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CorelDRAW FAQ

Question. How do I calibrate the rulers in CorelDRAW (adjust their WYSIWYG by hand, so to speak)?

Answer. Tools > Options > Toolbox, select the Zoom Tool and press the Rulers calibration button. This can be used to display the layout on screen at 1:1.

Serge Fateeff

Question. When exporting from Corel to ai a menu asks which Illustrator to convert to (1.1, 88, 3.0) — none of them can then be placed in PageMaker. What can I do?

Answer. It is very simple. This glitch was fixed only in Corel 8. In earlier versions you have to make one simple and effective manual fix. Inside the AI file, on the first line, Corel for some reason appended the word EPS after %!PS-Adobe-3.0. Neither Page Maker nor Adobe Photoshop would accept such files. The fix is simple. Export as AI3 or AI7, whichever. Open the file (say, with F4 :))) and remove all the gibberish on the first line after %!PS-Adobe-3.0. Those programs will swallow the file happily.

PS. Recommended for owners of Corel 6 and 7. Be sure to tick Text as Curve, otherwise Photoshop may refuse a file containing text.

Arcady Przhialkovski

Question. EPS (as well as WMF and AI) exported from Freehand 8 does not open in CorelDRAW 7.

Answer.

  1. Export from FH as AI.
  2. Open in Illustrator.
  3. Save as… AI Version 6.
  4. Import into Corel.

Question. When printing from Corel, some PS files load and load and then die. Is there a cure?

Answer. One possible cause is objects with an outline and the ScaleWithImage attribute switched on. The problem is solved as follows.

The ScaleWithImage attribute can be used, and Draw does everything correctly, but afterwards, once the object has been transformed, you must switch it off and fix the resulting line thickness.

Valdas Vilnius

Question. What is the fastest way to reinstall CorelDRAW?

Answer. It is not as scary or as long as it seems. For the shortest reinstallation time follow these instructions:

  • If you need to keep the palette settings of the current workspace, save the folders Workspace\CorelDRAW8\_default and PhotoPnt8\_default
  • If you need to keep custom page sizes, save the Papers folder.
  • Run ControlPanel>Add/Remove Programs>Corel Uninstall.
  • Run Regedit and delete the branches (if they are still there, of course)
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Corel\CorelDRAW\8.0
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Corel\SETUP_WIZARD
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Corel\WritingTools\CorelDraw8
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel\CorelDRAW\8
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel\WritingTools\CorelDraw8
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel\Conversions\8
  • Reboot into MS-DOS mode and delete the Corel folder. On Windows NT, restart the system and delete the folder.
  • Install CorelDRAW8. Do NOT REBOOT the system.
  • Install the 8.369 patch. Again, do NOT REBOOT.
  • Install the 8.433 patch. Now allow the reboot.
  • Launch CorelDRAW and close it. Launch PhotoPaint and close it.
  • Copy the *.CFG files from the saved Workspace folders. Do NOT copy the *.INI files.
  • Copy the Papers folder.
  • Launch CorelDRAW and check Tools>Options against your preferences.

Serge Fateeff

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**Question.** When opening a file, CorelDRAW quits with a Page Fault error. Can the file be recovered?

**Answer.** This is Corel's advice:

The following errors may indicate a corrupt or damaged file:<br>
"Error Writing X:\\FILENAME".<br>
"CorelDRAW has caused and Invalid Page Fault in Module CORELDRW.EXE".<br>
"This file contains an Invalid Bitmap".<br>
"This file contains an Invalid Object".

To resolve any of these errors, ensure that the latest build of CorelDRAW 7 is installed. To check this, click Help, About CorelDRAW. The latest build is 7.467. If you revision is less than 7.467, contact Customer Service for information about obtaining this update.

"CorelDRAW has caused and Invalid Page Fault in Module CORELDRW.EXE".<br>
"This file contains an Invalid Bitmap".<br>
"This file contains an Invalid Object".

If any of the above error messages are generated, perform the following steps:

1.  Ensure adequate free disk space is available on the hard drive containing Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0. To do this double-click the My Computer icon. Click the drive icon where Windows is installed, and click File, Properties. Ensure that free disk space is at least 100 MB.
2.  Remove any temporary files from the computer. To do this, close all applications, and click Start, Find, Files or Folders. Type \*.TMP, and click Find Now. When the search is complete, click Edit, Select All. Press DELETE.
3.  Defrag the hard drive. To do this, click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. Proceed, even if the message states it is not necessary. For more information about using Disk Defragmenter, refer to the Windows documentation. Note: This applies to Windows 95 and Windows NT Server only.

Recovering a Corrupted File:

1.  Click Start, Programs, CorelDRAW 7, Graphics Utilities, Corel MULTIMEDIA MANAGER 7.
2.  Double-click the C:\\ icon.
3.  Click File, New, Album.
4.  Double-click the folder where the file is located.
5.  Click the file, and click Edit, Copy.
6.  Double-click NEWALBUM.CMM, and click Edit, Paste.
7.  Click the pasted file, and click File, Export.
8.  Click Corel Presentation Exchange 6/7 CMX from the Files of Type list box.
9.  Type a file name, and select a folder to save the file in. Click Export.
10.  Launch CorelDRAW 7.
11.  Click File, Open. Open the CMX file.
12.  Save the file as a CorelDRAW .CDR file.

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I know two Corel 7 bugs that show up when working with the RIP for Ricoh copyprinters. More importantly, I know how to beat them. Similar glitches may occur with other PS readers, so this may be useful for everyone.

1.  When printing, some PS files would load and load and then die. You rework it every which way in Corel and it still won't go. Then suddenly it goes, and nobody knows why. It turned out that if you use Find&replace to remove all lines with the ScaleWithImage On attribute (replace with OF), everything is just fine.
2.  When printing greyscale images on that same Risograph (which is only 300dpi), for a good result it is better to convert grey bitmaps to one-bit ones with diffusion dither. That is what we always did, and in Corel 5 everything was OK. Then we moved to Corel 7, and it began.

    On some such one-bit bitmap pictures a single dot printed heavy for some reason, on others less heavy, and on the rest a dot was a dot — small and pretty.

    We fought and fought and understood. The cause is the excessively high precision of Corel 6-7-8. In Corel 5 the minimum positioning was about 0.08 mm; in later versions it is 1 µm. When you convert an object to a bitmap, Corel 5 gave it dimensions that were multiples of one 300dpi pixel and everything printed OK, whereas the new versions can give the bitmap any size (the size of a bitmap image in length units, not pixels, is stored inside the bitmap itself), taking it from the object being converted. Such non-multiple sizes produced pixels that landed sometimes exactly on the printer's pixel grid, sometimes on a vertical boundary between pixels, sometimes on both a horizontal and a vertical one. A lone bitmap pixel that landed on the boundary between printer pixels printed as two printer pixels. See the picture.

    O — PRINTS CORRECTLY

    OO — bitmap WIDTH is not a multiple of the 300 dpi pixel size

    O<br>
    O — the same, but in height

    OO<br>
    OO — unlucky in both height and width.

    To eliminate this, a macro was written that resizes the object before conversion to the nearest multiple of the printer pixel size, and then converts it to the desired one-bit bitmap. After conversion the bitmap must of course not be transformed.

Edward Ermilin

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Materials from the RU.DTP echo conference were used in preparing this article.