Course Description

Get up and running with CorelDRAW X3 while creating fun images and practical text layout projects. You will learn the user interface, all the basic tools and options and some of the many uses for this versatile graphics program. We'll cover some of the exciting new tools in version X3 of CorelDRAW. By the end of the course, you'll be shaping text and objects with node editing and creating multi-page documents with ease. This course is geared for the absolute beginner, but just as applicable to those who have recently updated to version X3. Much of the material is the same as the version 12 class with updates and additions to cover many of the new features of X3. Whatever your experience level, you are sure to find something new in this jam-packed set of lessons. View more images This is a 6 week, self-paced, online course. LVS is a Corel Training Partner. LVS students may purchase Corel products at a significant savings. Follow this link for details. LVS students are also eligible take advantage of special offers made available by famous software developers such as Andromeda, AV Bros, Extensis, Harry Heim, namesuppressed, Nik Multimedia, and Ulead. Details are provided in the classinfo link found in the confirmation of registration. If you would like to receive more information regarding this course, click on the "Contact Us" link in the Information section and we'll try to answer any of your questions within the day.

Course Requirements

While some of the material presented may be applicable to previous versions of CorelDRAW, it is assumed that students will be using version X3 as help will not be available for earlier versions. It is suggested that those who have version 12 take the version 12 class which is very similar but focused on that version of the software. LVS is a Corel Training Partner. Enrolled students are eligible to purchase selected Corel products directly from Corel at the educational discounted rate: Corel Education Store. Follow this link for details: www.lvsonline.com/news.shtml#discount Homework must be reviewed by the instructor in order to earn a certificate. Students have the option of using the Student Upload Area or free web hosting made available for LVS students. Details are provided in the classroom. If you prefer to use your own web space, you must know how to upload your files to a server. Free tutorials are available: Basic HTML page WS_FTP SmartFTP Students should have working knowledge of their operating system: Free Windows Class Here Directory Structure Tutorial Here Zip files may be necessary to complete the exercises provided each week. WinZip, PKZip, Windows Compression or similar program is required to unzip these files. Winzip Tutorial Here Windows Compression All lessons are available in PDF format. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view/print the lessons. Plan to devote 2 - 4 hours per week on the lesson and assignment.

Course Prerequisites

Class Level - Intro None

Course Syllabus

Lesson 1 Concepts and General Information The CorelDRAW Welcome screen and work area Setting up Rulers and basic page settings Toolbars and Dockers Working with the Color Palette Working with Property Bars Introduction to the Toolbox Reshaping and Rounding Rectangles and Converting Shapes to Curves Setting the center of rotation Arranging objects to front and to back Working with Other Perfect Shapes Introduction to Fill and Outline properties Grouping and aligning objects The Status Bar Saving files Exporting files to GIF format Tools Covered Zoom levels and the Navigator The Pick Tool Basic Rectangle and Ellipse Tools Perfect Shape Tool The Shape Tool Lesson 2 Concepts and General Information Bitmaps and Vectors Drawing and Editing Curves The Document Property Bar Introduction to Node Editing Open vs. Closed Curves Drawing straight lines and arrows Working with Gradient (Fountain) Fills GIF vs. JPG formats Exporting to JPG format Tools Covered The Freehand tool The Smart Fill Tool Virtual Segment Delete Tool The Polyline Tool The Pen Tool The Bezier Tool The Three Point Curve Tool Polygons, Stars, and Complex Star Tools Paint can Tools Lesson 3 Concepts and General Information The Object Properties Docker Working with Text Artistic Text vs. Paragraph Text Editing Text Shaping text Artistic Text on a path Paragraph Text in a shape Using and modifying a template Using multiple pages in a document Printing Converting to the PDF format Tools Covered The Artistic Media Tools Brush, Sprayer, and Calligraphic Pen Tools Eyedropper and Paintbucket Tools The Interactive Drop Shadow Tool The Smart Drawing Tool Text tool Lesson 4 Concepts and General Information The Object Manager Docker Working with Master Pages Working with Labels A bit more about Text and Text on a Path Guidelines and Snapping Text Styles Align and Distribute Combining Objects Back minus front cutouts Converting outlines to objects Breaking Apart Text Converting Text to Curves Dynamic Guides Tools Covered Interactive Fill Tool Interactive Transparency Tool Interactive Extrude Tool The Bevel Docker Eraser Tool Knife Tool Smudge Brush and Roughen Brush Free Transform Tool The Crop Tool Lesson 5 Concepts and General Information Three methods to create text columns Flowing text from frame to frame Using shapes as guidelines The Shaping Docker Formatting text Wrapping text around shapes Using bitmaps and bitmap effects Blends on a path Where to find the new Text Dockers Converting Vectors to Bitmaps Bitmap effects Importing Bitmaps Tools Covered Three Point Rectangle Tool The Fillet/Scallop/Chamfer Docker Three Point Ellipse Tool Arcs, Pies, and Wedges with the Ellipse Tools Interactive Blend Tool Spiral Tool Blends on a Path Text on an open path Lesson 6 Concepts and General Information Power Clips Document Information Find and Replace Wizard Undo Docker Symbols and the Symbol Manager PowerTRACE Symbol Fonts Tools Covered The Graph Paper Tool Interactive Envelope Tool Using the Shape tool on Bitmaps Interactive Contour Tool Interactive Distortion Tool Interactive Connector and Dimension Lines Tools Interactive Mesh Fill Tool

