corel help please

[Bert Kemp]

John Lifer gave me a pattern for a passport holder. Now I'm trying to put stitching holes around the edges. is there an easy way in x5 to do this with out adding them one at at time?

[John Lifer]

Ok, so I was playing with making a holster yesterday. Same issue, the drawing I scanned into computer had dashes that were way too big.

So what I did was to make a .3mm circle, (should be about .4mm for my use actually) place it on one of the dashes, and then ctrl +D to duplicate. I had to grab and place the first one in right spot, but if you hit crtr+D after that, it will space in a straight line at same distance. I'll assume X5 works same way. When direction changed, I had to start over, but it didn't take too long. Other than that, I'd like to know easier way too!

[Paul hardy]

Step and repeat is great for that.

Go to EDIT - Step and Repeat, you'll get a docker that opens. Make your 1st circle the size you need. Select that circle. In the step and repeat docker, make sure 'offset' is showing in the drop down. + horizontal will go to the right, - will go left. + vertical will go up, - vertical will go down. The bottom drop down is the number of copies it will create.

You can do the same thing w/ the transformations docker. WINDOWS - DOCKERS - TRANSFORMATIONS - POSITION. The one real advantage I see to using transformations instead of step and repeat is that you can do 0 copies and it will move the selected object(s) a set distance.

[Kev Williams]

you don't even need a docker.

Choose a beginning hole. Put a vert. or horiz. guideline (depending on which way you'll be copying) in the center of the hole.

With the hole highlighted, hit CTRL-D, then find the copy it made. Now move the copy to where you want it in relation to the first hole, and center it on the guideline...
DON'T unclick the hole or this won't work! (The movement reference goes away)

Now, press CTRL-D-D-D-D-D... each click will copy a new hole exactly the same way as the first copy...

The reason for the guideline is, if you move the hole slightly out of parallel with the original, the copies will place the same distance out of range, and the holes will run diagonally

[John Lifer]

you don't even need a docker.

Choose a beginning hole. Put a vert. or horiz. guideline (depending on which way you'll be copying) in the center of the hole.

With the hole highlighted, hit CTRL-D, then find the copy it made. Now move the copy to where you want it in relation to the first hole, and center it on the guideline...
DON'T unclick the hole or this won't work! (The movement reference goes away)

Now, press CTRL-D-D-D-D-D... each click will copy a new hole exactly the same way as the first copy...

The reason for the guideline is, if you move the hole slightly out of parallel with the original, the copies will place the same distance out of range, and the holes will run diagonally

Dang Kev, Isn't that what I said? No, you described it better than me. But exactly what I was doing. except mine wasn't in a straight line. And it still works the same. you can use keyboard arrows to relocate the last one without interrupting too.

[Gary Hair]

The best, and easiest solution would to use eCut from MacroMonster. It has tons of functions that are pretty useful for lasering, one of which is "LED". Select the shape and distance between LEDs and it places them for you automagically! You can create a custom shape and use it instead, the hole size you want for stitching, for example. For all that it does, it's unbelievably cheap.

[Bert Kemp]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I guess theres several different ways to do it. Someone from corel forum told me about the blend tool yikes I banged my head trying to figure it out. I think most methods using corel assume I have a good working knowledge of corel which I don't LOL so simple is good for me and what John and Kev described is pretty simple, maybe not the best way but it gets the job done.

[John Lifer]

Gary, thanks for the pitch for ecut. I'll take a look at it. And Bert, I'm a novice at Corel too. Best advice is to use it and practice. Btw, I'll hawk Doug Green's youtube videos for quick tips. He has several hundred short videos that are mainly useful for all laser users. A few are Epilog centric, but not many. I've picked up a lot by watching his stuff.

[Bert Kemp]

Corel does so much and since I do at lot of the same things most the time I get good at what I need but then when I do something I haven't done before its like pulling teeth to figure it out.I'm not a quick study.I find I need a blow by blow description on how to do something, I asked about this on the corel forum and heres what somebody told me to do and I "

"Have you looked at the blend tool? Create a hole (circle) duplicate it and then select both circles and use the blend tool to distribute the holes around your sq(uare?)."

OK so if you never even heard of the blend tool and have no idea what it is can you figure out how do do what I want to do with these instructions.
Another person gave pretty good detailed instructions and I still couldn't make it work. COREL DUMMY HERE DUH!!! ok done with this rant LOL . I'm going to buy a 5 hole punch to punch the holes in the leather hahahah.

[Tony Lenkic]

Bert,

This video may help you somewhat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imqputxy9Hs

[Bert Kemp]

Tony thanks now I know how to do that. Now I just have to figure out how many 4mm holes I need to go around and how far to space them. LOL I guess trial and error .

Bert,

This video may help you somewhat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imqputxy9Hs

[Chris J Anderson]

+1 for ecut. Seriously good value for the number of macros in there.

[Bert Kemp]

Like I said Im corel dummy no idea what a macro is or how to use it and I wouldn't buy a program to use once or twice

+1 for ecut. Seriously good value for the number of macros in there.

[Bill George]

I guess since I do not have leather skills, I would look for a plain one already done and then personalize it with your laser. I did the same thing last year for my Grand daughters graduation. Nice like new looking high quality jewelry box and then personalized it. She loved it!

[Bert Kemp]

I did look at some ones online and Tandy has a kit all precut leather. I would just have to engrave and sew it all together. But I still would like to make it from scratch just for the fun and learning to do it side of things.

I guess since I do not have leather skills, I would look for a plain one already done and then personalize it with your laser. I did the same thing last year for my Grand daughters graduation. Nice like new looking high quality jewelry box and then personalized it. She loved it!