standard menus Corel Draw 13 Work Space

context sensitive menu

rulers / guides

dockers

swatch

drawing tools document

pagination
paste board
 Fly outs
• Shape Edit Flyout
Holds Shape Edit, Knife, Smudge, Roughen, Free
Transform and Virtual Segment Delete Tools.
• Zoom Tool Flyout
Holds the Zoom Tool, which is used for changing the
view magnification, and the Pan Tool, which is used for
moving the drawing page around the display area.
• Curve Flyout
Holds the Bezier Tool, Artistic Media Tool,
Dimension Tool and the Connector Tool. Each tool is
used to create specific types of lines.
• Rectangle Tool Flyout
Holds the Rectangle tool and the 3-point Rectangle
tool.
• Ellipse Tool Flyout
Holds the Ellipse Tool and the 3-point Ellipse Tool.
• Object Flyout
Holds the Polygon Tool for creating multi-sided
objects, the Spiral Tool and the Graph Paper tool.
• Perfect Shape Flyout
Accesses the collection of shapes you can add to
your drawing .
• Interactive Tool Flyout
Holds the Interactive Blend, Contour, Distortion,
Drop Shadow, Envelope, Extrude, and
Transparency Tools.
• Eyedropper Tool Flyout
Holds the Eyedropper Tool and the Apply Tool
for the color, effect, or property selected by the
eyedropper.
• Outline Tool Flyout
Displays options for changing line color, styles,
weights, and ends.
• Fill Tool Flyout
Displays options for changing fill color, styles,
creating custom colors, and removing fills.
• Interactive Fill Flyout
Holds the Interactive Fountain Fill Tool and
the Mesh Fill Tool.
Bitmaps S
Vector shapes
 Poster Dimensions
• The regular requested poster size requested is A0
• Use these measurements for best finish 1060 x 750mm

1060 mm
1060 mm

Landscape or Portrait
• Document Size can be specified from
Layout | page setup
• or - if you have the pick tool selected
(but nothing selected on the page) you can add new
measurements in the Dimensions windows
(see workspace diagram – context sensitive menu)
 Drawing Images
• Refer to the diagram of the Corel Draw ‘work space’.

On the left are all the tools available for drawing. If the
tool has a black arrow head pointing bottom right, this
means that if you click and hold the mouse button for a
few seconds, further tools in that series will become
visible. This is called a ‘Flyout’.
• Use these tools to draw basic shapes and lines.
There are two types of drawn shapes / lines:
A ‘Curve’ or an ‘Object’.
• All drawings are combinations of manipulated/geometric
shapes and freehand drawn shapes.
 Drawing Images
• CURVES
• Select the drawn object then Arrange | Convert to curves

If a shape is a curve, a customised tool bar appears at the top of

the screen allowing you to change line thickness, add arrow
heads etc. This will appear if you have the Pick Tool selected
and not the drawing tool.
• NOTE: Line thickness should not be below 1pt
Hairlines will be ignored by our HP Poster Printer
• When using Drawn objects, you may need to alter the stacking
order, so that the object of your choice is visible in front of
another.
• Using the drop down menu Arrange | Order and from the list of
available choices (‘To Front’ etc) you can alter the stacking order
of objects on the page.
 Drawing Images

• Objects
• Right click on the object for a list of options. Select Properties
from the dialogue box that opens you can alter line thickness
etc.
•Use the Outline Tool to add or remove outlines from an object
or curve.
• To colour an object or curve, select it with the Pick Tool, and
then select a colour from the colour swatch.
• Drawn objects are useful for background shapes for posters
(columns etc.) as well as diagrams.
 Rulers and Guides
• Rulers appear on the left and top of the work space.
You can set the units of measurement from the drop
down list on the main tool (property) bar.
• To use Guides ‘click and drag’ on a vertical or horizontal
Ruler and drag across the document window. A doted
guide will appear. These may be selected and moved
about the screen.
• Single click on a guide to get rotating nodes.
• Double click to get a guide properties box.
• When using Text Boxes, tab guides etc. appear within
the rulers.
• Use the View drop down menu to hide guides and grids.
 Layers
• Layers are visible in the Object Manager
• Layers are useful for separating Backgrounds, Diagrams, Labels
and Text. This can simplify selecting objects on a complex
poster.
• Create a new layer using the icons in the top of the Object
Manager window.
• You can also Lock individual layers to prevent accidental
alterations.
• Click on the Eye icon to hide other obscuring layers while
working on a specific layer.
• NOTE: If you ‘Group’ objects which are on different layers, they
will all be moved and grouped on to the top most layer.
• You can still use the normal stacking order options on individual
layers.
 Screen Views
• Setting the screen view (drop menu) allows you to find
hidden objects, it also allows you to work easily in a lower
resolution.
• Wire frame
• This option will show traced outlines of all objects on
the page. This helps you to find an object obscured by
something above it in the stacking order.
• Draft / Normal / Enhanced
• These options allow you to view the page at differing resolutions.
The computer uses a large amount of memory to render the
screen image, which slows down processing.

use the Normal option to alleviate this problem. Only use

Enhanced to preview final artwork and EPS embedded
objects.
 Text
• Posters with a Dark Background and Light Text are
more difficult to read than Dark Text and Light
Background.

