Teach Yourself
CorelDRAW 8 in 24 Hours
There are two main drawing tools in CorelDRAW: the Freehand tool and the Bézier tool. The Bézier tool is named after a French engineer who developed a system of mathematically generated curves.
The Bézier tool behaves differently than the Freehand tool by creating curves composed of many line segments. In Hour 1 you learned to create multisegmented lines using the Freehand tool, but it was necessary to double-click each time you wanted to add a node. The process of creating multisegmented lines with the Bézier tool is much easier, as you will see in this lesson.
The real power of the Bézier tool comes from drawing smooth curves. Just like your experience with the Freehand tool in Hour 8, you'll find that wielding the Bézier tool to draw curves is awkward and challenging. However, just like designs drawn with the Freehand tool, you can easily move nodes around to adjust the curves you draw.
One of the fun things you can do with the generated curves is use them as paths for text. In Figure 9.1, I fit text to a curve and then delete the curve.
You can fit text to a curve and then delete the curve.
In Figure 9.2, you can see how Paul Mikulecky used parallel Bézier curves in the background of his illustration, combined with text fit to a curve.
Paul's Trail's End logo combines parallel Bézier curves and text fit to a curve.
Nobody can draw nice, smooth freehand drawings with the Freehand tool. As you have already seen, the goal is to create a rough sketch and then enhance that by editing node location.
The Bézier tool makes it easier to draw more detailed sketches. You can draw straight lines with the Bézier tool by clicking once, and then clicking a second time. The result is a straight line between the two nodes.
If you want to finish drawing a Bézier curve and start a new one, you can press the Spacebar twice.
In Figure 9.3, I used the Bézier tool to trace the lizard.
The Bézier tool is useful for tracing because it's easy to add nodes to curves.
You can edit nodes while you add line segments with the Bézier tool. Just hold down the Alt key and edit existing nodes. In Figure 9.4, I'm moving a node.
You generate curves with the Bézier tool by selecting key points and directions for the curve. The key to having fun with Bézier curves is to remember that they can be edited. Bézier curves can be resized and rotated, so don't worry about the size or wavelength of your Bézier curve when you generate it.
Hold down Alt to edit nodes while drawing Bézier curves.
Bézier curves are also not the way to draw a complex shape. To do that, define the rough outline for the shape or curve, and then edit nodes. In Hour 10, "Editing Shapes and Curves," you'll learn to edit the curve nodes so that you don't need to worry about when you generate Bézier curves.
The most commonly used Bézier curve is a basic wave. Waves are easy to edit, but it's helpful when you create them to make them symmetrical. One way to do that is to utilize the Snap to Object feature to locate wave nodes that are evenly spaced.
Step one in drawing a symmetrical Bézier curve.
Finishing a wave-like curve.
Just A Minute: After you create a wave-like curve, you can rotate it 45 degrees or 90 degrees. You can compress it to make the curves steeper or stretch it to make the curve smoother. You can flip the curves horizontally or vertically, and match them next to each other. (See Figure 9.7.)
Many ways to use a wave.
You can edit an existing Bézier curve with either the Shape tool or the Pick tool. Resizing a curve with the Pick tool has a different effect than moving nodes with the Shape tool. Experiment with both. Resizing with the Pick tool creates less radical changes in the curve structure. Moving nodes with the Shape tool radically reforms the curve. However, if you create a symmetrical curve (using my "in a rectangle" trick), that symmetry will be maintained as you reshape your curve with either the Pick or the Shape tool. In Figure 9.8, I'm using the Pick tool to compress the curve.
Figure 9.9 shows the more radical change produced by using the Shape tool to compress the curve by dragging in on a node.
You can further expand your wave options by copying waves and organizing them into parallel lines or placing them next to each other to create continuous waves.
You can use a shape or path that you create as a baseline for text. In Figure 9.10, I've taken the text "Trail's End" and fit it to a path.
There are two options for fitting text to a path. You can type the text directly on a shape or curve or you can take existing text and apply it to a curve.
You can preview the changes you make to a curve before you release the mouse button.
Use the Shape tool to radically revise your curve.
To type text on a path, the first step is to create the shape or curve to which you will be fitting the text. The path can be any shape, but you should size and edit the shape or curve before you apply text to it.
Text fitted to a Bézier curve.
