Illy to Corel Draw...what do I need to worry about?

[Ghastly]

K..I need to learn how to use CorelDraw fast...a couple of opportunities I have turned down because I wasn't confident in my ability to bluff my way through the first week of a job, and I might have an interview shortly.

(only have access to v.9) Using the program at its basic level isn't going to be a problem...I have *some* experience and pretty much know what I'm doing with the standard construction tools, (got a lot of practical experience with illy 8 & 9 and so working with vectors, printing em etc...should be skills I can transfer over without too much difficulty)

What worries me though is that Corel Draw has all kinds of clever sneaky little *creative* tricks up its sleeve, and since a lot of the work will be coming the clients, I expect that many of these will be used incorrectly.

My question is a bit ambiguous but basically as far as priorities go...what should I be looking out for, learning intimately, and trying to prevent? (based on common problems)

Also...I expect that Corel Draw v.12 has a myriad of really *useful* tricks...the sort that Adobe wishes it had thought of but didn't...from peoples experience what are some of the -can't live without- features that I should try to learn also(even if for now it will be pure theory without practice)?

Gonna do what I can on my own but haven't got the time or opportunity to really explore it properly (one of the places I worked at in the past is letting me hog the PC whilst nobody's using it). Need to prioritise on the really important stuff.

[Broacher]

>>K..I need to learn how to use CorelDraw fast...a couple of opportunities I have turned down because I wasn't confident in my ability to bluff my way through the first week of a job, and I might have an interview shortly.<<

HAHAHAHAHAHA! LOL! Gee Ghastly. Thanks so much for that one. My gawd that's funny. Not you, I mean, nothing to do with your experience (or lack of), it's just that I spent the 1990's trying to convince everyone who was busy putting the boot to me that I could learn AI real quickly, even though CorelDraw was my preferred drawing app.

Okay. I'll stop [mmphh, titter]. Let's see what you need then...

>>What worries me though is that Corel Draw has all kinds of clever sneaky little *creative* tricks up its sleeve, and since a lot of the work will be coming the clients, I expect that many of these will be used incorrectly.<<

If you're handling Corel client files, absolutely. This is the worst thing about Corel--in the hands of an amateur, it's a postscript zombie. Major areas include: transparency and lens effects, complex extrusions, complex fill possibilities, and all the bazillion combinations of all these.

>>My question is a bit ambiguous but basically as far as priorities go...what should I be looking out for, learning intimately, and trying to prevent? (based on common problems)<<

Intimate learning? I take it we're not talking about studying the stickie Vickie Secrets catalogue? Okay, just checking.

>>Also...I expect that Corel Draw v.12 has a myriad of really *useful* tricks...the sort that Adobe wishes it had thought of but didn't...from peoples experience what are some of the -can't live without- features that I should try to learn also(even if for now it will be pure theory without practice)?<<

I find that most of the best of these are smaller features than you'd probably think. But cumulatively, they really add up. Take alignments, selections and duplication, for example.

In Corel, most of the alignment moves are assigned a single keystroke because Corel puts a higher priority to them than AI. Want to line to the top of an object? You select the object you want to move first, then shift-clk the object you want to align to, and press 'T'. Unlike AI, it's the order of selection that determines the alignment target, not the stacking order (though, yes, you can easily modify that in AI).

Selections? Most selections are made simply by dragging a marquee around the targetted objects. Anything completely enclosed in the marquee is selected. AI behaves differently with a drag select, including everything that gets touched in the marqee, whether it's enclosed or not. But they both share the 'shft-clk' to add, remove additional objects to a selection. I find the 'only if enclosed' method much faster and handier in the long run. Especially when trying to grab something small in a complex layout at full page zoom level.

Duplicaton is dead easy. Select something(s), tap the numeric '+' key, and you're working with a duplicate. Or, as you drag, right mouse click and you're doing the same thing. The offset position of a duplication can easily be set to zero for this.

Other little tidbits while I can think of them: Ctrl-R repeats last action. Great for creating, say, a quick repeated pattern or even something as unobvious as a basic type layout.

Get to know all the transform modifiers: for example, to do a mirror flip on an object, click once to select, ctrl-shift drag left handle to right handle. Check out what a right drag on an unselected object can do. The eyedropper-- very powerful. Cloning: it's not even on the default workspace but it's there, and a very powerful, quick alternative to symbols (and better in many cases). The colour swatches-- left click fills, right click outline, hover-- shades and tints.

Customizable workspace: if I were you, I'd use this as a kind of 'cover' of your lack of experience. Corel's UI is the most customizeable one that's out there. It's terrific once you get the hang of it. AND, it also ships with complete workspaces that mimic closely the keystrokes, and the settings of other drawing apps, including one for Adobe Illustrator. See, what you could do is tell them that you work with this workspace because you are skilled in both AI and Draw, but decided to try and coordinate the keystrokes to maximize productivity. Chances are that they won't really know that much about AI's UI, and will understand then why you can't work as quickly with their workspace if they test you. Just a thought. In real productivity terms, it's the customized tweaking of the workspace that maximizes all Corel's trick, and the default workspace that's installed just doesn't do it justice. Learn how to drag around tool buttons, create new toolbars, change keystrokes, add macros to toolbars, set tool defaults. It all starts with Ctrl-J.