Poster text Poster text Poster text Poster text

Poster text Poster text Poster text Poster text

• Text can be coloured by selecting the text with the ‘A’

tool, see left Tool Box. Then choose a colour of your
choice from the colour palette.
 Colour
• The colour you see on the screen is generally not the
same as the colour that is printed.
• Each printer can print a poster with variation of colour.
• A Printer Swatch for the CorelDRAW CMYK Palette is
available to view in the Photo-Graphics office, showing
CMYK colours printed from the HP Poster printer.
• Corel Draw has a selection of colours for different jobs.
The palette for print jobs should be CMYK, the palette
for screen work should be RGB

Corel Draw 13: drop down menu Window | Color Palettes - select
default CMYK palette
 Colour
• Background Colour can be applied to your poster by
either:
• Drawing a rectangle over the whole page using the
Rectangle Tool, add a colour by selecting the
rectangle edge with the Pick Tool and selecting the
colour of your choice from the swatch on the right of
the screen. Possibly on a new layer (see layer notes)
or

• Select Layout | Page background, a dialogue box

will open. Select Solid and pick a colour from the
drop down swatch.
 Colour
• Additional Colour can be applied to your poster:
• to create columns of colour, or add colour boxes
behind text. Use the Rectangle tool to draw boxes
and place them behind text.
• When using shapes and text, you may need to alter
the stacking order, so that the object of your
choice is visible in front of another.
• Using the drop down menu Arrange | Order and
from the list of available choices (‘To Front’ etc) you
can alter the stacking order of objects on the page.
 Colour
• Advanced colour application
• A colour in a shape is called a Fill
• Gradient Fills and Textured Fills are available from
the Fill Tool (Bucket icon)……However
• Using complex Fills adds greatly to your overall file
size and adds complexity and unreliability to the print
process itself.
• Where possible keep the poster as simple as
possible so that the print process will be straight
forward and you do not detract from the readability of
the poster.
 Text
• Posters should not contain too much text.
• Break the content into a clear title and sub-sections.
Type the text in Word for ease, but formatting can be
done in Corel Draw. (colour, Bold, Italics etc.)
• Choose a clear, readable font. (Arial etc.)
If you use a special font it may not be available on
the computer printing the poster, causing delays.
• Check any scientific symbols in Corel Draw as they
may alter when imported.
• Font sizes e.g.: Titles 48 – 200pt
Sub Titles 30 - 44pt
Text 20 - 24pt
If the bulk of page text is below 20 there is too much!
 Text
• Importing text from Word (or other source)
• There are many ways to add text from an external
document to your poster.
A) The Import option
• If you have prepared text from another source,you
can use the File | Import option to add it to your
poster.

The Import dialogue box allows you to set a sort

type (Text) and file type (DOC - MS Word for Windows 6/7).
Then your locate the file you need and click the import button.

The text is converted and placed into a Corel Draw Text Box
 Text
• Importing text from Word (or other source)
B) Copy and Paste
• Select your text in Word etc. use the copy function.
This can now be pasted into your poster document in
two different formats.
• Artistic Text
• Paragraph Text
 Text
• Importing text from Word (or other source)
C) Artistic Text
If you paste the text into your Corel Draw poster without
selecting the ‘A’ text tool, the text will be added as Artistic
Text.

This means that the text will appear without a restrictive text
box, and all its associated features. each letter is assigned a
Node, which can be used to alter the position of the
individual letters.
Artistic Text is most useful for single lines of text e.g. Titles
To create new Artistic Text, use the ‘A’ Text Tool, click onto
your document window, a cursor will appear, type your text.
 Text
• Importing text from Word (or other source)
D) Paragraph Text
Select the ‘A’ Text Tool, click onto the document area, still
holding the left mouse button down, drag the tool diagonally
across left to right. A Text Box will appear, this can be now
be used for typing new text (click inside it with the Text Tool)
or paste text into it from the clipboard.

