Show off your Coreldraw Macros.

[Chris J Anderson]

Just thought I'd start a thread for anyone who wants to show off their Corel Macros.

I've been working on this one when time permits, and got it finished today.

This one is great for sizing up jobs to scrap pieces of material.

I must say thank you to Scott Shepperd, for his Trotec thread mentioning about Quicktime on Mac for screen capture - thanks Mate :)

Cheers,
Chris


http://youtu.be/sNUEeC8bMXU

[Chris J Anderson]

And heres another one, for horizontal plates with multiple text positions. This is ideal for electrical labels (which we do a lot of).

We can do multiple plates in one session with this macro.


http://youtu.be/ZiXDlwJ_6Bk

[Bernie Fraser]

Great job on the Macros , sorry have none of my own . Like the way you have it set up with the input boxes , that would make the jobs you do so much easier .

[Chris J Anderson]

Am also working on one to import data from a file while auto creating plates. That might be a while, though its half done.

[Bernie Fraser]

Will you post a video of that one in operation as well Chris ? . The savings in time and the simplicity of operation that can be gained from using a custom written Macro is such a benefit , excellent work . I have not written any but have decided to learn writing Macros so your posts are appreciated .

[Keith Bielat]

The only real custom one I wrote works with the print merge in Corel. I set parameters like material sheet size, if I want cut lines, any spacing between plates in x or y direction, boxes around each piece/plate, etc. After the print merge it will automatically put the imported data into pages ready to send to the laser. I guess it's similar to the imposition printing that is built in, but with my method I get to see everything on the page and can still make edits easily. I wrote it a few years ago, so maybe they have added some functionality in that will make it obsolete, but I still use it on a daily basis. Don't really have a video of it in action, but for me it has saved loads of time. I'd love to write more someday, but a lot of my work is custom pieces, so every job cannot use a template or macro like I wrote for plates.

[john passek]

That is a great Macro, I do hundreds of those same tags and it gets really monotonous typing in each set of numbers one tag at a time.
Good job Chris

[Chris J Anderson]

Heres a sample of importing data from a .csv file.
Its working nicely as is, but I will add multi line ability as time permits.

This saves an enormous amount of time when we get an order for multiple size plates with assorted text sizes etc.

Note with this sample I only had to complete one line on the right side and its ready to send to the laser.

Cheers,
Chris



http://youtu.be/Q-pF3WSMqG0

[Bernie Fraser]

Yes that is good Chris , great job

[john passek]

That is so freakin' cool. I wish I was Tech smart enough to create a macro like this. it would save me so much time and work as I do a lot of that kind of layouts.

[Chris J Anderson]

Have a go John,

Spend some time recording a few simple macro's, and then view the code in the macro editor.

That way you get to see how some of the code works.

You can also save lots of time just by recording macros' and then adding input boxes for variables / dimensions etc.

You just need to take the first step...

[Kev Williams]

Yeah, wish I had time to learn to do something like that-

[Chris J Anderson]

Like I said, just 'record' something really simple, like centering a selection to the page, then to view the code that is generated, just edit the macro.

Would you like me to do a video of a simple macro recording ?

To load the Macro Editor, just press Alt + Shift + F11

Then as always, save settings as default.

NOTE -
1- You need a full version of Corel.
2- You need to choose to install VBA when installing Corel.

[john passek]

I don't have the full version yet, guess I should consider upgrading to a full set so I can play around with macros.
A video would be a great help, something to get started with.
Thanks for all the insight.

[Mayo Pardo]

I don't have a macro to show off but I had an idea for one.
I've searched online and haven't found it created already, so if anyone would like to try creating it, here's the idea.

Enter text in the font of your choice, and the macro will convert the text into a stencil - so that the centers of letters do not fall out when the stencil is cut from your material.
Some options might be to include a rectangular, square, or circular panel around the text group,
make the lines that connect the center of the letters horizontal or vertical or angled,
increase or decrease the width of the parts which weld the letter centers.

This would allow you to make better looking stencils than just using default stencil fonts.