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Simplify the editing of a complex illustration by using layers. You can hide them temporarily when they're unnecessary. You can also use the Transform palette to move objects out of the way and then move them back when you are done.
Delete nodes from a path in CorelDRAW by selecting the node with the Edit tool and then pressing Delete. Or you can press the minus key on the numeric keyboard or the minus button in the Node Edit Roll-Up.
If you have auto-panning turned on, slow down when dragging objects at the edge of the screen. Go too fast and you'll see a "Not OK" symbol (a circle with a line through it) because CorelDRAW thinks you are trying to drag the object to another application.
If you're rotating an object and accidentally move the rotation point from the object's center, move it back by holding down the Ctrl key while dragging the rotation point with your mouse.
If you don't want to see the Object menu when you right-click, change that button's function using Special/Preferences. For example, set the right button to do a 200 percent zoom. The Object Menu is still available when you click on objects; just hold down the right mouse button for a second or two.
Create some great effects with the PowerClip tool. For example, remove the solid white background on imported bitmap images. Draw a path around the outside of the object, then click on Special/Preferences and turn off Auto-Center Place Inside (this prevents CorelDRAW from adjusting the bitmap when it pastes the bitmap inside the outline you traced). Select the bitmap and choose Effects/PowerClip/Place Inside Container. Select the outline you drew, and you now have the object sans background. If a little white remains along the edges, you can adjust the path you traced using the Node Edit tool.
Mosaic, which comes bundled with CorelDRAW, is a handy tool for viewing and organizing illustrations. You can also drag images from Mosaic directly into a page.
Press Ctrl+S to save files. When you first save a file, check the box to save Presentation Exchange Data (PED), a condensed version of the regular file that includes the minimum information to reproduce the illustration. It can be read by other Corel modules and any third-party program that supports Corel's PED format. In CorelDRAW 5.0, PED is embedded inside the CDR file, causing the overall file size to increase. However, the clip art that ships with CorelDRAW is only stored in PED, which uses a CMX format. If you work only in CorelDRAW, you can probably save space by not saving PED. But if you share files between Corel modules, PED is the way to go.
Extrusions are actually groups of objects, which means you can select individual components of an extrusion group with Ctrl+Click to adjust or replace the extrusion's color assignments.
Check out your options by clicking on the Details buttons in the upper right corner of some dialog boxes. In File Save, for instance, you can save the description field. In Page Setup, Details previews the page you are creating;
in Transform, it enables the transform stack for combining symbol rotation, scaling and movements. In Spell Checker, it reveals custom dictionaries; in Palette Manager, it reveals the two- and four-color automatic color mixer.
Designer offers two ways to select symbols with a mouse. The more intuitive way is Visible picking, where you click on the fill or the edge of a symbol. Overlapped picking lets you select overlapped or obscured symbols that you can't select through Visible picking. With the Alt key down, keep clicking to cycle through all the symbols with bounding boxes beneath the cursor.
The right mouse button comes in handy for performing common commands quickly. Clicking the right mouse button on the work area shows the mouse menus actions for the current mode. Alt+Right Click will perform any user defined Designer command. Set the right mouse command in the Preferences dialog.
Clicking on the Floating or Ribbon Color Palettes quickly changes the symbol colors with any line or fill style. Left-click changes the primary fill color, while Shift+Left clickchanges the secondary fill color. Right-click and Shift+Right-click change the primary and secondary line colors.
The status bar at the bottom of the workspace includes several picture buttons you can click to quickly perform common actions: snap points, snap to rulers, zoom page, zoom in and zoom out.
Designer's Profiles let you set your preferences for styles, palettes, units and tools. You can set a distinct preference profile for each project, or each user. You can change preferences for one particular session or project, and then return to your usual preferences. Use File/Preference/Profile to add, delete, change and save custom profiles.
Don't wait until you finish drawing a symbol before moving it. By holding the right and left mouse buttons down, you can move the symbol you are drawing to where you want it. Release the right button to resume drawing.
Choose the Add View command (Shift+F4) in the Window menu to open another window for the current drawing. You can use the additional view to see two different zoom levels at once or to view two different pages at once.
Use the ClipArt Manager for quick and easy insertion of ClipArt. Either double-click on the item in the ClipArt window or drag it from the ClipArt window into your document.
By default, Designer draws the outline on top of a symbol's interior fill. But if you want to draw the interior fill on top of the outline to hide overlapping lines of a symbol, use the Fill After Line command in the Overlap menu of the Style ribbon.
