CorelDRAW x5 basics: View Manager

Hi, everyone. In this post I'll present you one of the lesser known facilities available in CorelDRAW: the View Manager. As a beginner you might find this tool quite uninteresting, but when you get to work with large drawings you will recognize its importance.

Let's suppose you are working with a large, complex drawing and you have a small detail (or more small details) which doesn't fit with the rest of your artwork. If this is the case you have to zoom in in order to make small adjustments, to zoom out to see the whole image, to zoom in again to make more adjustments, to zoom out again, and so on until you are satisfied with the result. This Zoom in/Zoom Out process, which can be very annoying, can be significantly simplified if we use the View Manager tool.

In order to activate this tool, go to the main menu bar, choose Tools -> View Manager (shortkey: Ctrl + F2), as it shown in the image below:

In the image below you can see the View Manager docker. It contains seven buttons (Zoom one shot, Zoom in, Zoom out, Zoom to selected, Zoom to all objects, Add current view and Delete current view) and the list of the saved views.

Once you have saved a view of a part of your drawing, you can return to this specific view any time by clicking its name in the View Manager docker. If you need to use a specific view for a longer time you might need to rename it - to do so, you have to double click on its name in the list and type a new name. If you don't need a saved view any more, select it and click the Delete current view button in order to get rid of it. If you disable the Page icon next to a saved view on the docker, Corel switches to the magnification level only, not the page. Similarly, if you disable the Magnifying glass icon, Corel switches to the page only, not the magnification level.

CorelDRAW x5 basics: the viewing modes (7) - Pixels View

The Pixels view viewing mode allows you to see the pixel-based version of your drawing. By using this viewing mode it's easier for you to position the objects of your drawing more precisely; in addition, this viewing mode will help you to see how your drawing will look like when you'll save it into a bitmap format.

To activate this viewing mode go to View and choose Pixels. When the Pixels viewing mode is activated, the Snap to Pixels option will become active, too.

The Pixels view viewing mode is very useful especially when you are working with very large or very complex drawings; it is also useful when you are working with paths and you want to precisely adjust the curves. When the Pixels view viewing mode is active, if you choose a magnification level equal or greater with 800% the Pixel Grid will be automatically activated (sometimes you might find this option annoying, so I'll show you how you can disable and enable it when you need to). When you move the cursor around the grid various snap points (namely, pixel corner, pixel edge and pixel center) appear, allowing you to gain a batter control over your drawing.

If you want to customise the Pixel Grid go to Tools -> Option (shortkey: CTRL + J) and choose Document -> Grid. In the dialog box which is displayed you can choose how the Pixel Grid will be displayed (as lines or as dots) and how "dense" the grid should be. You can also activate and deactivate the following options: Snap to grid, Snap to pixel and Show pixel grid at 800% and higher zoom. CorelDraw offers you the possibility to change either the colour of the grid or/and the grid's opacity (use this option to avoid the inconvenient situation when your drawing and the grid have the same colour).

CorelDRAW x5 basics: the viewing modes (6) - the Wireframe and Simple Wireframe viewing modes (Part 2)

Why do we need the Wireframe view and Simple Wireframe view

Some people (usually beginners) tend to completely ignore the Wireframe viewing modes, but you should know that they are extremely useful and, as your artworks will become more complex, these viewing modes will become essential for you. The list below, without being exhaustive, provides several examples of situations in which you may need to use one of these two viewing modes.

- in Wireframe view modes it's very easy to precisely position every object of your drawing.

- sometimes you might need to check the basic form of an object; the easier way to see the basic forms of your objects is to preview your artwork in Wireframe view mode.

- use the Wireframe viewing modes to check if you drawing contains unnecessary copies of objects (this method is particularly useful when setting files for output to machinery such as plotter cutting, laser cutting or engraving).

- In Wireframe view mode it's easier to edit a complex path or to check your artwork to see if it contains open paths. Also you can see if the lines are smooth in their curve lines or require the addition of extra nodes, node control points or require adjusting.

- before printing your artwork you should check if two (or more) objects with the same fill and stroke colour are overlapping (in the Wireframe view mode they will appear as overlapping lines). You should pay a particular attention to your text - especially when you are using serif-fonts. If your letters are overlapping this will create problems for industrial machinery and large format digital printing equipment.

- when you can't find an object in your artwork (missing elements, which are usually hidden by other elements rather than actually missing, are a very common problem for the beginners) the easier way to find it is to commute to Wireframe viewing mode - as you can see in the images below:

CorelDRAW x5 basics: the viewing modes (5) - the Wireframe and Simple Wireframe viewing modes (Part 1)

In the previous posts I've talked about the "Previous" Modes (Enhanced, Normal and Draft). Today I'll present you the Wireframe viewing modes (also called Outline view in other graphic programs). Wireframe and Simple Wireframe are those two unexciting (but very important) viewing modes that show plain black outlines and no colours. In the images below you can see the characteristics of the Wireframe viewing modes: the Simple wireframe viewing mode displays only the outlines of the objects by hiding fills, extrusions, contours, drop shadows, and intermediate blend shapes. The Wireframe viewing mode displays a drawing in simple wireframe mode plus intermediate blend shapes. In both these two viewing modes bitmaps are shown as monochrome grayed areas.

In wireframe viewing modes bitmaps are displayed in monochrome.

Blended objects displayed in Enhanced viewing mode.

Blended objects displayed in the "Simple Wireframe" viewing mode.

Blended objects (with intermediate blend shapes) displayed in the "Wireframe" viewing mode.

Objects with various fills displayed in the "Enhanced" viewing mode.

The same objects as in the image above displayed in the "Wireframe" viewing modes.

Wireframe and Simple Wireframe viewing modes only affect the screen display. Your document will still print or export in full colour, with all the effects you've applied.

