The upper limit for nudge distance is 600 inches, which is fair enough, because, for example, nudging a shape 600 inches to move it is more easily accomplished by simply entering the intended position in the property bar’s X and Y fields (then you press ENTER to apply the move). Nudge distance can be set on-the-fly within the workspace, and Super and Micro Nudge scale apply to the new nudge distance. With nothing selected, set a new value in the Nudge Distance box. Ill 7-3 There’s an easy way to remember some modifier keys. In many applications, CTRL means “constrain,” “to limit”—while SHIFT often means “to add to” or “to extend.” So super-nudging can be thought of as an extension to normal nudge distances (you hold SHIFT while pressing arrow keys), and micro-nudging is a constrained version of normal nudging (you hold CTRL). Specifying Units, Origin, and Tick Divisions for Your Rulers In the fields below Nudge options, you’ll find all the controls for what appears, and where, on the rulers displayed on your drawing page. Here’s how each option controls ruler appearance: ● Units Units are measurement values. Choose a Horizontal unit measure to specify unit measures for all drawing units in your document. To specify different units of measure for vertical ruler and drawing units, click to deselect the Same Units For Horizontal And Vertical Rulers option, shown in Figure 7-4. ● Origin Although you can manually set the origin as described in the previous section, you can also perform precise origin definition using this field. The origin point can be set anywhere from –50 to 50 yards, in precise increments as small as 0.001 inch. ● Tick Divisions Tick divisions are the evenly spaced numeric labels seen bracketing the smaller increments displayed by your ruler—for example, if you are using inches as the unit, the tick divisions are 1, 2, 3, and so on. Tick divisions are automatically set according to the unit of measure selected. For example, standard measure displays a default of eight divisions per tick, and metric measure displays ten divisions. Desktop publishing and printing units such as didots, picas, points, and ciceros display using 174 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide six divisions per tick. The option to Show Fractions is also available and set by default while a unit measure is selected. The top of Figure 7-5 shows two divisions per tick; below it is the standard eight subdivisions; and at bottom, with the Show Fractions check box unchecked in the Rulers area of Options, decimals are now shown for ticks. To set the Spacing and Frequency of your ruler, see “Setting Grid Properties” later in this chapter. Editing Drawing Scales Scale drawing is used when the dimensions involved in drawing actual sizes are either too large or too small to be practical. For example, a world atlas at 1-to-1 (1:1) scale would be hard to carry around, and almost as hard to print. You can set up a drawing scale by first setting the units; click the Units drop-down on the property bar. Then click the Edit Scale button in the Rulers page of the Options dialog ( CTRL+J is the shortcut). In the Drawing Scale dialog, you can quickly apply a scale ratio, or set your own custom scale. By setting CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 175 7 FIGURE 7-5 Choose tick divisions and whether fractions or decimals display on rulers. 2 tick divisions 8 tick divisions Decimal labels for divisions instead of fractions 1 foot to equal a mile (5,280 feet), it’s then simple to draw accurate maps and directions around town. Ill 7-4 The Typical Scales drop-down list includes a selection of the most commonly used drawing ratios ranging from 100:1 to 1:100, with the most common standard measure scales included. When selecting ratios, the first number represents the object Page Distance; the second number represents the real-world distance, labeled “World Distance.” Usually small objects such as circuitry and clock parts are illustrated using ratios where the Page Distance is larger than the World Distance. Conversely, the best setup for a technical drawing of a skyscraper is to set Page Distance much smaller than World Distance. The moment you change either the Page Distance or the World Distance, the Typical Scales selection in the drop-down list turns to Custom. Page Distance is the measured distance on your document page, while World Distance refers to the distance represented by your ruler and drawing units in your document. Settings can be made independently of each other and to different units of measure to a range between 1,000,000 and 0.00001 inches in increments of 0.1 inch. Calibrating Ruler Display You buy a Lamborghini Gallardo (about $200,000); you pull into a gas station, and you want to put Regular in the tank? No. Similarly, you can’t expect precision when you use CorelDRAW on an uncalibrated monitor. CorelDRAW provides a very simple way to ensure what you see on your monitor screen matches real-world measurements. Occasionally, your display might 176 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide not show perfectly square pixels, and as a result, your 5-inch line in a very important drawing might measure 4.88" when you print it. To calibrate the rulers in CorelDRAW to match your screen, to match real-world output, you’ll need a plastic foot-long ruler (clear is better than solid, about $1 at a stationery store), about 30 seconds, and the following steps: 1. In a new document create a 5"-wide square. With the Rectangle tool, hold CTRL (constrains proportions to 1:1), and then drag while watching the size fields on the property bar. If you’re close but not precisely 5", type 5.0 into either field with the Lock Proportions icon clicked (see following illustration), and then press ENTER. Ill 7-5 2. Using the Zoom tool property bar options, set your view magnification to 100 percent. 