Quick Start Guide

ManualsBrandsCorel ManualsSoftwareDRAW Graphics Suite X8

Table Of Contents

CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X8 offers fully-integrated applications and complementary plugins that cover everything from

vector illustration and page layout, to photo editing, bitmap-to-vector tracing, and website design.

CorelDRAW X8 Workspace

The Welcome screen

The Welcome screen is a centralized location from which you

can access learning resources, product information, and

alternative application workspaces as well as acquire

applications, plug-ins, and extensions.

You can also find out

about new features,

receive the latest

product updates, and

view designs created by

CorelDRAW users from

around the world.

Workspace selection

The collection of specialized workspaces are designed to help

you increase your productivity by making more accessible the

tools that you use most often in specific workflows or tasks.

Available workspaces include Default, Lite, X6 Inspired,

Illustration, Page Layout, and Adobe® Illustrator®.

To choose a workspace, click Window

 Workspace, or

choose one of the available workspaces from the

Welcome screen.

To add tools or controls to the active workspace, click the

Quick customize button .

Title bar: Displays the title

of the open document.

Rulers: Calibrated lines with markers used to

determine the size and position of objects in a

drawing.

Standard toolbar: A detachable bar that contains shortcuts to

menu and other commands, such as opening, saving and

printing.

Menu bar: The area

containing pull-down

options and commands.

Property bar: A

detachable bar with

commands that relate

to the active tool or

object.

Toolbox: Contains tools for

creating and modifying

objects in the drawing.

Docker: A window

containing available

commands and

settings relevant to a

specific tool or task.

Drawing window: The

area bordered by the scroll

bars and application

controls. It includes the

drawing page and the

surrounding area.

Color palette: A

dockable bar that

contains color

swatches.

Drawing page: The

rectangular area inside the

drawing window. It is the

printable area of your work

area.

Navigator: A button

that opens a smaller

display to help you

move around a

drawing.

Document palette: A

dockable bar that contains

color swatches for the

current document.

Document navigator: An area that contains

controls for moving between pages and adding

pages.

Status bar: Contains information about object properties such

as type, size, color, fill, and resolution. The status bar also shows

the current mouse position.

Summary of content (12 pages)

PAGE 1
CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite X8 offers fully-integrated applications and complementary plugins that cover everything from vector illustration and page layout, to photo editing, bitmap-to-vector tracing, and website design. CorelDRAW X8 Workspace Title bar: Displays the title of the open document. Rulers: Calibrated lines with markers used to determine the size and position of objects in a drawing.
PAGE 2
CorelDRAW X8 toolbox Many of the tools in the CorelDRAW toolbox are organized in flyouts. To access such tools, click the small arrow in the lower-right corner of a button. The illustration below shows the toolbox and flyouts available in the Default workspace, and can help you find tools easily. If you still don’t see the tool you are looking for, click the Quick customize button at the bottom of the toolbox. With the help of the Quick customize button, you can also hide tools you don’t use often.
PAGE 3
Templates You can easily start a new project from a template. You can browse, preview, or search for templates by name, category, keywords, or designer notes. Ellipses You can draw an ellipse by dragging diagonally with the Ellipse tool . Hold down Ctrl to constrain the shape to a circle. The 3-point ellipse tool lets you quickly draw an ellipse at an angle. To draw an arc or a pie shape, you can click the Arc or Pie button on the property bar and then drag.
PAGE 4
Fit text to a path To fit text to a path, select the text, and click Text  Fit Text to Path. Move the pointer over a path and use the dynamic preview to position the text. Click to attach the text to the path. Page layout The Page property bar lets you adjust page settings, such as page size, dimensions, orientation (landscape or portrait), units of measure, nudge distance, and duplicate distance. To access the Page property bar, click the Pick tool and click a blank space in the drawing window.
PAGE 5
Page layout tools Grid and baseline grid You can display rulers, grids, and guidelines to help you organize objects and place them exactly where you want. The grid is a series of intersecting dashed lines or dots that you can use to precisely align and position objects in the drawing window. The baseline grid consists of lines that follow the pattern of a ruled sheet, helping you to align text baselines.
PAGE 6
Working with objects Shaping objects Working with objects is an essential part of creating drawings. You can change the shape of an object by using the Shape tool . Different types of objects can be shaped in different ways. Select an object with the Pick tool to activate the selection handles. Drag a corner handle to change object dimensions proportionally. Drag a middle handle to change object dimensions non-proportionally. To select multiple objects, hold down Shift, and then click each object.
PAGE 7
More shaping tools In addition to the Shape tool , the Shape edit flyout includes tools that provide creative options for refining vector objects. The Smooth tool lets you smooth curved objects to remove jagged edges and reduce the number of nodes. The Smear and Smudge tools let you shape an object by pulling extensions or making indents along its outline. The Twirl tool lets you click an object and hold to apply a twirl effect.
PAGE 8
Fills and outlines You can add colored, patterned, textured, and other fills to the inside of objects or other enclosed areas, as well as change the color of object outlines. Object Properties docker The Object Properties docker (Window  Dockers  Object Properties) presents objectdependent formatting options and properties. For example, if you create a rectangle, the Object Properties docker automatically presents outline, fill, and transparency options, as well as the rectangle’s properties.
PAGE 9
A color harmony is a group of matching color styles that are linked to produce a color scheme. You can apply a rule to a color harmony to shift all colors together and create alternate color schemes. Eyedropper tool When you sample color with the Eyedropper tool , the tool automatically switches to the Apply Color mode so that you can immediately apply the sampled color. To activate the Eyedropper tool quickly, press Ctrl + Shift + E.
PAGE 10
Editing photos CorelDRAW Graphics Suite offers a large number of features to effectively and efficiently edit photos and other bitmaps. Some of these features are available only in Corel® PHOTO-PAINT®. Image Adjustment Lab The Image Adjustment Lab consists of automatic and manual controls, which are organized in a logical order for image correction, starting in the upper-right corner. It is best to crop or retouch any areas of the image before beginning the color and tone corrections.
PAGE 11
Tracing bitmaps Brush picker The Brush picker in Corel PHOTO-PAINT helps you find brushes by combining all brush categories and brush types in one location. Available from the property bar for the Paint , Effect , and Clone tools, the Brush picker provides nib and brush stroke previews and stores the settings for the last five brushes you’ve used. You can trace bitmaps in one step by using the Quick Trace command, or you can use the PowerTRACE controls to preview and adjust the traced results.
PAGE 12
Corel Font Manager™ Corel Font Manager™ lets you easily handle, organize, and explore your typeface and font collections. Whether you want to find and install fonts for your projects, organize fonts for easy access, or manage unneeded fonts, Corel Font Manager has the tools you need. You can browse and search online and local fonts, preview font glyph sets, create font collections, and more.