Make an unlocked cusp behave as if it were a locked cusp or a symmetrical curve when in Reshape. Hold Shift while moving the control point of an unlocked cusp to make it act like a locked cusp, and hold Ctrl to make it act like a symmetrical curve.
The constraint buttons in the ribbon restrict or change how a symbol draws. For example, selecting the Proportional Constraint button forces a rectangle to draw as a square and an ellipse to draw as a circle. Pressing Shift as you draw will make circles, lines and squares draw from the center.
When using FreeHand to lay out a newsletter, use he Balance column and Modify Leading features in the Text Inspector for quick, even alignment of column edges.
Create tables with the row and column controls in the Inspector palette. Create a text block, then select the Object icon in the Inspector palette and the Row/Column icon. Set column and row counts, adjust the spacing between cells and set full height rules. For visible cell dividers, switch to the Stroke Inspector and set a stroke width and style.
Blend a dashed line into a solid line for an interesting effect. You can also create a neon look by blending a thick black line into a thin light-colored line that actually sits on top.
A good way to set up a custom palette of colors is by creating a blend and then using the Eyedropper tool to pick up individual colors.
To center your display on a specific object, select the object, click on the zoom percentage number (not the pull-down arrow) and press Enter without changing the zoom percentage. The screen will automatically center the object.
Tools like the calligraphic pen can easily generate enough points for an object to choke a printer. It's a good idea to use the Simplify and Remove Overlap path operations when you're done.
A neat drawing technique with the Knife tool lets you "uncover" your art. Create a large rectangle with a single color or a blend of colors. Overlay that rectangle with a large solid black rectangle. Double-click on the Knife tool, turn on Closed Paths and set the stroke to two or more. You can now simulate a "scratchboard" effect by using the Knife tool to remove sections of the black rectangle.
If your palettes look jumpy when you're dragging them around the screen, check the granularity setting in the Windows Control Panel. The lower the setting, the more smoothly the palettes will move.
You can change the inside color of a radial fill and its location in one step. Hold down the Alt key and drag the new inside color to where you want the center of the radial fill to appear.
The traditional FreeHand text box required you to drag out a rectangle on screen, which then had to be resized manually. Now the auto-expanding text box automatically resizes as you type text--but you can't set alignment. You can change that. Just assign alignment by selecting the text box and double-clicking on the two outlined anchor points at the right and bottom boundaries of the box. They should turn solid, and you can now align the text.
Double-clicking on the Hand tool does the same thing as selecting View/Fit/Artwork in Windows. Double-clicking on the Zoom tool cycles you through a preset range of magnification levels, based on whether the Zoom In or Zoom Out tool is active (holding down the Alt key reverses the direction of magnification).
You can shift a portion of text up or down without going to the Type Style dialog box. Just select the text and press Alt+Shift+Up Arrow to move text up, or Alt+Shift+Down Arrow to move text down.
It's possible--especially when autotracing--to produce a path with so many points that it won't print. You can create a simpler path with fewer points or turn on Split Long Paths in the Preferences dialog box. This will divide complex objects into smaller, simpler shapes. Save a copy of the original illustration before turning this feature on or it could be difficult to edit.
Applying a heavy stroked outline to text can reduce the readability of the type. To solve this problem, first make a copy of the text, apply the outline and then paste a copy of the unstroked version in front of the stroked version using Paste In Front (Ctrl+F).
You can modify graphs created in Illustrator to produce some interesting effects. Be careful, however, when ungrouping a graph to change its appearance because ungrouping severs the graph's link to its numeric data. Change an element without ungrouping by using the Direct Selection tool.
Preview Illustration is the best way to see what your final artwork will look like, but it's not as fast as the Artwork and Template mode. You can switch between the two view modes with Ctrl+Y for Preview and Ctrl+E for Artwork. Another handy shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+Y, which only previews the selected object.
Create on-screen horizontal and vertical grids using View/Grid. You can also drag horizontal and vertical guidelines from the rulers. And, thanks to the program's Make Guide option under the Arrange menu, you can use drawn objects as non-printing guidelines.
Use Edit/Preferences to set the distance a selected object will move when you press an arrow key. This feature is useful for small, precise adjustments.
Vary the leading for selected text by pressing Alt+Down Arrow to increase leading and Alt+Up Arrow to decrease leading.
