Corel X4 Issues

[Jeff Belany]

Just upgraded to X4 and have a couple issues I hope you gurus can help me with.

First -- when I save a custom page size (for the laser) it works for the session I'm running but isn't there when I next use Corel. Never had this happen in previous Corel versions.

Second -- Tracing. I have done a lot of tracing in Corel 8 (lots of work) Then I used X3 and the traces were great except they made 2 vector lines with black in between (no centerline feature). That makes for a lott of work getting rid of the black and one of the vector lines. Now I have X4 and the traces are terrible. I convert to a bitmap and do a certerline trace. On the 'before & after' view the bitmap looks great, nice and sharp, no gaps at all. But on the after the art is full of gaps and in general lousy. I've tryed tweaking every setting I can find. Am I missing something obvious? I've got a bunch of traces to do and I need to make this work. Hate to go back and use Corel 8. Any help appreciated.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin

[Darren Null]

When I had the trial X4 running it just came up with the last page used when it restarted. I usually work on a laser-sized page called _blank.cdr (which is always in the 'recent files' list anyway).

If you have some traces you need doing, try Inkscape.org (it's free). No centerline, but the trace you get is of much higher quality IMO.

I don't think you could go back to corel 8 after X3...all the 'snap to' tools are missing and those make constructing designs a real pleasure. I have a vintage laptop on my laser machine that can only cope with C9 and it's a nightmare

[Scott Erwin]

Just upgraded to X4 and have a couple issues I hope you gurus can help me with.

First -- when I save a custom page size (for the laser) it works for the session I'm running but isn't there when I next use Corel. Never had this happen in previous Corel versions.

Second -- Tracing. I have done a lot of tracing in Corel 8 (lots of work) Then I used X3 and the traces were great except they made 2 vector lines with black in between (no centerline feature). That makes for a lott of work getting rid of the black and one of the vector lines. Now I have X4 and the traces are terrible. I convert to a bitmap and do a certerline trace. On the 'before & after' view the bitmap looks great, nice and sharp, no gaps at all. But on the after the art is full of gaps and in general lousy. I've tryed tweaking every setting I can find. Am I missing something obvious? I've got a bunch of traces to do and I need to make this work. Hate to go back and use Corel 8. Any help appreciated.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin


Jeff,
For Concern 1 -
After you have made your Page size for your laser table, and this is set to the page size, go to TOOLS then the fourth line down should be "Save Settings As Default". This should save the settings you currently have as the default settings, including page size. If it did not, then you may have to go to TOOLS > OPTIONS > Find Documents on left side of pane > then click on the unchecked box in the right pane (Save Options for Default). Make sure the "Page Options" is checked. (all the other options you have checked will also be saved as your default settings-so be sure they are what you want.) - When you have saved these settings, go back and uncheck the (Save Options for Default) otherwise it will save what you have as your default each time you close Corel.

For Concern 2 -
Try this as an option to see if it helps.
After conversion to bitmap, you should see a tool bar that has a button "Trace Bitmap". Click on this > Select Outline Trace > High Quality
See if this works out better. I think the improvements in X4 from X3 in the trace features is much better, but could be out voted by others.

Hope this helps...

[Bill Cunningham]

I find the center line trace in x4 particularly useful in converting scanned in scrollsaw patterns to vector cut lines.. If it's a complex bitmap that did not consist of lines only, the trace 'will' get very weird..

[Jeff Belany]

Scott,

I'll try the save as default tomorrow when I'm on the laser. As for the trace, I tried the high quality trace and it didn't work any better. What puzzles me is that the before image looks so good and the after image is a mess with many large gaps in the trace. I spent time today doing a bunch of traces in Corel 8. Went pretty well but sure hope I can get the X4 trace to work better since it is one of the main reasons I bought it.

Jeff in northern Wisconsin