Then, with the shape or curve selected, choose Text | Fit Text to Path from the menu bar. When you do that, the Text Property bar becomes active. Select a text font and size (and other text attributes) from the Text Property bar.
After you assign text properties, start typing. Your cursor automatically attaches to the shape or curve you selected. The text appears centered on top of the shape or curve you selected, as you see in Figure 9.11.
Typing text on a shape.
Your text might not end up exactly the way you want it to look in relation to the curve or shape. You have many options for changing the position of your text, which you'll learn them in the section "Align Text on Paths," later in this hour.
You can type text directly on a shape or curve, but you can also attach existing text to a path. All you need is text and a curve or shape.
With text and curve objects selected, I am ready to fit the text to the curve.
In Figure 9.13, my text does not fit on the path well, but the Property bar has appeared that will let me fix it. When you select text fitted to a curve, a Property bar appears with buttons that help you adjust the text. In the next section of this hour, I'll show you how to use those tools to adjust your text so it fits better on your curve.
This text needs to be realigned on the path using the Property bar.
The Property bar that appears when you select text fitted to a path provides several options--such as centering your text on the curve--for controlling the relationship between your text and the path.
When you attach text to shapes or curves, the text sometimes appears upside down or on the wrong side of the path. That's what happened in Figure 9.14.
You can move text from one side of a path to the other by selecting the fitted text and then clicking on the Place Text on Other Side button in the Property bar.
After you place the text on the proper side of the path, you can choose from one of four Text Orientation options from the first pull-down menu in the Property bar.
Just A Minute: Select an Orientation option before you start worrying about the placement and alignment of your text. Different orientation styles will sit differently on your path, and you can determine how you want the text to display before you align it.
Don't turn the book upside down! This text needs to be placed on the other side of the path.
The four Orientation options display when you select your fitted text and pull down the first menu in the Property bar. You can see these options in Figure 9.15.
Text Orientation options require experimenting; you can't tell what they will look like from the drop-down menu.
With your fitted text selected, choose one of the Orientation options. These options have different effects, depending on the text size and font you select and the path to which you apply text. So experiment with all them until you see which one works best for your text.
After you decide on a Text Orientation, you can define the vertical and horizontal alignment of your text in relation to the path. The Vertical Placement drop-down list offers different options depending on the Text Orientation you selected. For simple Text Orientation (the first option in the Text Orientation list), you can align text above or below the path and use "in between" options as well. Other Text Orientation options only enable you to place text on top of a curve. In Figure 9.16, I'm moving text below my curve.
Some text works beneath a path.
With Text Orientation and Vertical Placement selected, you can use the Text Placement drop-down menu to left-align, center, or right-align your text. In Figure 9.17, I'm centering text on a path.
The Distance From Path and Horizontal Offset spin boxes enable you to fine-tune the relationship between your text and the path to achieve just the effect you want. The Distance From Path defines vertical spacing. You can move your text above (with positive values in the box) or below your path.
The Horizontal Offset spin boxes enable you to shift text right or left along your path. In Figure 9.18, I shifted the text to the right of center with a positive value in the Horizontal Offset box, and I increased the space between the text and the path by entering a positive value in the Distance From Path box.
Text centered on a path.
The fun starts when you fine-tune the relationship between fitted text and its path.
As if the Property bar didn't offer options enough for fitted text, you can transform the look of your fitted text by editing the resulting objects. The following list provides you with some techniques to experiment with. Begin by deleting the path, leaving just the text, as I've done in Figure 9.l9.
After you fit text to a path, you can delete the curve or shape to which the text was fitted.
Just because you have fitted text to a path doesn't mean you can't apply the shaping techniques you learned in Lesson 8.
You can use the Bézier tool for drawings that the Freehand tool doesn't handle well--including outlining objects and drawing waves. Drawing curves with the Bézier tool is not intuitive. Instead of drawing the curve itself, you generate calculated curves by placing nodes and drawing control lines that determine the height of the curve.
You can fit text to curves you design with the Bézier tool or to any shape. Fine-tune fitted text to create interesting effects.
When you kern individual characters with the Shape tool, you can move apostrophes (' )to spaces above characters and off the fitted path.
In this workshop, you add Bézier curves to the background of the restaurant logo you designed in Hour 8.
Paul's restaurant illustration uses Bézier curves and text fitted to a shape.
© Copyright, Macmillan Computer Publishing. All rights reserved.
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