FORMATION OF CORELDRAW
Corel was founded by Michael Cowpland in
1985 as a research laboratory. Michael Cowpland was CEO of Mitel. Mitel needed
writing and creative design programs to enhance the company product line. Corel
products were born. Additional products were added. The company had great
success early in the high-tech boom of the 1990s and early 2000s with
the product CorelDRAW, and became, for a time, the biggest software
company in Canada. In 1996 it acquired Novell WordPerfect and
started competing with the thought of being "Pepsi to
Microsoft's Coke"[3] as Microsoft Word was
the top-used word processing software at the time. Corel was in a difficult
position as Microsoft pushed pre-loaded copies of its software onto new
computers. This mainly consisted of Microsoft Works office
applications, but a variant called Works Suite also bundled the Microsoft Word
software.
The company held the naming rights to
the home arena for the NHL's Ottawa Senators from
February 1996 until January 2006 as the "Corel Centre", a venue
currently known as the Canadian Tire Centre.[4]
In 1996 Corel created a Full motion
video game called Mode.[5]
In 1997 Corel sold its Corel ChemLab studio and its "CD
Home Collection" consisting of over 60 multimedia titles to Hoffmann +
Associates, a Toronto-based company. As part of the deal, Corel acquired a
minority interest in Hoffmann + Associates and received royalties.[6]
In August 2000 Cowpland was accused of insider trading and
left. A new board of directors was then appointed and Derek Burney Jr.,
announced that the product line would be split into several brands—DeepWhite,
ProCreate, and Corel. However, these plans were scrapped, and only the Corel
brand remained. Corel acquired the graphics software company Micrografx in
late 2001.[citation
needed]
In August 2003, Corel was bought out by the private equity firm
Vector Capital for $1.05 a share (slightly more than the cash in the company).[citation
needed] The company was
voluntarily delisted from the NASDAQ and Toronto Stock Exchanges. Some U.S. shareholders
alleged the management benefited from the buyout personally while the buyout
price was too low. A lawsuit was filed in the U.S. to stop the buyout and was
unsuccessful.
In March 2005 Corel announced that the United States Justice Department purchased
50,000 licenses of WordPerfect (adding to the worldwide user base of 20
million) and that WordPerfect was adding 4 million new users per year thanks to
bundling deals with Dell.[7] Corel
contended that WordPerfect was the only viable alternative to Microsoft Office,
with sales 70 times more than Lotus' SmartSuite.
On April 26, 2006, Corel completed its return to the public market with
an initial public offering on NASDAQ,[8] the
same day finalizing the acquisition of WinZip,
an archiving software title.
On December 12, 2006, Corel completed its acquisitions of InterVideo and Ulead. The InterVideo
acquisition was valued at around $196 million.[9] In
May 2008, CEO David Dobson announced that he was leaving the company to take a
senior strategy role at Pitney Bowes.[10] Dobson
was replaced on May 8 by former Symantec executive Kris Hagerman.[11] In
November 2009, it was announced that Vector Capital would be purchasing the
remaining shares of common stock in Corel Corporation.[12] Upon
completion, this made Corel once again privately owned.[13] On
January 29, 2010, the shareholders of Corel approved its previously announced
stock consolidation, completing the transfer to Corel Holdings, L.P., a limited
partnership controlled by an affiliate of Vector Capital.[14]
In January 2012, Corel acquired Roxio from Rovi Corporation for
an undisclosed amount.[15] Subsequently
on July 2, 2012, Corel announced its acquisition of Pinnacle Systems,
a developer of consumer-oriented video editing products (such as the Pinnacle Studio series)
owned by Avid.[16]
Having suffered layoffs in 2003 and 2008,[17] Corel
began a near yearly culture of restructuring beginning in 2010, when in the
latter part of that year the company's finance department was restructured and
moved to their Taipei office, resulting in significant layoffs at its Ottawa
HQ. Restructuring in 2012[18] resulted
in more layoffs. In December 2013, the company's restructuring resulted in the
layoffs of the Taipei locations engineering and quality assurance team. Corel's
Taipei office was the core development centre of PaintShop Pro and VideoStudio,
one of the company's most well-known photo- and video-editing bundles. The 2013
restructuring led to a partial handover of product development to outsourced
companies, resulting in more rapid, low-cost development across its product
lines. The company continued with layoffs in 2014 and once again at the
beginning of 2015 with the change of the company's CEO to Patrick Nichols,
previously the head of Corel's WinZip business unit.
In August 2016, Corel announced the acquisition of the Mindjet MindManager business
from Spigit.[19]
In June 2018, Corel announced the acquisition of Gravit GmbH.[20]
In December 2018, Corel announced the acquisition of Parallels.[21]
On July 3, 2019, Corel was sold to KKR.[22]
In late September 2020, Christa Quarles was named the CEO of the
company.[23]
CorelDRAW Document Setup
In this tutorial you learn will some of the key features of CorelDRAW document setup and how they affect printing and building art. It’s important to learn how to get your document set up properly from the beginning, to help your design process flow smoothly.
Click on any of the images below to view full-size.
Creating a New Document
There are a few different ways to create a new document in CorelDRAW:
- Click on File > New
- Click on the New Document icon on the standard toolbar
- Press Ctrl + N on your keyboard
- Click on the New Document plus sign on the Get Started tab of the Welcome Screen
In the New Document dialog box, you can enter your own custom settings or choose from a preset.