3. Using your physical $1 ruler, measure the object you created on your screen. If both CorelDRAW’s rulers and your physical ruler agree it’s a 5" square, your ruler display is accurate. If the measurements don’t match, CorelDRAW’s toolbox Options dialog has the fix. 4. Open the Options dialog (CTRL+J). 5. Click to expand the tree directory under Workspace | Toolbox, and then click Zoom | Hand Tools. This displays the Zoom, Hand options on the right of the dialog. First, click to select the Zoom Relative To 1:1 option. 6. Click Calibrate Rulers to display the ruler calibration reference rulers and Resolution options, shown in Figure 7-6. Notice the vertical and horizontal ruler bars that intersect at the center of your screen. This represents your current ruler drawing units. CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 177 7 7. Using your ruler, measure both the vertical and horizontal rulers on your screen to see that they match. If they don’t match, increase or decrease the Horizontal and/or Vertical options using the spin boxes until the onscreen rulers match your $1 ruler. See Figure 7-6. 8. Click OK to close the calibration dialog, and then click OK again to close the Options dialog. Your rulers are now calibrated. Introducing the Indispensable CorelDRAW Grids A page grid is a customizable, by default nonprinting, overlay that extends beyond the printable page onto the pasteboard area at all viewing resolutions and viewing qualities. It’s not only an excellent visual reference for scaling and aligning objects vertically and 178 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 7-6 Clicking Calibrate Rulers displays reference rulers and Resolution options. horizontally, but it also can be used in combination with CorelDRAW’s Snap To Grid option. To make the grid visible, right-click with the Pick tool over an empty area of the page, and then choose View | Grid from the pop-up menu. To modify the Grid, right-click over either ruler or the ruler origin, and then choose Grid Setup. Ill 7-6 Setting Grid Properties You’re going to have a variety of designing needs, which will certainly call for different appearances of grids, which is why they’re customizable. Changing grid-line frequency and spacing is often needed. You can use options in the Grid page of the Options dialog to tailor your grid just the way you need it to appear. To open this page, as shown next, choose View | CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 179 7 Show grid Grid Setup (right-click) Setup | Grid And Ruler Setup from the command menus, or right-click your ruler and choose Grid Setup. Ill 7-7 Use the Object Manager to set all grid properties, including visible, printable, and/ or editable states. Grids are controlled by the Grid layer properties, which is a layer on the master page. To open the Object Manager, choose Window Dockers Object Manager (see Chapter 9). The Grid page’s Grid Lines Per Inch and Inches Apart options for units might look similar, but there’s an important distinction. The Grid Lines Per Inch (“frequency”) option gives you control over the grid appearance according to the number of lines that appear within a given distance. The Inches Apart (called “spacing” in CorelDRAW version X4) option controls the physical space between the grid lines based on distance. Both are set according to the current drawing units choice, and you choose frequency or spacing; choosing both would be impossible. You can also set the horizontal and vertical spacing independently of one another, which is very useful when you have an object such as a tall fluted glass that you want to put etching on. You’d use more horizontal than vertical grid lines, and your design would turn out flawlessly. 180 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide When illustrating or drawing based on a specific unit of measure—such as inches— formatting your grid to match the ruler unit of measure is a smart thing to do. For example, if rulers are set to display inches using a Tick Division of 8 per inch, setting the grid to a Grid Lines Per Inch value of 8 vertical and 8 horizontal lines per inch causes grid lines to appear every eighth of an inch while using a Drawing Scale ratio of 1:1 (actual size). Display Grid as Lines or Dots Also on the Grid page of the Options dialog, you control how your grid appears—either as lines or as dots. By default, new documents are set to the Show Grid As Lines option. However, a design, for example, of a checkerboard might make the grid fairly invisible and as a consequence useless; you’d opt for the display of Show Grid As Dots. Conversely, you’re going to lose a solar system or two if dots are chosen for grids when you’re drawing an astronomy chart (use lines)! Using Snap-To Commands The Snapping feature helps you move a shape to an exact location when it’s close to grid lines, guidelines, and other objects. Think of snapping as magnetism: you hold a paper clip, for example, close enough to a magnet, and eventually it snaps to the magnet. In CorelDRAW you use the Pick tool and Shape tool to get snapping. The Snap To drop-down menu on the property bar is your ticket