Ctrl+A, the shortcut for the Select All command, usually selects all objects on the page. However, if you click in a text box with the Text tool and then press Ctrl+A, you will select all text in that box and any linked boxes. This method is ideal for making global text formatting changes.
The baseline shift function (under Type Specs/Options) lets you place your text creatively. For example, PageMaker doesn't let you assign two styles to text on a single line. But you can simulate this effect by creating two lines of text and adjusting the style for the second line to include a baseline shift up that is equal to the leading of the first line. You'll also have to specify an indent or change your alignment to keep the second line from overwriting the first. You may need to redraw the screen before you can see the second line's new position. To edit the second line, you'll have to highlight the apparently empty area where the text originally appeared.
When specifying manual tiling for printing, you'll have to drag the ruler's zero point to designate the upper-left corner of each page you want to print.
Typing Ctrl+J, Ctrl+J (the shortcut to display/hide guidelines )is a fast way to redraw the screen if it's not displaying properly. Hitting it twice turns guidelines off and then back on, forcing a screen redraw in the process.
Displaying high-resolution graphics, large tables or objects grouped using the "PS Group It" addition can really slow PageMaker down. Setting File/Preferences/Graphics to Gray Out displays these items as gray boxes, which can dramatically speed up PageMaker. Grayed out objects print just fine, but remember to deselect the Gray Out option. On the other hand, if you need the best quality images onscreen, set Graphics to High Resolution.
You can enter mathematical equations into PageMaker's control panel for positioning, sizing, and rotations. For example, entering 3*25 in the rotation field and pressing Enter will rotate an object 75 degrees.
Specially designed Small Caps typefaces maintain the characters' proportional weight regardless of font size. PageMaker's Small Caps style, however, simply reduces the size of characters, leaving a noticeable distortion in the weight of the letters. Because of this, some fonts will look less distorted if you raise the Small Caps percentage in Type Specs/Options from 70 percent to 80 percent.
The fewer filters you have installed for PageMaker, the faster it starts up. Want to see what filters are currently installed? Hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on Help/About PageMaker.
PageMaker's PS Group It addition actually creates an Encapsulated PostScript file for the grouped elements. The file will end in a.PMG extension, and can be read by many graphics programs that can import files. If another program refuses to read a .PMG file, try saving a copy of it with an .EPS extension. Don't rename the original file, because a PageMaker document that calls the file will then lose its link to the file.
It's easy to lose track of reverse type. Trying adding an extra character at the beginning or end of the text that you can leave normal. Kern it close to the rest of the text if you are tight on space. Once you've finished placing your text on a background, you can delete the extra character.
Editing the contents of a rotated text block can be confusing. It's easier to unrotate the text block edit, and then rotate it back Here's the fastest way: Select the text block. Press Ctrl+- for the
control panel. Read the percentage listed in the rotation field and jot
down its setting. Next, type 0 in the rotation field and press Enter.
Edit the text but *don't* move it. Now type the original degree of
rotation in the control panel and press <Enter> again. Everything's back in perfect place.
PageMaker can't flow one text block around another text block, but
here's an ideal workaround for captions and callouts. First, draw a
rectangle, then select it and turn on Autowrap. Next, use the text tool
to draw a text box inside the rectangle and type in your text. As long
as the entire text block remains within the rectangle, you're OK. Any
text outside the rectangle will be repelled. If you don't want to see the
rectangle, select it and set Element/Line to None. You can also group
the rectangle and interior text block using the PS Group It addition,
but you will have to reapply your text wrap settings.
If you paste with the pointer tool selected, you'll get a separate object
in your publication. If you are working in a text block with the text
tool, then pasted objects will be inserted into the text block at the
cursor's position. This applies to pasting both text and graphics.
When manually adjusting the text wrap boundary around an object,
hold down the spacebar to avoid having the text rewrap with each
change you make.
In the Type Specs dialog box, typing a letter immediately brings up
the first font that begins with that letter. If you keep pressing the
same letter, you'll cycle through all fonts beginning with that letter.
You can copy the color palette from another publication by clicking
on Element/Define Colors/Copy, and then selecting the publication
with the colors you want to duplicate.
You can align two sections of text on the same line to be flush left
and flush right, as long as you place a tab between the two sections.
Change the font of the character you want capitalized before
using the Drop Caps Addition. Because this addition
actually inserts tabs and spaces in the text to wrap around the
enlarged capital letter, changing the font later might force you
to do a lot of clean-up editing to get your text spaced properly again.
