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View Full Version : How do you manage art, products, settings, ...?



James Terry
05-28-2010, 3:31 AM
For those of you who have storefronts with items, how do you manage a catalog of items? When someone orders item: 001, how do you know what it is, what substrate to use, what the settings and procedure are to produce it and so on?

I wonder, does Corel have an option to put 'sticky notes' into the art file so you can store those for each?

And then, how do you manage artwork, clipart, the endless numbers of files across art cds and so on?

I am just looking for a method to the madness.

Rodne Gold
05-28-2010, 4:33 AM
Something like quickbooks or most acctancy packages will allow inventory etc where you can comprehensively describe products , create "recipes" etc - Most any databse program can handle the first part.
As for drawings etc - corel does allow you to link to other documents so you can use whatever you want to make notes or link to a data base etc. Just insert a linked object. Apart from that
when you save Corel also allows you to type in keywords and notes - in the save dialog box
As to viewing, romcat is good and its free and it has a search engine - describe your drawing with essential keywords in the save dialog and save as such as well and use romcat to search.

Mike Null
05-28-2010, 5:41 AM
Pretty much as Rodney says.

I save my clipart on my hard drive under the corel version name it came with.

When such art is used for customers I have an alphabetized customer file within Corel with notes as to the specifics of the order.

My settings are saved in my driver and backed up.

I am home based and try to keep inventory to a minimun ordering only as needed except for plastics, metals, badge findings and my basic "go to" plaques. I use on line catalogs from suppliers for customer viewing. One is linked to my site.

I do not solicit retail business and frequently send them to competitors.

Jim Coffee
05-29-2010, 12:56 AM
This is a good question.

What I have done is incorporate the product number into the file name. And if there are attributes to the product, I've tried to make them easy for me to interpret so that after I had opened the file I would know what to do.

I frequently have a scan of the item (or colored image) on my Corel Desktop. So I open the file and see a scan or photo of the product. This visual 'tickle' helps me a lot.

James Terry
05-29-2010, 11:52 PM
I frequently have a scan of the item (or colored image) on my Corel Desktop. So I open the file and see a scan or photo of the product. This visual 'tickle' helps me a lot.

What do you mean by Corel Desktop? Are you bringing this info into the file as a nonprinting layer?

Jim Coffee
05-30-2010, 12:16 AM
Hi James...

Perhaps my nomenclature is wrong. What I mean is that I have my laser work table defined in inches. Outside of the work table (in the margins) anything can be placed and it won't print. So for example if your work table is 12 X 24 inches, outside of this boundary you can place anything; images, clip-art, notes to yourself. View "FitAll" will show everything on the desktop.

Some of my files have 10-20 pieces of clip art in the margin, standing by, so to speak.

Most of my production files have notes to myself to remind me of the details that I was so often forgetting.

And in many cases I have an actual scan or photograph of the item that the file will produce.

A ps to this thread would simply be the thought that scanning is frequently better than a photograph for my purposes.

Yes, layers can be made non printable and are useful. I don't use them, however, for my photographs and notes.

James Terry
05-30-2010, 3:59 AM
I spent more time with Corel. I am slowly learning about the vector side of things. I converted another one of my original ornaments that I had done in Adobe and produced by a vendor into a corel file. Cleaned it up, tweaked some things and got some more time on my table.

So it appears that there is a default layer in a Corel file labeled Desktop. And it appears that you can put things there and it wont print and also wont give you an error telling you that things are visable but not printable.

So I think I'll start using that layer space for notes.

I have also just realized that 3/32 Alder is too fragile for my ornaments. So I guess it's up to 1/8 or 5/32 next purchase.

In tonight's file, I had a different color per layer so I could turn off layers if need be. Somehow when I was cleaning up my cut line curves I accidentally "merged" all layers into just the cut layer. The layers still existed but they were just empty. All the data was sucked into the cut layer. I cannot fathom how I did that when all I was doing was adjusting nodes...

I have yet to understand how folks can actually create art in Corel. So far all I can manage is to import raster and trace.

Mike Null
05-30-2010, 6:31 AM
Spend some time looking at the tutorials of Alex Galvez. I think he does a great job.

http://coreldrawtips.com/site/instructor

Dan Hintz
05-30-2010, 9:41 AM
James,

I'm a fan of never using default anything... default layers can have their names changed (which wreaks havoc with certain macros), etc. Create a layer yourself in a new document, name it something sensible (like "Notes"), and make that the default startup file. You still get all of the benefit, but it's now tailored to what you want.

Martin Boekers
05-31-2010, 4:52 PM
Being on a military base, most of my work is done for organizations.

I have a "trickle down" folder system. Starting with the Command, then Wing, Squadron etc. Then in each folder I have a series of folders, Year and Unit is first inside that folder. I have typically four folders at this level, Awards, Going Away, Special Projects and Logos and Art.

Within a couple clicks I can easily find what I need.

On individuals, I save the file as; name of client (space) name engraved (space) date (05312010) This way it's an easy search to track them down. On these I save in a seperate folder that is the month and year.
This way it's easy to back up.

It sounds like a bit of work, but this system has made my life soooo much easier!

On the groups that are re-occurring awards, in the file I have a photo of a finished award with POC info, pricing, vendor as well as laser settings just outside the page layout. This is great and allows me to quickly email a photo if they want to see what they did last.

I do have one more folder that too is just as important. "product layouts"
When I get in a new product, I layout the template and include photo, pricing, vendor, settings and any info I deam important. These are seperated in folders by product type (acrylic, wood, glass etc)

I stock quite a bit of inventory and in that spreadsheet I have coumns for most everything ;-) even the product location! This is a great help at inventory time as I can sort by what ever column I want to prioritize! The inventory is still a work in progress, but it is workable.

This may not be the best, but it does pretty good for me! I can usually track down a previous job in a couple minutes.

Marty

Mike Chance in Iowa
05-31-2010, 7:10 PM
In tonight's file, I had a different color per layer so I could turn off layers if need be. Somehow when I was cleaning up my cut line curves I accidentally "merged" all layers into just the cut layer. The layers still existed but they were just empty. All the data was sucked into the cut layer. I cannot fathom how I did that when all I was doing was adjusting nodes...

This can happen if you have multiple items selected across several different layers and then "group" them. The newly grouped items will move to the active layer during this step.