- If you are creating for the web, chose the Web Automatically the document units of measure will be changed to pixels and the resolution changed to 150 dpi.
- If you are creating for sublimation or laser engraving, you could choose the Default RGB
- If you are working on offset printing artwork you could choose the Default CMYK
You can also create a custom document setup and then save it as a preset for future use. For example, a common page size for a large printer is 13” x 19” so let’s set that up and save the preset.
- Choose the Custom preset
- Change the units of measure to inches
- Enter 13 and 19 in the Width and Height
You can also enter the document name and choose the number of pages, primary color mode and resolution if necessary.
Next, click on the 3 dots next to the Preset dropdown list and click Save Preset. Enter a name and click OK. The next time you start a new document, this new preset will be available.
Once you have entered the settings, click OK to create the new document.
NOTE: all the document settings can also be altered once inside the document, on the Property bar and under the Layout menu.
You can also access and change the document settings by double-clicking on the grey shadow along the right and bottom of your CorelDRAW document. This will open the Document Options window.
Multiple Page Sizes
Did you know that a CorelDRAW document can contain multiple pages that are different sizes and orientations? The sample exercise file has 3 pages: the first page is 8.5 x 11” for a sign, the second page is a business card and the third page is 13 x 19” for t-shirt artwork.
If you need your document to contain different page sizes, you will find a setting on the Property bar to apply the page size to ALL pages in the document or apply the page size to the CURRENT page only.
Setting the Duplicate Distance
The duplicate distance is the distance between the original object and the duplicated object. The default values are set at .25 and .25 but some users prefer to set the values to 0:0. This can be useful when creating multiple outlines on text or shapes because the objects land right on top of each other when duplicated.
NOTE: the duplicate distance setting is only visible on the Property bar when you have nothing selected in the document.
Give it a try on page one of the exercise file:
- Set the duplicate distance to 0:0
- Hold down the Shift key and select each of the 5 small cupcakes.
- To duplicate, press Ctrl + D or go to Edit > Duplicate.
- The duplicate group of objects will be right on top of the original objects. Start dragging to the left or right then press and hold the Ctrl key (using the Ctrl key keeps the duplicate objects in exact alignment with the originals).
Objects On and Off the Page
Another key thing to know about the document setup and printing is that anything OFF the page (or on the desktop) will NOT print. For example, if you manually add registration marks or tags to identify your colors or separations make sure that the object or text is ON the page not in the desktop or the work area of the document.
Units of Measure
You can select the units of measure for your document in the New Document window when creating a new document, but you can also change the units of measure on the property bar. As with the duplicate distance setting, the units of measure setting is only visible on the property bar when nothing is selected.
Background Page Color
A helpful tip while creating art is to add a background color to your page. The default CorelDRAW document background is white, so if your art includes white shapes or objects, they can be difficult to see. There are two ways to add a background page color to your document:
- Add the background page color via the document options:
- Double-click on the shadow of the page to open the Document Options window (or go to Layout > Document Options).
- Select Background in the left column.
- Choose Solid and then use the dropdown color palette to select a color.
- Uncheck Print and export background.
Keep in mind this setting is applied to all the pages in your document.
- Add a background page color with the Rectangle tool:
- Make sure nothing is selected in your document.
- Double-click on the Rectangle tool in the Tools This will create a rectangle the size of your document.
- Click on a color in the Color palette to fill the rectangle.
- Right-click on the rectangle and choose Lock. This will keep the rectangle from moving when you are working on other objects in the document.
- At any time, you can right-click and choose Unlock, and delete the rectangle if you no longer need it.
Turn off Treat as Filled
Do you have trouble clicking on objects? Turning off Treat as Filled can help.
The Treat all objects as filled icon is visible at the far right on the property bar when nothing is selected. By default it is enabled, indicated by a white box around it. Click on the icon to turn it off.
You can also turn it off by going to Tools > Options > Tools, select the Pick tool in the left column and then uncheck Treat all objects as filled.
Setting the Zero Point for Rulers
Did you know you can move the rulers 0:0 point around inside the document? The default is at the bottom left of the page but what if you want it at the top left of the page? Click the ruler intersection (where the rulers join at the top left) and drag to the top left corner of the page.
If you want the rulers back to the default location just double-click on the ruler intersection and they return to that location.
Adding Guidelines
Guidelines are a very helpful tool for layout and design. There are two methods to add guidelines but first, go to View and ensure Guidelines is checked. Next, go to Window > Dockers and select the Object docker and Guidelines docker.
Method 1: In the Objects docker, select the Guides layer on page one. Drag a guide from the vertical ruler on the left and place where you want on the document. You can adjust the position exactly in the Object Position box on the property bar.
Method 2: You can also set the guideline using the Guidelines docker:
- Set the Guideline Type to vertical or horizontal, depending on what kind of guideline you want.
- Enter the position in the Guideline Position
- Click Add.
To learn more about guidelines, watch our full tutorial How to Align and Position Objects.
Thanks for watching! We hope you found this tutorial helpful and we would love to hear your feedback in the Comments section below. And don’t forget to visit our social media pages and show us what you’ve learned by sharing your photos, videos and creative projects with us.
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