CorelDraw Question

[Steve Clarkson]

Does anyone know a "relatively easy" way to scale text and shapes to a specific THICKNESS (not width)? For example, take the registered symbol (an R inside a circle)......if I start out with the symbol at say 1" in diameter, the thickness of the circle might be 0.002"......if I wanted to scale the symbol until the thickness of the circle is 1/2".....other than manually increasing the size and periodically checking the thickness until I finally reach say a 32" diameter.....is there any other way to do it? BTW, I'm using X5.

And while I'm asking........this might be more of a CNC type of question......but again in X5.....is there any way to measure the length of a line? For example, if I'm vector cutting out a 2" x 2" letter "R".....is there any type of way to measure the circumference of the R (ie. the vector cutting path)?

Thanks!

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Two methods I can think of for your first question on the registered symbol. You could set up some guidelines that are 1/2" apart and then View, Snap to Guidelines. Move the whole symbol so that it snaps to a guideline. Then resize the symbol so it snaps to the other guideline. Second option is to turn on document grid via Object Manager or View, Grid. Go into Tools, Options and set up your grid to be 1/2", Then View, Snap to Grid.

[Steve Clarkson]

Thanks for the idea Mike!

[Kev Williams]

If I understand what you're after exactly, there's several ways I use--
you can add outline thickness with the outline tool, as in hairline (original thickness plus an extra 'hairline' thickness, which is required for vector cutting), or .5 pt, 1 pt, etc, your laser will engrave the thicker version, but within the program the outlines don't change, only the engraved thickness changes-- below is a link to a pic of a Corel screenshot showing 3 rows of 4 circle-R's, with hairline, .5pt added, .75pt added, and 1pt added-- top row shows the 'artificially' thickened versions, 2nd row shows the wireframe screenshots, showing that the "actual" thickness hasn't changed, the 3rd row shows actual changes to line thickness, which I got by using the CONVERT OUTLINE TO OBJECT function within the "ARRANGE" tab; this will convert the artificial outlines to actual outlines- NOTE that when doing this you get the original outlines PLUS the new outlines, so you need to use the BREAK APART tool to un-combine all the outlines, and then delete or move the outlines you don't want--
thickness1.jpg

Another, and usually (for me anyway) easier way to create new outlines is to use the CONTOUR tool-- this allows you to specify exactly how much offset you want, plus it allows you to offset OUTWARD or INWARD, and if you have some thicker outlines, you can add INLINES that will continue to the center. Link to a screenshot below:
contour tool.jpg
Note that I took the left circle-R, which is about .34" tall, and added a .003" that gave me the right circle-R--

Takes some practice to get used these tools, especially using the 'break apart' function so you can keep what you want and delete what you don't want- and BTW, quick keyboard hits to COMBINE or BREAK APART is CTRL-K to break apart, CTRL-L to combine...

Hope this helps...

[Steve Clarkson]

Thanks Kev!

[Glen Monaghan]

Depends on whether you are trying to keep the symbol approximately the same size (in which case Kev's suggestion could work) or simply scale up the symbol until the circle thickness is as desired (in which case Mike's suggestions could work).

If scaling is your preference, you could do a bit of math and simply set scaling amount accordingly. For example, if the circle thickness of a 24pt symbol is 0.02" and you want a larger symbol with 0.5" thick circle, then you want to scale up the symbol 0.5/0.02 or a factor of 25. So, either change the font size from 24 to 24*25=600 or multiply the symbol height and width by 25 (with the aspect ratio locked, click the object size width box so cursor is between the number and unit symbol ('"') and type '*25<enter>', and you will get a much larger symbol whose circle is now 0.5" thick.

You don't even have to actually do the math yourself, since you can replace '*25' with the calculation '*0.5/0.02' and CorelDraw will do it for you. Alternatively, you can click the font size and do the same thing there (click after the 24 and type '*.5/.02' to have CorelDraw calculate new font size of 600).

[Steve Clarkson]

Thanks Glen

[mike calabrese]

Use the interactive blend tool here is a Youtube vid there are tons of Corel tips on you tube
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RseioZE66OU
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VYyuxM71WZM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9aCUQ36bBY
calabrese55

[Steve Clarkson]

Never even heard of the interactive blend tool!!! Thanks Mike!