The hand tool in the status bar lets you pan across the page. This is especially useful if you are zoomed in on one part of your page.
Hold down Shift while dragging to limit movement to one direction.
PagePlus tips range from the informative to the inane. The "Elvis has left the building" tip, for example, comes complete with sound effects. If you lack a sense of humor, you can banish any or all tips.
Ctrl+Alt+Plus and Ctrl+Alt+Minus let you kern interactively. You must, however, use the plus and minus keys on the numeric keypad.
The Levels icon in the lower right corner lets you switch between the basic Intro, Publisher and Pro settings. Each higher level adds more advanced commands and tools.
You can re-color vector clip art with the Color Mapper. Save the re-colored art as a new graphic, using File/Export as Picture.
To generate correct PostScript code for a service bureau,
you need to use Windows PostScript driver (PSCRIPT.DRV)
version 3.58 or later.
To select all objects on the page, press Ctrl+A. To select
all text objects, select one text object and then press
Ctrl+Shift+A.
While you can't rotate text in a frame, you can rotate free
text, and you can use Tools/Convert to Picture to convert
text in a frame into a rotatable graphic image.
Use the latter option with care because it replaces the
original selected elements with a graphic that can't be edited..
Want to create colored text with a different-color outline? You need to make two copies of your text. Set one to the text color you want and set the second copy to the desired outline color, then select Text/Character/Outline. Drag the outline text on top of the regular text. You'll notice the background for outlined text is solid white, so select Text/Color/Clear.
One way to minimize apparent banding in gradients is to apply a small noise filter. Choose Filter/Noise/Add Noise and enter a number into the Amount box. You need to add only a small amount of noise to affect banding.
Scanning a previously screened image usually leaves you with a graphic distorted by moiré patterns. To reduce this problem, scan the image in at 200 percent of the size you plan to print. Run the despeckle filter on the image, and then resize it to 50 percent without changing the dots per inch.
After selecting an area of an image, you can move the selection marquee without moving the underlying image by holding down the Ctrl and Alt keys.
Holding down the Ctrl key when using the marquee tool lets you cut an area out of a selection. Holding down the Shift key when using the marquee tool lets you add to a selection.
Sometimes you won't have enough memory for the filters to work on large files. A way around this is to apply the filter to each channel individually. In RGB mode, each channel only requires one-third the memory of the full color preview image. In CMYK mode, each channel only uses one-quarter the memory.
Several options under the Image menu--including Levels, Hue/Saturation, Curves and Variations--let you save settings. You can speed PhotoShop by testing adjustments with these options on a low-resolution version of your image, saving the settings you like and then applying them to the high-resolution original.
Crop images in PhotoShop before applying filters. Not only will file sizes shrink, but the processing time for filters will drastically reduce. Cropping a quarter-inch off a 300dpi, 8-by-10-inch CMYK image frees about 1MB of space.
Sometimes it is easier to create a Magic Wand selection based on a single channel, rather than on an entire color image.
The About PhotoShop dialog box includes a set of credits that automatically begins to scroll after a few minutes. If you wait to the end, it says, "Extra special thanks to go [registered user's name], one of our favorite customers." Try holding down the Ctrl key when selecting About PhotoShop and you get a cool graphic.
Microsoft Publisher automatically wraps text around overlapping objects. But what if you don't want to wrap? Try moving one of the objects to Publisher's background page and leaving one on the foreground page. Don't forget to change the foreground frame's color to clear (Ctrl+T will do this quickly). If you're working with a multipage document, you can turn off this background for other pages by selecting Ignore Background.
You can't rotate text in Publisher, but you can use WordArt to rotate small amounts of text.
WordArt also provides a wider range of justification controls than Publisher alone, including the ability to justify lines.
If your TrueType fonts won't print in color, try this: Open the Windows Control Panel, click on Printers, select your printer, click on Setup and make sure Print TrueType as Graphics is checked.
Move both rulers on the page by holding down the left mouse button while dragging the intersection of the left and top rulers. Holding down the right mouse button and dragging only moves the rulers' zero point.
Anything on the scratch area stays there even when you switch pages. You can move objects quickly by dragging a frame to the scratch area, switching to a new page and then dragging the frame back onto the page.
Note-It OLE boxes are handy ways to enter pop-up notes about your documents. Just make sure your Note-It icon doesn't end up on the page, or the icon will print along with your publication.
When drawing and resizing frames or graphic elements, holding down Shift forces proportional sizing; holding down Ctrl causes elements to be drawn from the center out.