CorelDRAW x5 basics: the viewing modes (4) - the Draft viewing mode

Sometimes, when you are working with huge CorelDraw projects your computer might slow down significantly, even in the Normal viewing mode (which is, anyway, less demanding than the Enhanced mode). If this happens, you can switch to an even less demanding viewing mode - the Draft viewing mode. This viewing mode is also recommended when one wants to evaluate basic colour schemes in a vector drawing.

Characteristics of the Draft viewing mode:
- the anti-aliasing option isn't available in this viewing mode, so the oblique lines and the curved lines will look harsh and jaggy
- bitmaps are displayed on low resolution
- fountain-fills are not displayed correctly (for example, in CorelDraw x5 and in the later versions, if you have a two-colours fountain-fill/gradient-fill, instead of the gradient will be displayed only the colour that is located in the middle point of the gradient. In the previous versions of CorelDraw a checkerboard pattern is displayed instead of a gradient fill.)
- the Pattern Fill, Bitmap Fill, Texture Fill and PostScript Fill are not displayed correctly in this viewing mode (see the images below).

The circle in the foreground is filled with a two-colours gradient (from yellow to red), which is properly displayed in the "Enhanced" viewing-mode (see the image above). When the "Draft" viewing mode is used, the gradient fill is replaced with a single-colour fill - namely, orange, because orange is the intermediate colour between yellow and red.

If we compare the two imeges above we can easily observe that only the uniform-fill is properly displayed. A single colour replace the fountain-fill, a two-headed arrows pattern is displayed instead of the pattern-fill, bitmap-fills are replaced by a hatched-lines pattern, a black-and-white texture is displayed instead of any texture-fill and a pattern of repeated PS is displayed instead of the PostScript fills.

CorelDRAW x5 basics: the viewing modes (3) - the Normal viewing mode

As I've said in the previous post, Enhanced is the best viewing mode and is the default setting in CorelDRAW. If you have an old computer or a computer with a weak video card, or if you have hundreds of objects and effects on a page, you might have to use a less demanding viewing mode, namely the Normal viewing mode. As you can see in the pictures below, there are not so many differences between these two viewing modes: the anti-aliasing option isn't available in the Normal viewing mode, the PostScript fills aren't displayed and the bitmap-fills are displayed in a lower resolution.

The Anti-aliasing option is not available in the Normal viewing mode, so the curves aren't smooth in this viewing mode.

The Enhanced viewing mode displays the best possible quality for your monitor; this viewing mode displays high-resolution bitmaps, PostScript fills and anti-aliased vector graphics.

The PostScript fills aren't displayed in the Normal viewing mode. You'll notice also that the colours of the bitmap fill are not as vivid as they should be.

CorelDRAW basics: the viewing modes (2) - the Enhanced viewing mode

Enhanced is the best viewing mode and is the default setting in CorelDRAW (If you want to choose another default viewing mode click Tools Options -> click General in the Document list of categories and choose an option from the View mode list box.)

The Enhanced viewing mode displays the best possible quality for your monitor; this viewing mode displays high-resolution bitmaps, PostScript fills and anti-aliased vector graphics.

Aliasing is the process by which smooth curves and other lines (usually the diagonal lines) become jagged (jaggies are stairlike lines that appear where there should be smooth straight lines or curves) because the output device (display monitor or printer) does not have enough resolution to portray a smooth line. In addition, this process often occur when a bit-mapped image is converted to a different resolution. Anti-aliasing is a software technique that smooths out jagged lines by surrounding the jaggies with transparent pixels to simulate the appearance of fractionally-filled pixels.

Additionally, when the Enhanced mode is activated you can activate two more options: Simulate overprints and Rasterize complex effects. These options are useful (or better said, essential) when you want to use your artwork for commercial printing.

Simulate overprints - when you print your artwork, if two ore more objects are overlapping, only the top objects will be entirely visible (and printed), while the non-visible portions of the rest of the objects are automatically removed. If you want to print the non-visible portions of your artwork you can use the Overprint option. The Simulate overprints option allows you to see the resulting colour of areas where overlapping objects are set to overprint.

Rasterize complex effects Use this option when you want to see how these complex effects (bevels, transparencies, drop shadows, etc.) will be printed.

CorelDRAW basics: the viewing modes (1)

When you are working in CorelDRAW you are using (for the most of the time) vector graphics. In order to display your artwork on the display, your computer needs to rasterize the vectors. Every time you make a change in your artwork, the computer needs to rasterize the artwork and to refresh the displayed image. Depending on the complexity of the artwork, on the type of effects you want to apply, but also depending on your computer's hardware configuration (video card, CPU performance and RAM) this process can be performed in a fraction of a second or in several tens of seconds, or even more (the annoying situations when when the display freezes). If these situations occurs frequently you might consider to change the default viewing mode (Enhanced) and use a less demanding viewing mode like Normal or even Draft (or, even better, to change your computer).

CorelDRAW allows you to display a drawing in various viewing modes (from low to high details): Simple wireframe, Wireframe, Draft, Normal, Enhanced and Pixels. Additionally, when the Enhanced mode is activated you can activate two more options: Simulate overprints and Rasterize complex effects.

The amount of time required to rasterize your artwork is not the only reason to switch between various view modes: sometimes you will need to use the Wireframe mode in order to locate a hidden object or you'll might need to check the overprinted colours before printing your artwork and in this case you have to choose the Simulate overprints viewing mode.

To choose a viewing mode open the View menu and click on the viewing mode you want to use (Enhanced is the default one). Press "Shift + F9" if you want to switch between the current viewing mode and the previous viewing mode (see the image below):

If you want to change the default viewing mode click Tools Options -> click General in the Document list of categories and choose an option from the View mode list box.