Developing Good Layout Habits With CorelDRAW

8/10/2019 Developing Good Layout Habits With CorelDRAW

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Developing Good Layout Habits with CorelDRAWBy Steve Bain

Recently, we showed you how to improve your brochure or newsletter layougreat CorelDRAW features. There are good and bad ways to build a layout,

making a project look pretty does not guarantee its success. In this tutorial,

some layout and design habits that you should avoid, and we'll look at the sapply with CorelDRAW.

Avoid Over-Hyphenating Text

When you format text, you can apply a justified paragraph text alignment bfrom the Horizontal Alignment option on the Property Bar (see below). The f

and word spacing can be distracting, however, if your columns are narrow atext font is large, or if your text includes longer-than-average words. You ca

problem in one of two ways.

First, start by activating the text hyphenation feature in CorelDRAW. To do ttext frame, open the Format Text dialog (Ctrl+T), select the

Paragraph tab, click the Hyphenation Settings button, and choose the AutomHyphenation option (see below).

Hyphenation can improve the appearance of justified text and often compres

efficiently. The example below shows highlighted text that was drastically imby activating the hyphenation feature in CorelDRAW at default settings.

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If certain words in your text still appear awkwardly spaced after you activate

you may need to make localized text adjustments to improve readability. Adzone value of your hyphenation settings can often help. This is the zone at t

in which words are eligible for hyphenation.

Adjusting the hot zone can be a useful strategy, but it involves certain trade

the hot zone gives the hyphenation engine in CorelDRAW more freedom to h

excessive hyphenation detracts from the appearance of text. Reducing the hslightly in specific areas of text can sometimes help avoid instances of poorexample below shows how increasing the hot zone in a hyphenated paragra

readability.

The second way to improve the appearance of justified text is to adjust the

character spacing values by changing the justification settings in CorelDRAWthese options (see below) by clicking the Settings button in the Format Text

becomes available after you choose Full Justify or Force Justify.

The example below shows the effect of reducing the Maximum Word Spacingactivating hyphenation for a justified paragraph.

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Fixing Widows and Orphans

Solitary words in the first line of a column frame or in the last line of a parag

referred to as widows or orphans. They can create distracting white gaps insmoothly flowing text. If you don't have the option of editing the text, you c

and orphans during the layout. You can eliminate the unwanted gaps causedorphans by adjusting the kerning properties to slightly increase or decrease

text lines. Kerning enables you to adjust the space between certain letter cowithout affecting the normal character and word spacing. With CorelDRAW,

kerning in 5 percent increments by using the Range Kerning option in the Fo

(see below).

By adjusting kerning, you can lengthen or shorten your text without significa

readability. You can use the Text Tool to select text and then use the followi

shortcuts to adjust text kerning:

Increase range kerning by 5 percent Ctrl+Shift+>

Decrease range kerning by 5 percent Ctrl+Shift+ Change Case, and choose a characte

Once the case has been corrected, you can use size and style to emphasize

emphasize your text.

Choose Your Fonts CarefullyThe font you choose for your text profoundly affects the attractiveness and l

layout. Select a body text font with as many style variations as possible so t

most of your layout needs. You can use the same font for body text and heathere's no law against mixing fonts. Just don't go overboard.

In most designs, two text fonts are sufficient to use for all of the necessary

functions. If you plan to use text for graphic purposes, you can use a third fthe mistake of using multiple fonts in an attempt to make your layout more

many fonts actually detract from the appearance of your layout, as shown inbelow.

Avoid the Razzle-Dazzle TemptationCorelDRAW is a powerful drawing tool capable of creating great layouts, buteffects that you can apply to text may do more harm than good to the reada

document. Rotation transformations and character stacking are two effects t

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inexperienced users often overuse in an attempt to add "wow" to their brochnewsletters.

Using slanting or rotating words and applying text to a path are both great o

illustration, but they often reduce text readability in a layout. Text in English

read upright, from left to right and from top to bottom. The examples belowreduced legibility of rotated text characters. Do your audience a favor: avoid

of using these effects to dress up a layout.

Pay Attention to Spacing

The vertical spacing above and below headings and text is called leading. Cogives your layout a professional touch. You can find the spacing controls by

Paragraph tab of the Format Text dialog.

If you're measuring your layout in picas and points, you can change your uni

points from the CorelDRAW default setting (% of Char. Height). This enablesyour spacing settings on specific point values rather than on the default perc

The default leading value in CorelDRAW is roughly 20 percent of the charactcan add excessive space when the size of the text font is larger than 6 point

traditional layout is typically one point larger than the size of the text font. Tbelow shows 14-point paragraph text with the default (20 percent) line spaci

same font size with 15 points of leading.

