Operation Manual

Fill, Lines, Colours, and Transparency 147
Setting fill properties
Any closed shape, such as a closed curve or QuickShape, or text has an interior
region that can be filled. The fill type can be solid, gradient, bitmap or plasma.
Those that use a single colour are solid fills. Let’s take a moment to run through
them.
Fill types fall into several basic categories, illustrated above:
• Solid fills, as their name implies, use a single colour.
• Gradient fills provide a gradation or spectrum of colours between two
or more "key" colours. Mesh fills work like gradient fills but with a
more complex fill path.
• Bitmap and Plasma fills apply bitmapped images or patterns to the
object, each with unique properties. Think of bitmap fills as named
“pictures” that fill shapes. Plasma (or “fractal”) fills use randomized
patterns, useful for simulating cloud or shadow effects.
Solid colours
Applying a fill is easy, whether you’re selecting a colour from the Colour tab or
the Swatch tab.
The Colour tab can operate in several modes available from a drop-down list—
HSL Colour Wheel (shown), HSL Colour Box, HSL Sliders, RGB Sliders, RGB
Sliders (Hex), CMYK Sliders and Tinting.