to defining what snaps to what on your drawing page. Snapping is one quick route to precise manual aligning and distribution of table callouts, symmetrical patterns, and just about any design that requires some regularity to placed shapes. And if you don’t need it, it’s easy to turn off. ● Snap To Grid To have your drawing shapes snap and align to the document grid, click the drop-down on the property bar, or press the shortcut CTRL+Y to toggle the feature on and off. When objects snap to a grid, they snap to the grid lines, and you’ll feel an even stronger attraction when you move an object close to grid intersection points. Ill 7-8 CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 181 7 ● Snap To Guidelines Guidelines are covered later in this chapter. To cause your objects to snap to any type of guideline, choose this option from the drop-down list. ● Snap To Objects To have objects snap to and align with other objects, choose Snap To Objects from the drop-down list; it’s faster to remember the shortcut ALT+Z. When objects are set to snap to each other, they can use snap points on either the source (the magnet) or target (the object that’s attracted) object. Snap points are set using options and modes in the Snap To Objects page of the Options dialog (see the later section, “Setting Snap Behavior”). ● Snap To Page When you want to draw an object that’s aligned perfectly to any edge of the drawing page, use this Snap To option. Snap To Page is also great for snapping an existing object’s edge or corner to the edge of the page. ● Dynamic Guides This feature in CorelDRAW X5 is akin to object snapping. Press ALT+SHIFT+D, or use the drop-down menu to toggle the dynamic guides on or off. This feature is covered in detail in the next section. Snapping To It 1. You have a web page to design, with six 1-inch squares (three across, two down), with a ½-inch space between them. Don’t get out a pocket calculator, and don’t resort to colorful language—at their defaults, Snap To Grid and Snap To Objects make this task go like a charm. Enable Snap To Grid and Snap To Objects from the Snap To drop-down list and make sure Grids are turned on. 2. With the Rectangle tool, begin close to a grid intersection, and then drag down and to the right until the property bar tells you either the height or width of the rectangle is very close to 1". Release the mouse button when your cursor is over a grid intersection. 3. Choose the Pick tool. 4. Drag the rectangle over to the right until you see one vertical grid separating it from the original square, but don’t release the mouse button yet. One space is on each side of this line, and together they represent half an inch. 5. Right-click while the left mouse button is still depressed, and then release both buttons to drop a copy. What you’ve done is duplicate the original square to a new position. This is an important, quick technique for duplicating shapes. 6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to build the array of evenly spaced squares, as shown in Figure 7-7. Notice that when an object’s edge is on, or even close to, the grid when Snap To is turned on, you’ll see a tiny blue label indicating the snap-to point. You’re not limited to shape edges as the origin of a snapping point; setting behavior for snapping origins is covered later in this chapter. 182 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide Snapping behavior isn’t limited to the grid. In fact, you don’t even have to have the grid turned on to snap objects to one another; press ALT+Z and then all your objects are sticky. Setting Snap Behavior On the Snap To Objects page of the Options dialog, you can control snapping behavior in precise detail when moving and drawing lines or objects. You choose Tools | Options ( CTRL+J), click to expand the tree directory under Workspace, and then click Snap To Objects. The Snapping Radius feature requires that you have a shape and a different object (or guideline or grid intersection) to which it snaps. Proximity to the “magnetic” snapping object is important—you can’t have an object snap to a different object that is miles away. However, in the Snap To Objects page, you have control over the strength of the magnetism, by setting the Snapping Radius pixel distance. To customize snapping behavior to suit the type of drawing you’re building, you enable or disable the following features on the Options page: ● Snap To Objects On Clicking this check box toggles the Snap To Objects feature on or off. You can also do this from the Snap To drop-down list on the property bar. ● Snapping Radius Use this to set snapping sensitivity, based on screen proximity to snap points. Experiment with what works best for you in a specific design situation; CHAPTER 7: Measuring and Drawing Helpers 183 7 FIGURE 7-7 Duplicating and aligning objects makes accurate composition of a design a breeze. . monitor screen matches real-world measurements. Occasionally, your display might 176 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide not show perfectly square pixels, and as a result, your 5-inch line in a very important drawing. and 178 CorelDRAW X5 The Official Guide FIGURE 7-6 Clicking Calibrate Rulers displays reference rulers and Resolution options. horizontally, but it also can be used in combination with CorelDRAW s. a world atlas at 1-to-1 (1:1) scale would be hard to carry around, and almost as hard to print. You can set up a drawing scale by first setting the units; click the Units drop-down on the property