you can always return to this area and change the value. For example, choose 10 (the default), or 2 (weak magnetism), or 25 (akin to having chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe). ● Show Snap Location Marks This option is on by default. Snap points are highlighted when your cursor is held over the precise points of a selected object or a target object while moving objects or drawing. When it is activated, you can also choose the Screen Tip option, which identifies the snapping point, highlighted with a text label. With Screen Tip turned on, the blue icons preceding the text labels represent some of the modes you’ve chosen. The types of snapping are covered next. When you reposition a shape by dragging it with the Pick tool, before you release the mouse button to finalize the move, the shape remains in the original position, but a blue, outline version of the shape appears at the intended new location. Use this feature as a visual guide for repositioning objects; this preview of a move offers positioning precision because you can “see through” to objects beneath the chosen object before you release the mouse button. Choosing Object Snapping Modes The Modes list includes nine object snap points you can define. You can toggle them on or off using the check boxes. Symbols beside the mode names identify the current snapping points on different object types. Use the Select All and Deselect All buttons to quickly activate or deactivate all the options in the list. At times you might want snapping to occur at certain object points but not others—you can turn specific snap points on or off. Choose options from the Modes list to have objects snap to precise points on other objects in the following ways: ● Node Use this mode to snap where nodes exist on objects or lines. A node is a break point along the path of a shape, and it’s indicated by a very small (but noticeable) black outlined square. ● Intersection Choose this mode to activate snapping where the outline paths of two objects cross, including the original position of an object you’re moving. ● Midpoint This mode snaps to a point equidistant between any two nodes on an object or path. ● Quadrant This mode should only be used with ellipses and circles. It causes snapping to one of the four nodes that were created using the Ellipse tool ( F7). Below these modes are Tangent and Perpendicular; they work only in combination with dynamic guides, covered in the following section: ● Tangent This mode shows a guide at a tangent (a straight line that touches a curve at a point) to a quadrant snap point. This mode applies only to ellipse objects. 184 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide ● Perpendicular Choose this mode to show a dynamic guide at right angles and to snap to the midpoint between object and segment nodes. Finally, the following modes apply snapping regardless of whether other, additional snapping points are checked in this Options page: ● Edge Choose this mode to have the outline path of an object act as a dynamic guide for snapping to. ● Center This mode displays the center point (origin) of closed-path objects. ● Text Baseline When snapping, all text objects take on the characteristics of a normal object such as a rectangle and have snapping points for edges, centers, corners, and so on. Additionally, the text baseline (the hypothetical line each character appears to rest on) is included in the snapping action. Working with Guidelines, Dynamic Guides, and Guide Layers Like the nonprinting blue pencil marks traditional designers used, CorelDRAW’s page guides, dynamic guides, and objects you put on a guides layer don’t print, but here the similarity ends. Regardless of whether you use one or all of the guide features in your work, you’ll have the precision only a computer application can offer, plus the same speed and ease with guides as any object you’d draw on a page. The following sections are the operator’s manual for guides: how to use them and how to customize them. Using Guidelines Guidelines placed on your document page extend between the top, bottom, left, and right edges of the document window. Guidelines appear as vertical and horizontal dashed lines, but guidelines can also be rotated. In CorelDRAW, guidelines are considered unique objects—they have their own properties, but are manipulated in many ways like objects you draw. To view and hide the display of guidelines in your document window, right-click an empty area of the page and then choose View | Guidelines. By default, a new document doesn’t have any guidelines—you need to create them, which is shown next. To have objects snap to the guidelines you create, choose from the Snap To drop-down list on the property bar, where you found Snap To Grid earlier in this chapter. Manipulating Guidelines The following steps walk you through the tasks you’ll need most often when working with guides: ● Make sure the rulers are visible; they’re where a lot of the guides live. With the Pick tool chosen, and no objects selected, right-click and then choose to View | Rulers. CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 185 7 Then, using any toolbox tool you like, click-drag beginning on a ruler, and release the mouse button anywhere in the workspace. Although dropping a guide on the page is most useful, you can certainly create a guide on the pasteboard area to measure and align objects not currently placed on the page. ● To move a place guide, you need the Pick tool selected. Then hover the cursor over the guide you’d like to move; when the cursor turns into a double-headed arrow, all you need to do is drag the guide. ● If you want to eliminate a guide, hover over it with the Pick tool until you see the double- headed arrow cursor (to indicate you’ve selected it), click the guide to confirm the guide is “in focus” in the interface, and