Working With Basic Tools in the Toolbox - Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon and Basic Shapes Tools (Including A Do-Along Tutorial)

Please accept my apologies guys. I've been off for a while. Just landed into France so was busy settling in. But I shall keep the flow going ahead.


Now that we have covered with most of the essentials to easily work around a design file in CorelDraw, its time for some FUN STUFF. In this post we'll get down to see some of the basic tools you'll be using to create your art work. Also included at the end will be a small tutorial wherein I'll be using all of the basic tools demonstrated above to create an art work.
SO LET THE FUN BEGIN :)

In this tutorial we cover the Rectangle Tool, Ellipse Tool,  Polygon Tool and the Basic Shapes Tool  

Rectangle Tool
This is one of the basic tools that you will use create most of your complex art forms. The video below contains a walkthrough on how to use the rectangle tool and its various properties.

Ellipse Tool
This is also one of the basic tools that you will use create most of your complex art forms. The video below contains a walkthrough on how to use the ellipse tool and its various properties.

Polygon Tool
Also one of the basic tools that you will use create most of your complex art forms. The video below contains a walkthrough on how to use the polygon tool and its various properties. The polygon tool also has other fly out options i.e. star tool, complex star tool, graph paper tool and the spiral. The use and properties of these tools are also demonstrated in the video.

Basic Shape Tool
Now, finally in the post let us look at the basic shape tool. This is also useful in creating the basic shapes used mostly in any art form. The basic shapes tools also has other useful tools such as arrow shapes, flowchart shapes, banner shapes and callout shapes tools. The use and properties of these tools are demonstrated below in the video.

That brings us to the end of the tutorial. Before I end I would like you all to have some fun and use all that we have learnt till now in a particle do along tutorial to create a simple art work.

Do Along Tutorial
So lets put to test all that we have learnt so far in this post with a do along tutorial.

Hope you have now understood working your way out with basics of CorelDraw.

So watch out for my next post Working With Object Manager (including introduction to Layers).

Navigating and Viewing a Page

In our previous post a lot was covered on the basic file handling capabilities such as opening, saving, exporting etc. In this post however we shall learn the different ways to navigate and view a page in CorelDraw.

So grab you pen and paper if needed and lets begin

Different View Modes

CorelDraw offers you 6 different viewing modes to choose from. These viewing modes help define how your art work/drawing will eventually turn out on screen. Now, given the option of various modes you can easily find your way out to obtain a particular object or draw a new one when you art work is very detailed and composed of a number of objects. 

Working with CorelDraw primarily means creating 'vector' art work. But since these vector objects are not compatible with most display screens i.e. finally these vectors are converted to a particular format for e.g. jpeg, png etc, they need to be written on screen from time to time called 'Rasterizing'.

Lets have a look at the different kinds of view modes

1) Simple Wireframe

          Located at the top of the list it provides the least detailed view of your drawing. When selected what turns out is a simple silhouette of vector objects. Hence no object fills will be visible. This can be useful when you have to select a particular object from a given number of objects. When effects such as extrude and blend are used even then only the structure of the object is visible not the additional elements. Since this is the simplest view of the vector drawing hence any changes made on a simple wireframe view is more or less displayed instantly on screen.

2) Wireframe
            The second option right below the simple wireframe view mode. It behaves in a similar manner like simple wireframe but the difference is that when an effect such as extrude or blend is applied to an object, it not only displays the structure of the object but also the structure of the added objects after the effect has been applied, ofcourse without the fill.

3) Draft
          The third view mode option. This lies somewhere in between the wireframe and the enhanced view. The objects when viewed in draft mode are displayed with object fill, but there is no anti aliasing. Hence the image turns out to be harsh and jaggered. If look closely the object with closed fills seems smooth, but the outlines, widths etc seems to be like step-like structures. This view mode is best used when there is considerable amount of objects to be considered and we want the changes to made to be displayed instantly.

4) Normal
       This view mode displays all the object properties i.e. fills, extrudes etc. but still lacks to anti alias the edges.

5) Enhanced
        This is the default view mode. It displays the object properties to its best view. It is anti aliased hence the edges are smooth and not jaggy.

6) Pixel (Made available from X5)
          This view mode helps you visualize you drawing both in vector and in pix-elated form. Since what will eventually be projected on screen i.e. the drawing will caste as pixels. The quality of the pixel depends on the resolution you set at the beginning when creating a new document. If set to 72 dpi resolution will be less as compared to when set to 300 dpi.

Note:  To shift between the current and last view mode use keyboard short cut Shift + F9

Zooming and Panning

With the different view modes we were simply defining the post quality of the art work but what defines the term view is the capability to magnify the resolution and move around the art work, which makes working on details easier.


ZOOMING
 Lets take a look at the different properties of the zoom tool

To access the zoom tool either press Z or select the zoom tool icon
from the tool bar.


This is a flyout menu as can be depicted by the small black arrow at the bottom of icon. Click on the arrow and you will have two option to choose from zoom  (z) and pan ( h )

Once you select the zoom tool your cursor changes into a magnification glass with a plus (+) inside.

The various zoom properties are explained in the video above.

PANNING


This is a useful feature that helps you move around your artwork easily. Most of you must have had already seen or used panning in some way or the other. Most commonly know as the hand tool it helps you move around your artwork providing a convenient replacement to the traditional scrolling bars.
Lets see how it works

To select the hand tool or pan tool press shortcut key H from the keyboard or select the pan tool from the zoom/pan icon in the toolbox.

Though most of the navigating and viewing tools have been covered, there still lies a few more special view modes that may come in handy, hence I thought it would be important to add them too.

In the video below we cover the Special View Modes and The View Navigator

Hope that will give you all a way to effectively work your way around navigating and viewing your work.

Next we shall cover the basic tools in the toolbox and complete a "do-along" tutorial with the help of these tools

EXCITED! :D

So watch out for my next tutorial on Working With Basic Tools in the Toolbox - Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon and Basic Shapes Tools (Including A Do-Along Tutorial)


Till then Happy Corel-ing!