Course Excerpt

LESSON 1 The Welcome Screen Upon opening CorelDRAW Version X3, you are greeted with a Welcome Screen Corel DRAW Welcome Screen The title in the Welcome Screen window will say CorelDRAW® X3 and have a close icon - the little green X block in the right corner. If the Welcome Screen does not show, it is probably because you have at some time UNchecked the box at the bottom of the screen that says "Show this Welcome Screen at startup." If you see the welcome screen, that line will have a checkmark in it. If you don't ever want to use this screen again, feel free to uncheck the checkmark by clicking on it. However, when you are first getting started, it's an easy place to get to the first things you are most likely to want. Once you click on anything in this screen, the Welcome Screen will go away and not re-appear until the next time you open CorelDRAW. As we go through the items on the welcome screen, you will either need to take my word for it or close and re-open DRAW to continue the lesson. Hovering your mouse over the icons will give you a short description at the bottom of the screen, but I'll also give you a quick run through here. I'll also discuss the methods to use to accomplish the same tasks without the Welcome Screen. Clicking the New icon will open a new blank document, 8.5 X 11 inches by default, at least in the North American versions of the program. This is the size of the standard letter size paper that most printers will take. If the Welcome Screen is not there, you can do the same thing by either clicking on the New icon New Document Icon from Standard Toolbar from the Standard Toolbar, Holding down the Ctrl key while tapping the N key (Ctrl+N), or clicking on the File menu from the Menu Bar and choosing New. Back on the Welcome Screen (if you clicked on New, you'll need to close CorelDRAW and re-open it to see the Welcome Screen again) you will see a list of recently saved documents above the Recently Used label. The screen capture above is of a newly installed DRAW so there is only the one image that I've saved listed. Running your mouse over the list will highlight each document in turn and clicking on a highlighted document name will open that document. If you have never created anything in CorelDRAW, this area will be blank with a little grayed out file folder graphic icon that doesn't do anything. Recently used files are also listed at the bottom of the File menu by default. (Menus and toolbars can be customized to your preferences. I said that already, didn't I?) Clicking on Open in the Welcome Screen will give you the standard Windows Open dialog box where you can browse to choose an already created file to open and work on. . There are two differences from the standard Windows dialog. The first is there is a preview window and a place to check whether you want to see the preview of a file (if it is available) or not. The other is the Options button that expands your options so you can view your files sorted by things other than the standard Windows categories in the details view. There may also be options that are dependent on the particular file type you open such as the Maintain layers and pages checkbox for CDR files and other file types that support layers. You can only "open" certain types of files in CorelDRAW. Many others may be "imported". We'll talk about that later. To open a file without the Welcome Screen, click on the Open icon Open a document icon from the Standard Toolbar, hold down the Ctrl key while tapping the O key ((Ctrl+O)), or choose Open from the File menu. The New From Template option gives you another dialog box with a list of available templates to use as a basis for your new project. CorelDRAW comes with several templates for a variety of projects and you may also create your own. We'll look at templates in another lesson. Other than the Welcome screen, you can also choose New From Template... from the File menu. Clicking on CorelTUTOR in the Welcome Screen may bring up tutorials in your default internet browser or in a separate PDF viewer screen if you included the tutorials in the installation of CorelDRAW. You do not need to be online to view the tutorials, but will need Adobe(R) Reader(R) installed on your computer. The tutorials are not terribly thorough, but are a good way to start getting comfortable with the program. You can also find the tutorials by choosing CorelTUTOR... from the Help (not File) menu. The final icon on the Welcome Screen is the What's New? icon. Clicking on it will give you a brief rundown of the new features in CorelDRAW X3 that were not in CorelDRAW 12. The document displayed is the first page of the CorelDRAW Help documentation, so feel free to browse through the items listed in the Contents area. Highlight What's New? is another item located in the Help menu. We'll talk about that when we get to the Help menu farther along in our discussion. Continued... Please note: Lessons provide step-by-step instructions with detailed screen captures.

Course Goals

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to use the basic tools of the CorelDRAW toolbox in their default configurations. Students will be able to produce several different types of documents and export graphics files in JPG, GIF, and PDF formats from within the CorelDRAW program.

Course Reviews

Wayne MacKay: "This class was so amazing. It took CorelDraw, a massive program to learn, and broke it down into small segments that were very manageable to learn. Class material was well written and easy to understand. What I really liked was that you didn't have to be an artist. Many classes ( not at LVS ) require you to draw and for artist challenged individuals, such as myself, it becomes a road block to learning. Val made it easy and fun to learn." More...