then press DELETE or CTRL+X. When a guide is selected, you’ll see an onscreen confirmation before you delete it—the guide turns red. ● If you need a guide that travels uphill or downhill, you create a guide first. Next, click it to select it, and then click a second time, and you’ll see a center and rotation handles. One of the neat things about rotating a guideline is that you can move its center point before dragging on the rotation handles to, for example, rotate a guide around the corner of a shape you have on the page. You move a slanted guideline exactly as you do with a perfectly horizontal or vertical guide—you click-drag it to reposition it. See Figure 7-8, where the design needs cartoonish shafts of light 186 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 7-8 Make your guides perform at the angle you need for a design piece. emanating from a center point that is not the default center of a guide that’s put into slant mode. No problem; you change the center of rotation, then drag a rotation handle clockwise or counterclockwise. You can move and rotate several guidelines at once by pressing SHIFT to select or deselect them, and then click-dragging to move them. To rotate one or more guidelines while selected, click one of the guidelines a second time to display rotation handles, and drag one of the rotation handles. Controlling Guideline Properties If you need several guidelines exactly spaced, manage all guidelines via the Options dialog ( CTRL+J). Separate dialog pages are here for controlling the vertical, horizontal, and slanted guidelines. To see these dialogs, right-click either of the rulers and then choose Guidelines Setup. Additionally, while a guideline is selected in a document, you can open this dialog by clicking the Guidelines Options button on the property bar. The Options dialog lists each of the guideline types individually on the left side of the dialog. Click one to select it in the tree directory under Guidelines; here’s what the Vertical page looks like when some guides have been defined at 1-inch intervals: Ill 7-9 CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 187 7 Guideline list Guideline command buttons By default, guidelines are a medium blue when added to the workspace, and their highlight color when they’re selected is red. However, on the main page for Guidelines in Options, you can change the color of a guide as well as the color for preset guides. This is quite handy, for example, if you’re designing a series of medium blue rectangles—naturally, you’d want to choose a contrasting color for the guides! Adding, Deleting, and Moving Guidelines You can adjust guides using the features in Guidelines in Options. Each dialog contains a listing of the existing guidelines on your document page. Here are the ways to perform the common tasks: 1. To create a new guideline, enter a value in the top-left num box according to the position where you want the new guideline to be created. Then click the Add button. A new guideline is created where you want it. 2. If you’re in a Guidelines window and you can’t see where to move or add a guideline, go to either the Horizontal or Vertical guidelines dialogs, and you can work there. 3. To move an existing guideline, click it in the list, enter a new value in the top-left num box, and then click Move. The selected guideline has moved, and on the list you can see it’s been thoughtful and left a forwarding address. 4. To delete a specific guideline, select it in the list, and then click the Delete button. The selected guideline is gone from the page, and as you see the page from your current view, your document is immediately updated. 5. To remove all guidelines in the list, click the Clear button. All guidelines are deleted. Locking and Unlocking Guidelines All guidelines are editable by default; you can move or delete them using the Pick tool. But occasionally a guide that can move accidentally is as welcome as a friend who is holding your ladder moving accidentally. You can lock it using property bar options: Ill 7-10 188 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Lock button 1. To lock an individual guideline, click the guideline to select it using the Pick tool. 2. Using property bar options, click the Lock button. The selected guideline is locked, and the guide-specific property bar options become unavailable. You can also choose Lock Object from the pop-up menu when you’ve selected a guide using the Pick tool. 3. To unlock a locked guideline, right-click the guideline and choose Unlock Object from the pop-up menu. Your guideline is now unlocked, and the guide-specific property bar options become available again. Working with Dynamic Guides Dynamic guides are guides that you first set up with axes of rotation (0°, 15°, and so on), and then when you want a guide at a specific angle for aligning or drawing, it appears onscreen. It can snap the object you’re positioning, and dynamic guides offer onscreen information about the result of a moving or drawing action. When using dynamic guides, drawing or moving your cursor over active object snap points will cause guides to temporarily appear to aid in placement of objects and nodes. You can move your cursor along these “sticky” guides, and view snap points, angle values, and distance measurements relative to object snap points (as shown in Figure 7-9). You can also have your cursor snap CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 189 7 FIGURE 7-9 From the “sticky” guides, you can view snap points, angle values, and more. Moving object Snap point identifier Distance screen tip Angle screen tip Dynamic guide Target object to specific points along the guide path, based on a customizable tick value. To activate this feature, choose View | Dynamic Guides ( ALT+SHIFT+D). Dynamic guide behavior works in combination with your selected Snap To Objects modes (see “Setting Snap Behavior” earlier in the chapter), but has a unique set of options that control their behavior. To access these options (see the following illustration), choose Tools | Options ( CTRL+J), and click Dynamic Guides under Workspace in the tree directory. Ill 7-11 Here’s how choosing each option will affect the behavior of your dynamic guides: ● Dynamic Guides On Click this check box to turn dynamic guides on or off. ● Angle Screen Tip Choose this to display angle values relative to snap points on your object. ● Distance Screen Tip Choose this to display the distance between your cursor position on a guide and the current snap point. Unit measure is based on your currently selected drawing units. 