The Before Paragraph and After Paragraph spacing settings enable you to se

between your body text and headings. Between body text paragraphs, the Bvalue should match your leading for text, and the After Paragraph space sho

(zero). When formatting space between text and headings, choose spacing v

the vertical text settings in your layout grid, so that text aligns across columwhere headings fall. The example below shows spacing between a heading a

text that has been formatted to align to the layout grid.

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Your aim should also be consistent vertical and horizontal spacing between

and column gutters. Layout grids provide the best solution for applying consispacing between elements. A grid can also help you align content horizontall

columns and pages. Use consistent text leading and paragraph styles to esta

spacing between headings, subheadings, and text.

In CorelDRAW, you can use guideline presets to create a custom layout gridlayout elements (like the one shown in the previous example). To create a c

follow these steps:

1. Click View > Guidelines Setup to open the Options dialog.

2. From the tree directory, choose Guidelines > Presets.

3. At the top of the pane, select the User Define Presets mode.

4. At the bottom of the pane, choose the Grid option.

5. Enable Spacing, and enter a value in the Vertical box (see below), and cli

6. To view the grid, choose View > Guidelines.

Be sure that the grid spacing value you set in the Vertical box exactly matchleading (indicated by the line spacing value) of your brochure or newsletter,

quickly and precisely align your layout elements. Once you set the lines in yare visible, use the Snap to Guidelines option in CorelDRAW (View > Snap to

that your layout elements easily snap to the grid.

Align Text Consistently

If you choose a general alignment theme for your layout such as a flush left,

centered, or justified, use it throughout your pages. For example, if you choalignment for text headlines, apply this alignment to the text on all pages -from one style to another. Changing alignments can make it difficult for read

layout between pages (see the example below).

Emphasize with Italics, Not UnderliningAnother hand-me-down from typewriter days is the underlining of text for e

digital fonts provide the better alternatives of bold and italic styles. Avoidingparticularly critical if your layout is destined for the Web, where underlined t

signifies a hyperlink. The example below shows how italics can be even mor

underlining.

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Use Indents and Tabs, Not SpacesEven though your computer is not a typewriter, some users continue to type

characters after every period. This is another habit to kick. Digital fonts areenough space to separate sentences, so a single space is all you need. Extra

small, but they are certainly noticeable, as shown below.

You should also stop typing spaces or tab characters at the beginning of eac

to create first-line indents. Using spaces or tab characters prevents you from

paragraph formatting to set indents automatically. CorelDRAW enables you tindents by using the Paragraph tab of the Format Text dialog (see below). T

spacing, click to select your paragraph text, and click the Format Text buttoBar (or use Ctrl+F). In the Indents area, type a value in the First Line box.

When working with tabular text formatted in rows and columns, use tab cha

of spaces. Spaces seldom align text vertically in table columns. Tabs can befour different types (left, right, center, and decimal), and they can be precis

using the tab options in the Format Text dialog, or by moving the onscreen twhen your Ruler is displayed. Our example below shows table text selected

displayed in the on-screen Ruler.

Incorrect tabbing can cause hours of headaches, which makes this another h

pressing the tab key doesn't align the text, move the tab marker rather thantabs and/or spaces.

Speed Up Text Screen DisplayThis last round of advice has more to do with productivity than layout, but it'nonetheless. If your system is slow when rendering large amounts of text in

or newsletter layout, CorelDRAW can help. You can drastically cut text-rende

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using the greeking option in CorelDRAW. Greeking uses black lines to approxtemporarily, which enables your screen to redraw itself much faster. During

resumes its normal display, as shown below.

You'll find this option in the Text pane of the Options dialog (see below). By

CorelDRAW is preset to greek text 5 pixels and smaller. As a result, your vieand screen resolution determine whether greeking is applied. If your layout i

you can beef up your display speed and your productivity by doubling or tripl

You can also speed up screen display by deactivating the automatic spellingCorelDRAW. By default, while the Text Tool is selected, CorelDRAW checks t

text in a selected text frame automatically and displays any errors detected.

You can temporarily disable the automatic spelling checker. Choose Tools >

click Text > Spelling in the tree directory of the Options dialog and disable tAutomatic Spell Checking option.

While automatic spell checking is deactivated, you can always check the spelby choosing Text > Writing Tools Spell Check (Ctrl+F12). Just be sure to tur

feature back on after your layout stage is complete.

We've revealed plenty of issues that can affect the presentation quality of anewsletter. By using the features available in CorelDRAW, and by paying att

and adopting up-to-date publishing techniques like those covered here, you'l

way to producing excellent layouts.

Steve Bainis an award-winning illustrator and designer, and the author of nbooks, including CorelDRAW: The Official Guide.

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Developing Good Layout Habits With CorelDRAW