Using the anchor nodes on the sides and corners of the text
box you are able to create a column shape of your choice.
Apply text alignment by selecting the text and using the usual
toolbar options.
you can not apply background colours to a text box.

NOTE: You may discover ‘text flow’, linking text between text
boxes. Do not use it as it creates print errors.
 Text
• Using Text Symbols - e.g. β µ
• Corel Draw has an ‘insert character’ docker available from:

Text | Insert Symbol Character

this will appear on the right of the workspace, select the font of
your choice from the drop down menu, a list of symbols will
appear.
• If you have a text box selected, double click on the symbol of
your choice in the docker window. the symbol will appear
where your cursor is in the text box.
• If you do not have a text box selected, you can ‘Drag and Drop’
a symbol from the docker onto the document as an
independent Artistic Text object.
 Text
• Using Text Symbols cont…
• Occasionally the Corel Draw symbols insertion method can
prove unreliable. The alternative is:

Select
Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Character Map
choose a font of your choice, click on a character to view it
larger, choose the character you want, click select then copy

The character is then in the clip board, and ready to paste into
a Corel Draw text box or as an artistic text object.
• You may then need to set the font size and colour.
• The Character Map is useful for finding symbols and special
bullets.
 Importing Photos / Bitmaps
• Corel Draw is a Vector drawing package, which is
drawings created by mathematical equation rather than
coloured dots (pixels) which are used for bitmap images.
• To import a photo / bitmap (usual file types JPEG, BMP and TIFF)
Use the Import option from the File drop down menu.
• NOTE 1: GIF files, generally found on the Internet are low
resolution and are unsuitable for use in a large poster.
The size of the final print stresses the low quality of the Gif
image.
• NOTE 2: Copying images from Word or PowerPoint to Corel
Draw. This process is unreliable. Images that are copied from
these two programs can easily become corrupted in the process.
This may not be apparent on certain printers, but can become a
problem on the HP Poster Printer.
Always allow time for an A4 proof print and corrections.
 Images
• Some logos are available from the Photo Unit file store
(ask for use). These include good quality copies of the
University logo.
• Important considerations for bitmap images are:

Resolution - the lowest resolution you should use is

150dpi to 100% of print size, the largest is 300dpi.

Colour Mode - The printer uses Cyan Magenta

Yellow blacK Inks. Your photo files may be in
Red Green Blue (computer screen colours). The colour
conversion within the HP DesignJet poster printer will
make a reasonable swap between RGB and CMYK
colour modes - check colours by A4 proof before final
print.
 Importing Excel Charts
• There is a strict method for importing Excel graphs into
any other program.
• In Excel, open your chart.
• Select the entire chart.
• Select Shift (keyboard) & Edit (drop down menu)
simultaneously.
• From the drop down menu choose copy picture…
• From the copy picture dialogue box that appears select
as shown on screen and format picture.
• From here you can use the paste action in Corel Draw to insert
the graph.
• Using this method allows the chart to be copied as seen,
without the need for linking the data to the chart.
 Could be trouble !
• For trouble free last minute printing use less of:

• Multiple Gradients
• Drop Shadow Tool
• Complex Fills / Textures / Tiles
• Images as Large Backgrounds
• Images with Transparency
• Drawn Objects with Transparency

Don’t avoid these features completely, but try to use them

effectively and do not over use them.
 PowerPoint for Posters
• PowerPoint can be used for very basic poster design.
it is not designed for this purpose and so is not the ideal
choice of application.
• Page setup can be found under the File menu.
Add page dimensions here. – 1060 x 750mm
• To create shapes use the Drawing Tool Bar, if this is not
visible, right click your mouse on the tool bars under the
drop down menus and select it from the list.
• Create shapes with this tool bar. right click on them,
select order and stack the shapes accordingly.
• Use the Insert drop down menu for images etc.
• Keep it simple.
 Drawing Tool Bar

Draw rotate arrow oval word / clip out-line line arrow 3D

Tab objects tool tool art colour thickness style

select line rectangle text Fill / colour text dash drop

objects tool tool box Bucket colour style shadows

• labels in BOLD mean ‘not suitable for poster use’. These

options use a large amount of memory / resources.
• Word Art and Microsoft Clip Art is not suitable quality for
a poster.
 Aligning Objects in PowerPoint
• Zooming in and out of a poster in PowerPoint is not as
easy as Corel Draw. this makes it more difficult to
precisely arrange text boxes, images or drawn shapes.
• Select the objects you wish to align, then select the Draw
Tab (see Tool Bar diagram) from the list that appears you can
select a variety of alignment styles from the Align or
distribute option.
• You will also find other useful options, such as grouping,
order, rotate and snap.