I'm an X3 fan now!

[Scott Shepherd]

I've been working through CorelDraw V12 for a couple of months, and just about every time I ran into a problem, it seemed like the solution wasn't available on my menus. I ordered X3 early in the week and it came in yesterday. I immediately installed it and began going through it.

I went back through a lot of my posts on here and found the issues I was having, and sure enough, the majority of the issues I have asked about are now quite easy in X3. I've only been test driving it for a day now, but I'm VERY happy with the newfound power and features of X3.

The Smart Fill tool and Create Boundary features solve so many minor things that I have to fight to get done.

In the recent past, I had problems with a PDF file, which works properly in X3. I had questions about drawing a radius between objects, which X3 resolves. I had questions about creating an object from various shapes (which was giving me a fit), and the Boundary Tool solved that (Thanks Frank!).

I had problems with logos giving to me by customers. Opened them and used the Trace function and was burning material in minutes. I might add that yesterday morning, I spent 1 1/2 hours looking for a font for a customers logo. Got X3 in, brought the logo in and traced it and was done in minutes. No searching for a font.

I have a lot to learn, but my life just got a lot easier with this version.

Just wanted to share my satisfaction with the features. Might not apply to everyone, but the new features certainly apply to most of what I do on a daily basis.

I'm off to have X3 tatoo'd on my bicep ;)

[Dave Fifield]

X3 is pretty good, but even it still has some things that could be improved. I encourage everyone to tell Corel about anything they'd like "fixed" or features that they would like added. Here's my list:

1. Guidelines - when I want to add a guideline, I type the numbers into the box and hit return, then the darned window closes without giving you the guideline you wanted. I have to type the numbers, and then, using the mouse, click on the ADD button. This is just ergonomically wrong and needs fixing. No matter how many times I try to remember to NOT hit return, I still find myself cursing at this problem all the time....

2. Guidelines - I'd like to be able to type in simple math into the position box (e.g. "4.605-2.03" or "1.0625+0.375") and have it add my new guideline at the "answer" position (i.e. at 2.575 and 1.4375 in my examples). This would save a whole bunch of time messing around with an external calculator.

3. Contouring - I'd like an advanced contour function that does the following - a) makes everything that's currently selected into a single object, b) closes any gaps with straight lines, then c) makes a contoured version of it exactly 0.00x" (where x can be set in a box) bigger and deletes the original object. Right now, I can do this fairly easily using several hot key assignments and a couple of macros, but it'd be far easier if it could all be done instantly by an advanced contour feature.

I have more, but I'm tired, so I'll add them later.

Anyone else have wish lists for Corel Draw X3?

Cheers,

[David Harvey]

Dave,
X3 can do your first 2 wish list items.
1. There is no need to open the guideline dialog to add new guides. To do this just click and drag from the rulers and place it about where you want in the layout. With the guideline selected, it's location will be displayed in the property bar. Click in the property bar location field (x for vertical line, y for horiz. ) and enter the exact location you want the line to be placed.

2. You can do this in the property bar also. Select your guideline and the property bar will display its location. Let say it's a vertical guideline located at 1.5", but you want to move it 3 3/8" to the right. All you have to do is click to the end of the displayed dimension and type in " + 3.375 and hit enter. The guide moves to the newly calculated location. You can also enter fractions, ie. " +3 3/8" [Enter] . What's also nifty is that you could enter the new dimension in ...say metric, ie. "+32mm" [Enter].

I stumbled on this capability when I too was wishing X3 had the capability. Tried it, not expecting it to work, and WOW....it did.


Hope this helps.

[Mike Null]

You can also set them to angles. And duplicate them with precision.

[Larry Bratton]

Yep. We had the same feature in Enroute for precision placement of the guidelines. I don't know if it's new in X3 or not. But I just drag mine to where I am close and then edit for precision.

You can also select the guideline in the object manager and it will open the property box.

[Jerry Allen]

I agreed with Dave's suggestions, but am real thankful to David for his tip.
Didn't know you could do that. Great!

Maybe i can get lucky here.

I'd like to see:
1) Circles be created from a center point and radius.
2) The 3 point circle tool lock after defining the diameter.
2) Fillets/chamfers work on separate objects.
3) An auto-sort routine for the object manager.
4) Better file merge from Excel style files, not the flat field thing it does now.

[Dave Fifield]

David - thanks for telling us about the guidelines tricks - I would never have thought to try it! It works very nicely doesn't it.....you are a star for telling me about this - it will save me TONS of time!! :)

Jerry - for your #1), if you hold down CTRL and SHIFT while you draw a circle, the center point will be where your cursor started out and it will draw a circle rather than an ellipse. You can then edit the diameter (not radius) by locking the x and y dimensions in the toolbar and then entering the diameter in either the x or y size box. Not exactly what you want, but close.

Cheers,

[Jerry Allen]

Dave,
I had been using the Control key for getting a circle but didn't know about the Control +Shift combo. Works great. Thanks!

[David Harvey]

Dave, thanks for the tip on the circle! I didn't know about the shift+Ctrl key either. That will save me some time for sure!

Thanks!

[Jerry Allen]

PS--
Dave's tip plus David's tip gives center and radius if needed, i.e., 2x.75.