Powerclips is CorelDraw's Clipping Mask. It's different in two major ways: the boundary of a Powerclip for alignment purposes is the clipping curve and NOT the full clipped image as it is with AI (and a right PITB that is!). Secondly, you use Ctrl-Clk on a PowerClip to edit it's contents (reposition, etc.) which brings you to a separate screen. Then Ctrl-clk on any non-object area to return.

The pivot point for rotations becomes visible on a dbl-clk select. Draggable and snappable, very useful. As are the snap modes and the Smart Guides equivalent called 'Dynamic Guides' work quite well. I assign snap to grid, objects, guides and 'none' to single keystroke, they're that useful.

Learn the navigation /zoom buttons well. I've changed many of these from their defaults to match the Adobe standards (for instance, 'Ctrl-0' is Adobe's zoom to full page, while it's Shift-F4 in Corel. Very easy to change. Or keep both. Corel allows multiple keyboard shortcuts).

Learn the curve and node tools well. Perhaps the most significant difference from Adobe's pen tool. Good news is that the latest Draw (ver. 12) also includes an almost exact duplicate of the standard Adobe Pen tool, making the transition much less painful. Three mode (point) types in Corel: smooth, symmetrical, and cusp. Know the differences. Know the buttons on the mode edit toolbar.

Multiple pages, full page print preview with separations-- all that will be new for you. Here's a tip that will impress them if they haven't checked it out already: www.oberonplace.com

This has some of the best FREE macros availabe for CDraw, including ones so useful (like crop marks, copy to AI clipboard, etc.) that they're part of my standard toolbar set.

>>haven't got the time or opportunity to really explore it properly (one of the places I worked at in the past is letting me hog the PC whilst nobody's using it). Need to prioritise on the really important stuff.<<

Also the 'Shaping' tools-- very similar to the Pathfinder tools.

Text: a surprising number of great shortcuts already there. A simple but real important one? Ctrl-spacebar to go from text mode, to selection as object mode. Careful with spacing settings-- by default it's by percentage of charcter or line height. It can be set to be points, etc., but most of the time percentage works great for quick layouts. In non-text mode, spacebar toggles between selection and last tool used.

Um... lessee. Numeric entries: you can enter numbers and units freely with multiple operands in any of these. Really handy. Here's an example, I need to set up a newspaper ad. Say it's booked at 5.25 inches by 70 lines. Here's how I would do this:

1) Tap 'M' to get the rectangle (I added that to the Corel F6 default keystroke list for rectangles) and drag something on the page. Anything.

2) Click drag the width window in the context toolbar on top, and type in 5.25, TAB. Width is set, and now the height is highlighted, ready for replacement.
3) I type in 70/14 ENTER. That sets the height to 70 lines depth (14 lines to an inch).
4) I tap the 'P' key, and the rectangle centers to the page (another customization)
5) Tap the numeric '+' to dupe the rectangle in place. Tab again to select the original rectangle, and then 'X' to lock this rectangle on the page in case I accidentally move the copy.

And... so it goes.

I wish I could spend an hour or two giving you a power workshop, but hopefully these will be of some use to you. If you do get the job, and you need more, feel free to yelp.

[Ghastly]

Broacher....thx man :D

hehe, didn't mean to say that in a week i'd know everything about CorelDraw :cool: (miles more to it than ai)...what I meant was that I am more worried that they'll catch me fumbling about on what to seasoned users should be rather simple tasks.

Thats exactly the sort of help I was looking for...if anyone else has anything to add please feel free :D

[cbscreative]

I wrote a series of articles 3 years ago which were specifically for version 9, though 10 and 11 are not much different. The first one will help greatly in customizing your workspace. Some of the things I wrote about AI and Macromedia are no longer true, but the articles will still help for their content.

The one thing you will probably miss when working zoomed in is the panning with the spacebar like Adobe and Macromedia. You will use the H key in Corel, but unfortunately, releasing it does not go back to the tool you are working with. The toggle between any tool and the selection tool using the spacebar is nice though. I also like the zoom out feature in Corel, it steps back to your previous zoom level.

Anyway, check out the articles.

http://www.allfreelancework.com/articlecorel01.php

[Ghastly]

Steve, great stuff...thanks a lot for this :D

[cjoe]

dont forget scroll wheel ZOOOOOOM! i LOVE IT.
Corels shaping tools are also far superior to pathfinder tools. Also why does Adobe use the terminology 'place' instead of 'import'?

[Broacher]

>>You will use the H key in Corel, but unfortunately, releasing it does not go back to the tool you are working with.<<

Glad you mentioned this, it allows me to show you how to customize the UI to fix this.

Ctrl-J to bring up options; customize; commands-- then search under the zoom for 'one-shot pan tool' (looks like the Pan hand with a '1' on it). Then just assign 'H' to this tool, say yes to reassigning it from the normal Pan tool; okay out, and you've now got the behaviour you want.

Course, I prefer to keep it at the default. Then, if I want to quit the tool, I just press the spacebar. But, as I said, Corel's customizability allows you to do it the way you want.

[cbscreative]

Thanks Broacher. Is there anything you don't know about Corel?

[Broacher]

>>Is there anything you don't know about Corel?<,

Hmmm. Okay, how about... how do you mention the 'C' word at a gathering of professional designers without risking being held down for a total body search and orifice probe with a cold, metal Wacom stylus?

[cbscreative]

Lol