quality.

To create the accompanying illustration, I placed a scanned bar chart from an old press release from Intel Indonesia on a blank page of CorelDRAW 8.0.

When I clicked on Wireframe, the scanned bitmap image became shadowy. It was still clear enough to see but it wouldn't interfere with CorelDRAW native drawings.

Now back to your project: Your next job is to create a new bar chart using the tools that are available in CorelDRAW. You should make sure that the new chart has exactly the same dimension as the scanned one.

You'll find it easier to work if you zoom in the bitmap image to enlarge everything. The simplest way to do this is to select the Zoom Tool from the Tool Bar and create a rectangle just outside the periphery of the bitmap image.

As you see in the accompanying picture, the image will now fill the entire screen.

If you're already working in CorelDRAW 8.0, there's another step that you can take to make your job even easier. In Version 8.0, you can lock an object in its position on the page to avoid accidentally moving it around.

Because you're going to create dozens of other objects on top of this bitmap object, you'd better lock it. Just select the bitmap object and click on the Arrange menu item, and click on Lock object.

No matter what you do to it, the bitmap image will stay put until you unlock it.

You will also finish your job much faster if you use CorelDRAW's guidelines. But first, make sure that all objects will be snapped to these guidelines to ensure exact alignment.

Click on Layout, and make sure there is a check mark next to the Snap to Guide option.

OK, you have made all the necessary preparations. Now you can drag guidelines from the vertical and horizontal rulers and place each one of them exactly on the outline of the objects in the bitmap image.

To give you a clear idea of what needs to be done, I have given some examples in my drawing, too. Don't worry if you end up having a lot of guidelines on the screen.

If you want a very high level of precision, you can even zoom in further to make sure that each guideline is exactly on top of the outline of the shape in the bitmap image underneath it.

You can add more guidelines as you go. Now, if you already have the guidelines for the x-axis and y-axis, you can start drawing them by using the Freehand Tool.

Remember that if you press the Ctrl key as you draw the line, the angle will be constraint to an increment of 15 degrees.

However, since you have already activated the Snap to Guidelines feature, you'll have no difficulty making the right angle between the two axes.

Rectangles

Your next step is to create a box on top of each bar of the bar chart.

With the help of the guidelines and the Rectangle Tool, this will be as easy as finding a pirated VideoCD in Glodok. While you're still at it, you can add color fill to each of these rectangles.

If you prefer solid colors only, the quickest way in CorelDRAW is to click with the left mouse button on the color swatch in the color palette while the object to be filled is still selected. By the way, if you want to change the color of its outline, click with the right mouse button on your favorite color swatch.

Well, now you have a simple bar chart. All you have to do now is add all the text, including the label for each bar. You can place them on top of the ones seen vaguely in the bitmap image.

I didn't go as far as this in my illustration because I wanted to show you how the bitmap object actually looks when you select the Wireframe view mode.

Do you think that a 3-D look will make the bar chart stands out more? I did. What I did when doing the illustration was select the two axes and all the rectangles, and call up the Extrude tool.

In the Extrude dialog box, I selected Small Back as the shape, and I selected Shade as the option for the color fill. I set the shade to be gradually changing from the original color of each bar to black. This would enhance the 3-D look.

Logos

About two weeks ago I was chatting with a store owner in Orion Plaza, Glodok.

He told me that he was going to open a repair shop for a leading notebook brand. He also needed a logo of his principal, but all he had was a tiny logo on a faxed memo. He had scanned the logo and enlarged it, and of course the result was far from being acceptable.

Actually, he could have done what I've just shown you here. He could have imported the file containing the scanned logo into CorelDRAW, zoomed in, selected the Wireframe view mode, and traced all the shapes in the logo using guidelines.

Depending on how carefully he worked, he could have gotten the perfect vector-based logo that he needed.

So, the next time your boss asks you to draw a bar chart, a logo, or even a map, don't forget the Wireframe view. Not only is this feature useful in increasing the display speed of complex drawing, it can also help you trace bitmap images easily -- and keep your boss dependent on you.