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G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M 2 0 2 1 S E P T E M B E R G R A P H I C S P R O 6 9 NUDGING AND SNAP TO Nudging is precisely moving an object or text paragraph with your arrow keys. They can be set up on the same page as the rulers as described above. There is Nudge, which I set to 0.1; Super Nudge I set as times 10, and Micro Nudge I set as divided by 5. These two settings are in relationship to your Nudge setting. With my settings, Super Nudge (Shift Arrow keys) would be 1" and Micro Nudge (Control Arrow keys) would be 1/100". I use these keys a lot when lay- ing out a project. Snap To allows you to easily place objects in precise places. You can Snap To other objects, guidelines, a grid, or a place on the page. To turn this function on and off, go to View>Snap To and select how you want Snap To to work. FONTS CorelDRAW comes with a great font manager in my opinion. You can use hundreds or thousands of fonts without loading them into Windows and bog- ging down your PC. Just place the fonts in any folder on your PC and organize them any way that suits you. CorelDRAW will locate them, and you can manage them from the Corel Font Manager. However, you can quickly access all your fonts from the Font Menu at the top of your screen. Click on the down arrow for the drop- down next to the font name that is listed as "in use." To the right it says, "Clear filter" and below it, check three boxes: Installed (you installed with Corel Font Manager), Not Installed (just in a folder on your PC), and Pro- tected System Fonts (installed in your Windows folder). By selecting all three boxes, you will see every font displayed on your PC and be able to use them all by just se- lecting one of them. CorelDRAW lists them in alphabetic order and shows the font name in each of the font's styles. DOCKERS I dock the following set of functions in tabs on the right side of my page: Shape, Corners, Text, Objects, Align and Distrib- ute, and occasionally Transform. Shape allows you to modify vector ob- jects from the shape of another object. For instance, you can weld two or more ob- jects together. You can use one object to cut its shape into another object. This set of tools requires much testing and playing with to learn; however, they are powerful if you are working with a lot of vector art. Corners simply allows you to quickly cut a variety of corner shapes and sizes into objects. I used this tool to make name badges and plastic or wood engraving plates I laser cut. Text provides complete control over your paragraphs, sentences, words, and characters. You can set kerning, distance between sentences in paragraphs, and many more characteristics of your text. Objects lists everything in your docu- ment by page. You can create layers for very complex layouts, lock objects so they won't be accidentally moved, and much more. Align and Distribute gives you complete control over groups of objects and text. You can align them quickly or distribute a group of objects vertically or horizontally, providing equal spacing. Transform allows you to move objects to specific places on your page. There are many ways and tools to ac- complish the same result. This may be confusing at first; however, you will end up selecting the methods that work best for you. The best attitude to begin your learning is to want to continue it even after 20 years. Even a few minutes of spare time can be put to good use playing with unfamiliar features of CorelDRAW, Corel Font Manager, or PhotoPAINT. I said many times after playing and learning, "I wish I knew that years ago." GP BOB HAGEL recently retired after owning Eagle's Mark Awards & Signs for 18 years in Southern California. While owning the business, he offered a full line of personalized products using laser engraving, sandcarv- ing, and full-color UV direct print on products. Today, he consults on starting and expanding personalized businesses, and on improving production efficiency and quality. He can be reached at rjhagel@verizon.net.