Publisher handles a maximum of 256 colors. Importing bitmap graphics with more colors--especially .BMP and PhotoCD files--may result in improper color displays or images that print properly but don't appear onscreen.
If you intend to output your final piece on a high-resolution printer or image setter, you might get fooled when proofing on a laser printer. Light screens and hairline rules that look fine on the laser can practically disappear at high resolutions. Most service bureaus will provide a sample sheet with rules and screens; refer to this sheet to avoid surprises.
Drop Shadow style is fast and easy, but not as functional as doing it yourself. You can't change the direction, color or tint of the automatic shadow, and you can't control the trapping of the shadow. To create a custom shadow, first select a text block. Click on Item/Modify and set the Background to None. Click on Item/Runaround/None. Select Item/Step/Repeat, and set the X and Y offsets in points (positive numbers will move the shadow to the right and down; negative numbers will move it left and up). Apply a tint or color to the duplicate text and send it behind the original.
When you apply styles like bold and italic, QuarkXPress looks at the installed font to see if there is a bold or italic version. If there isn't, it will simulate the style on the screen but won't change the printout. Similarly, if you are using a font with more than one weight (for example, one with semi-bold, bold and black versions), QuarkXPress will select the semi-bold version. The solution: Wherever you can, select the actual font you want to use. This ensures that fonts and weights with match on screen and on paper.
When QuarkXPress imports a graphic, it establishes a link to the original graphic for printing. If you move or rename the document, QuarkXPress won't be able to find it when it tries to print. Make sure you browse through your files to reestablish your link.
When you import TIFF files into QuarkXPress, place them in a picture box with a white background. Setting the Background to None may cause the graphic to print with jagged edges.
Remove any nonessential elements from your document and the pasteboard before printing. This will reduce your file's size and speed the printing process.
You can set custom settings for many of QuarkXPress' default settings by making changes without a document open. These new default settings will then be used whenever uou create a new document.
Want a really rich black for color printouts? Open the Colors dialog box, create a new process color, and assign the following percentages: 70C, 56M, 55Y and 100K. This richer color is ideal for large, solid-black areas. However, while this may look great on the office color printer, you should check with your commercial printer about recommended maximum color percentages.
If part of text box overlaps a picture box, QuarkXPress may automatically add a trap to the text, which may cause the trapped text to look extra-bold if you print color separations. To avoid this problem, open the Trap Information and adjust the trap settings or turn off automatic trapping.
It makes sense to crop, size and rotate images in their native applications before importing them into QuarkXPress. While QuarkXPress provides tools for these kinds of transformations, they add a lot of overhead to the document.
Automatically center a graphic inside a picture box by selecting the graphic and pressing Ctrl+Shift+M. You can also scale the picture in 5 percent increments, using Ctrl+Alt+Shift+> (larger) and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+< (smaller).
You can adjust selected text in 1-point increments using Ctrl+Alt+Shift+> and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+<, or you can use Ctrl+Shift+> and Ctrl+Shift+< to cycle fonts through the preset range of sizes that appears in the Font Size flyaway menu.
Before sending a document to a service bureau, use File/Save As to save it with a new document. This discards unnecessary editing information normally stored in a document as you work on it.
Ctrl+Alt+V will automatically move you to the zoom dialog box. Type a new value and press Enter. Another zoom trick: Hold down Ctrl while selecting View/Fit in Window to display the entire pasteboard.
Use Alt+Shift+R for the registration mark, or Alt+Shift+C for the copyright symbol.
Import for Speed
Typing text directly in QuarkXPress can be poky because the program has to continually kern, hyphenate and position your words. You may find it easier to do your writing and editing in a word processor, then import the final version into QuarkXPress for formatting.
Holding down the Ctrl key while selecting Help/About QuarkXPress provides details on the installed version of the program, available memory, printer drivers and installed Xtensions.
Ctrl+Shift+Q formats the next character with the Symbol font, Ctrl+Shift+Z formats the next character with the Zapf Dingbats font.
Don't get hung up on hanging indents--where the first line of a paragraph has a smaller indent than subsequent lines. Here's how to do 'em: Select the paragraph, then click on Style/Formats or press Ctrl+Shift+F. Set the left indent to the distance you want the paragraph moved in. Then set the first-line indent to the same distance, but make it a negative by putting a minus sign before the number. This causes the first line to "outdent" while subsequent lines indent.
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