Issue link: https://nbm.uberflip.com/i/1491555
8 6 G R A P H I C S P R O • A P R I L 2 0 2 3 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M S O F T W A R E T I P S & T R I C K S | D O U G Z E N D E R Doug Zender has used CorelDRAW extensively since version 4. His goal is to minimize the intimidation of the program and give users the sense that CorelDRAW is a friend, not an adversary. Doug began as a design artist, then moved into the sign industry in 1992, doing vinyl graphics. Doug always welcomes questions, comments, insights, and general chit-chat about CorelDRAW. You can contact him at dezender1@gmail.com. Know Your Object Manager Take control of your layers in CorelDRAW I want to look at the Object Manager docker. The Object Manager organizes and adjusts objects in a document and places pages on layers in CorelDR AW. To open Object Manager, go to Window > Dockers > Object Manager. (Note: the 2020 version and later names the docker simply "Objects." ough slightly different in appearance, the functions and processes are largely the same.) It is probably best to begin with a single-page document and look at the stacking order of objects on that page. Fig. 1 is an image of three objects. e document is on the left side, and the right side shows the Object Manager. e first object drawn is a rectangle with a red fill and is the bottommost object, the cyan ellipse was drawn next and is above the rectangle, and finally, the purple polygon was drawn and is in front of both the other objects. In the docker, they are shown in order. e rectangle is at the bottom, then the ellipse, and the polygon is at the top of the document. There are a few ways to change the stacking order of objects in a document. e first, and most often used, is the Object > Order command as seen in Fig. 2. a dialog appears with the various options for stacking order. Alternately, the Object Manager can drag an object to a different level in the stacking order. Most often, I prefer to have all the arrangement options available on my toolbar and have customized it to include them. For those who prefer to use keystroke shortcuts, they are as follows: Front of page = Ctrl + Home, Back of page = Ctrl + end, Front of layer = Shift + Pg up, Back of layer = Shift + Pg down, Forward one = Ctrl + Pg up, Back one = Ctrl + Pg down. ese are not all the choices available, but they are the most often used. Most often, we will work only with a single layer in our designs, but a more complex drawing may require the use of layers to differentiate aspects of the drawing. An example would be a drawing of a floor plan of a house. e first layer may include the basic structure, but I may want to detail the electrical wiring on a separate layer and maybe plumbing on a third layer. CorelDR AW can easily create all three layers. As with objects, layers can be moved up or down in the stacking order by drag- ging them to a new location. Note that, similar to objects, layers are in a stacking order. e first one is on the bottom, and each new layer is above the previous one. It may be best to think of layers as if each were a sheet of tracing paper stacked one atop the other, as in Fig. 3. Another possibility is to rename a layer to a more descriptive name that is more conducive to its contents. Right-click on the layer name in the docker, and a dialog appears as in Fig. 4. Choose the rename option and type the new B U S I N E S S S T R A T E G I E S An image of three objects. 1