190 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide ● Snap To Ticks This option offers to snap your cursor position to points along the guide according to the value you enter. ● Guides This area opens up a whole world of possibilities for angles at which dynamic guides appear relative to the active snap point. Clicking a check box activates each of the default angles, which are preset at from 0° to 150° (in 15° and 30° increments), for a total angle of 180°, which effectively covers all possible angles, because Dynamic Guides appear bi-directional. The angle of each guide is displayed in the Guides Preview window on the right of the dialog. Enter a degree value in the num box above the list, and click the Add button to add a new guide. To remove a dynamic guide, click a guide either in the list or in the preview window, and then click Delete. When a new guide is added, it appears in the list; conversely, when you delete a guide, it’s permanently removed from the list. ● Extend Along Segment Choose this to display a guide at the same angle as straight line segments. This option is useful for Bézier and freehand drawing because this makes it easy for you to add new portions to straight lines at a constant angle (as shown in Figure 7-10). Figure 7-11 shows a logo nearing completion by setting up dynamic guides at 45° increments. Using the Pen tool, the dynamic guides (set to snapping) show exactly when the tool has reached a 45° angle as well as a 90° angle. Try this feature for yourself; this illustration was accomplished using 25 clicks—precision has seldom been achieved so easily. CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 191 7 FIGURE 7-10 The Extend Along Segment option is useful for both Bézier and freehand drawing. New node and portion added at constant angle using Bézier tool Dynamic guide New nodes Distance value Angle value Angled line Controlling the Guides Layer Guides belong to a special layer, named Guides on the Object Manager, reserved just for these assistants. To view the layers in your document, open the Object Manager by choosing either Tools | Object Manager or Window | Dockers | Object Manager, and then click the Layer Manager View button at the top of the docker. The Guides layer is a Master Page layer; you’ll find it with other layers controlling your Desktop and Grid. By default, all guidelines on the Guides layer are set as Visible, Non-Printable, and Editable. If you want, 192 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 7-11 Use dynamic guides to assist in alignment and drawing when rulers don’t suit the assignment. you can change any of these by clicking the symbols to the left of the Guides layer in the Object Manager docker, as shown here: Ill 7-12 To set all options for a layer at once—including the display color of objects on the Guides layer in the Object Manager docker—right-click the layer name, for example, the Guides layer, and then choose Properties from the pop-up menu. Doing this opens the Guides Properties dialog to reveal further options. Make an Object a Guideline Where a straight or slanted guideline doesn’t get you where you want to go, you can make almost any drawing shape into a guideline; going the other way around, you can also turn a guide into a drawing object. To do this, you use the Object Manager docker to move objects between layers. Moving any object to the Guides layer makes for all intents and purposes a guideline, with all the same properties as a typical guideline, except you might call it a guide-curve or a guide-spiral! After an object becomes a guideline, objects and anything you draw in its proximity snap to it, as long as the Snap To Guidelines option is active. Think of the artwork you can clean up and refine when you’re tracing over the original with a drawing tool that snaps to the original. Moving any guideline to a different layer automatically makes it a printable object. To move an object to the Guides layer, use these steps: 1. Create or select at least one drawing shape that you want to use as a guideline. 2. Open the Object Manager docker by choosing Tools | Object Manager. 3. Expand the tree directories in the Object Manager docker to locate both the Guides layer on the Master Page and the shape you want to make into a guideline, so both are in view. CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 193 7 Click to expand Master Page layer. Visible option Non-Printable option Editable option Show Object Properties Layer Manager View Edit Across Layers . bi-directional. The angle of each guide is displayed in the Guides Preview window on the right of the dialog. Enter a degree value in the num box above the list, and click the Add button to add a new guide. . click the guide to confirm the guide is “in focus” in the interface, and then press DELETE or CTRL+X. When a guide is selected, you’ll see an onscreen confirmation before you delete it the guide. vertical guide you click-drag it to reposition it. See Figure 7-8, where the design needs cartoonish shafts of light 186 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 7-8 Make your guides perform at the