Course Description

Get up and running with CorelDRAW X4 Intro Part 1 while creating fun images and practical projects. You will learn the user interface, many of the basic tools and options and some of the many uses for this versatile graphics program. We'll cover some of the new tools and options in version X4 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 X4. Whatever your experience level, you are sure to find something new in this jam-packed set of lessons. CorelDRAW X4 Intro Part 1 has been completely revamped from the X3 course. You will need to take both Part 1 and Part 2 to completely cover all the tools available in CorelDRAW X4, but Part 1 will get you going with both graphics and text. Part 2 will get into more tools and more applications of the program. 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. Show off your LVS Online spirit with an item from the LVS Store Visit the LVS Blog for updates. 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 X4 as help will not be available for earlier versions. It is suggested that those who have an earlier version take that class instead since it will be similar, but focused on that version of the software. You may download a trial version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 which includes CorelDRAW, but be aware that it is only good for 15 days. If you use the trial version, be sure to uninstall it completely, including a separate uninstall of the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite Windows Shell from the Control Panel, before installing a purchased version. The DVD version is highly recommended over the download version. LVS is a Corel Training Partner. Enrolled LVS students are eligible to purchase Corel products directly from Corel Education Store at a substantial savings! Enter coupon code CRL10LVS when checking out to get an additional 10% discount on all Corel products! Follow this link for details: www.lvsonline.com/news.shtml#discount There will be Zip files provided to complete many of the weekly exercises. WinZip, PKZip, Windows Compression or a similar program is required to unzip these files. Winzip Tutorial Here Windows Compression Students must have a working knowledge of their operating system, especially: How to create and name new folders How to locate files How to open and save files Here are a few free tutorials available at LVS which may be helpful to you: PC Users: Free Windows Class Directory Structure Tutorial Free tutorials are available: Basic HTML Page WS_FTP SmartFTP 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 other than Windows knowledge No artistic talent needed!

Course Syllabus

Lesson 1 Using The Welcome Magazine and included Help resources Creating new documents The Workspace area and Application Window Toolbars, Property Bars, the Status bar and Flyouts Setting color defaults The Toolbox Rectangles and Ellipses The Pick Tool Moving, Scaling, Rotating, Mirroring Objects Saving files Filling objects with color Changing Outline characteristics Moving objects to front and back of a layer Converting perfect shapes to curves First introduction of the Shape Tool Exporting to GIF Lesson 2 More Color setup Basic Shapes Using Control Glyphs Sizing, Stretching, and Skewing Creating a graphic from shapes Changing colors Duplicating and more Rotating Grouping Using the Uniform Fill dialog Using the Outline properties dialog Aligning Objects to each other Lesson 3 Bitmaps and Vectors Drawing and editing curves The Document Property Bar and other Page options Color setup review The Freehand Tool The Smart Fill Tool Curves and Nodes - Node editing Creating a new shape from an old one using Node editing Drawing Straight Lines Simple Arrows and other Outline Properties The Polyline Tool The Pen Tool The Bezier Tool The Three Point Curve Tool Polygons, Complex Stars, and Simple Stars The Fill Flyout Using the Fountain Fill Dialog The Boundary Effect Creating custom fountain fills Exporting to JPG format Lesson 4 The Artistic Media Tools - Presets, brushes, sprayers, and Calligraphic pen The Object Properties Docker The Smart Drawing Tool Introduction to Artistic and Paragraph text Editing text, Using the Fonts picker, Live Text Preview The Eyedropper and Paintbucket tools Shaping Artistic Text Interactive Drop Shadow Tool Using a template - New from Template Dialog The Object Manager Docker Working with Pages and Layers Locking and unlocking objects Publishing to PDF Lesson 5 Putting it all together on a Birthday card Text inside a path Text in a path Sampling colors and object attributes Using letter nodes in Paragraph text Changing Spacing and colors of single words in paragraph text Trimming objects and Shaping tools Printing your project Printing a multi-page card on one sheet front and back Using Print Preview Using Crop Marks Working with Labels - Creating Nametags Using the Label Page Setup Using presets and custom labels Printing the same label on the full sheet Printing different labels on the same sheet The Interactive Fill Tool More Text on a Path - using presets Using Master Pages Using Guidelines Using Text Styles Lesson 6 Creating a Half-sheet Flyer Distributing objects and guides Combining objects Back minus Front command Interactive Transparency Tool Dynamic Guides Working with Tables - the X4 Table Tool Paragraph text in tables Aligning text in tables Setting Table margins Deleting and Merging cell Text as Objects Breaking text apart Converting text to curves Clear Transformations Converting Outlines to Objects The Interactive Extrude Tool The Bevel Docker The Eraser Tool The Knife Tool The Smudge Brush The Roughen Brush The Transform Tool The Crop Tool

Course Excerpt

LESSON 1 The Welcome Magazine Upon opening CorelDRAW© X4, you are greeted with the Welcome Magazine with a bit of the Corel balloon showing on the cover. Just for your information, green is the color for CorelDRAW. Red is the color for PhotoPaint that also comes in the graphics suite. The Welcome screen from X3 has been enlarged greatly which is why it is now a "magazine". Note that there is a little X block in the top right corner if you really want the Welcome magazine to disappear, at least until you open CorelDRAW again. Assignment: Speaking of tours, right there on the cover of the Welcome screen, just below the balloon is a little movie that takes just over 5 minutes to view. It's an excellent overview of the Workspace and if I wrote everything covered in this movie this lesson would probably be several hundred pages. To save both of us, your first assignment is to view this little movie. As we go through the lessons we'll cover a lot of these items in depth, but this quick overview will save us both a lot of time. Below the movie link on the Welcome page are links to each of the tabs for the pages of the magazine. Click the links or the tabs to flip through the pages. Some set-ups may have the text on the tabs nearly unreadable. I think this has been fixed for just about everyone, but if for some reason you can't read the tabs, the links here are the same as the tabs. Hovering your mouse over the links will give you a short description at the right of the screen. We'll briefly discuss each page and I'll also discuss the methods to use to accomplish the same tasks without the Welcome Screen. Quick Start Tab If the Welcome Screen does not show, it is probably because you have at some time UNchecked the box at the bottom of the Quick Start page that says "Always show the Welcome Screen at launch." If you see the welcome screen (magazine) when you open the program, 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. We'll be starting there with our tour. If you've turned off the Welcome magazine, it has an icon in the Standard tool bar just to the left of the Zoom level field, so you can still follow along or use it at any time without having to enable it at start-up. Above the Always show the Welcome screen at launch checkbox is a choice to Make this the default Welcome screen page. You have this option on most of the tabs. Most folks who use the welcome screen keep Quick Start as the one that opens when you first open CorelDRAW because it's the most useful for doing actual work. You may want to use one of the others. CorelDRAW gives you that choice. 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

Sid Mooney: [Liked best:] "Self paced. I tend to be a tactile learner and being able to follow along the syllabus and at the same time do the work was a huge bonus!" More...