This video will show you the basics of
working with layers in CorelDRAW. We
will create a 3-page business card
document and design multiple cards while
using the features of the Object Manager.
Some of the topics covered are: Adding
and renaming layers, Adding a master
layer, Understanding the features of the
Object Manager, and 3 tips of when to
use the Object Manager you may not think
of. If you are watching this video on
YouTube you can pause the video and
click on the link in the description
below to go to the tutorial page so that
you can download the base business card
file and a written copy of the tutorial
to follow along. Let's get started by
creating a new business card sized
document. Go to File > New.
For document size, let's choose business
card and click OK. Now I'm going to
import some artwork I already have and
add it to our card, by going to File >
Import and browsing to my file
and clicking Import. If I hit the
spacebar
it'll land right on my page and we can
get started with our modifications. First
let's open the Object Manager. To open
the Object Manager, go to Window > Dockers >
Object Manager. Now let's add 2 blank
pages to this document. You can add blank
pages by clicking on this plus sign down
next to the page and adding a page, or
you can right-click on the page and
click Insert Page After. Another way
is to go up to the Layout menu and click
Insert Page. Let's click back on our
first page and let's get going. Now
we're going to create some layers and
rename them. The first thing we need to
do is select our art and ungroup it.
Select your art and come up to the
toolbar and select Ungroup. Now go
to the object manager and go down to
the New Layer button and click it.
This first layer we're going to make is
going to be called "Name". Let's make
another layer and we'll call that one
"Phone". These new layers are
empty (because you see no plus or minus
sign
here in the layer) so we can drag objects
to those layers. Select our name
and drag it to the Name layer. Now you
see the minus sign showed up
here. Click our phone number
and drag it to the Phone layer, and it's
added to the Phone layer. With these
layers, you can drag them around, up
above and below, and in any order
you need to make them visible, or on top
or below each other. Since we need to
make business cards for three different
employees, using a Master layer for the
company information will work great.
The Master layer contains objects you
want to appear on ALL pages in your
document. In our business card we
want the company information on all
three pages so let's add a Master
layer. Go to the Object
Manager and go to the icon next to the
New Layer icon and click the New Master
Layer icon. We'll add one there and
let's name it "Company". The layer is blank
right now, but click on the company
information, which is already grouped, and
drag it to the Company master
layer on the master page right here. So
now if we look at page 2 and
3 that were previously blank, they
will now have the master layer
information. They won't have the name and
phone number - that's on the first page -
but they have the company information.
Now let's customize our other two cards.
For those cards we need the name and
the phone number on those pages as well,
so let's copy the layers from page one
on to pages two and three. Let me
show you how to do that via the Object
Manager. Anytime you see red on the
layer that means that's the current
active layer. Click on the name
layer on page one,
right-click and choose Copy. Go to
page two, click on Layer, then right-click and
paste. Repeat the same process on
page three. Let's click on that layer and
paste. It adds the name of those
now on page two and three. Let's do
the same thing with the phone number.
Click the phone layer, right-click
and select Copy, go page 2,
right-click and paste. Go to page 3, right-
click and paste. Now we have a copy of
each of those layers on the other two
pages. We can rename them if we want, to
match the first page. Right-click 111 00:04:39,199 --> 00:04:54,590 and choose Rename. We'll call this one phone
and we can rename the other layers as well.
Let's rename these ones as well. If you
click then click a second time, it
lets you type right in there. There
we go, now we have three matching layers
on each of the three pages and we have
an extra layer there but we'll
do a little cleanup later. Now we only
need to edit the text on each of
those layers to make pure custom cards
for each person on each page. Now let's
do the edits to the custom cards on pages
two and three. On page two, click
on the name and that's activating the
Name layer. Click on the name
on the page and go up here to the
Edit Text button and change this
to "Lisa Miles". Click OK.
If we want to edit the phone, we need
to make that layer active. Click on
the phone number to edit it and
change it to end with number two.
Repeat the same process for page three
to get those customized. Click on the
phone number or the name, it doesn't matter
what order you do them in.
If you want them in the exact
order to match the first page, you can
reorder them by dragging them. Click on
the name layer then click on the name text
to edit it. Change this one to
Anne Parks and click OK. Now select
the phone layer to edit it and we
can select that phone number. Tip: if you
don't want to click on the text,
you can instead open the layer
and select it here in
the Layers panel.
Change the last digit to 3 and now all
our layers are customized. Now we can
review all three cards to make sure they
look the way you want. Let's look at
page 1, which is our original card
ending in "1" for his extension.
On page 2 we have "Lisa Miles" and
"2" for her extension. On page 3 we
have Anne Parks and her extension ends
in a 3. Our card is good to go. Now
that our cards are complete and ready to
print, I just want to show you some
features of the Object Manager. If you
need to hide a layer you can do this
by turning it off with this eyeball
icon. This will make the layer invisible
and you can see the minus sign. If you want
to turn it back on, click it again and it
will reappear. If you want to expand a
layer or a group, click on the plus sign
next to the layer and it will show you
the items inside that layer. You can
select items here to select them on the
page as well. If you need to lock a layer,
click on the lock next to the
layer. This will make it so you can't
move it, can't click on it or anything.
To unlock, click it again. A good time to use
the lock layer is if you're going to
manually trace an image that you bring
in, you can lock the bitmap so that you
can manually trace over it and not
accidentally move it as you're drawing
it. A good example in this project: we
could have locked the master layer so
that nothing would get moved. You may
want to import an object or groups of
objects into your design to help with
positioning of other elements. In this
case you may not want it to print. So in
order to do that, just click your Print
icon and it will disable the printing
for that layer. But keep in mind, when
you disable the printing you also
disable the exporting. So if you need
that turned on, turn it back on to export
it. Sometimes it helps to see the object
properties inside the Object Manager. Let
me show you how to do that. Go to the top
of the Object Manager and click on the
Show Object Properties button. It looks
like nothing happened but let's expand
our docker so we can see what's going on.
Now in order to see some details, just
expand the objects on the company layer
on the master layer and it will
expand more so we can see all the colors
and fonts, exactly how it's created.
You can also click on objects without
ungrouping them nicely in here as well.
That's another trick with using the
Object Manager. Another thing is you can
drag layers between pages, so if we
needed a copy of a different phone
number or a different art that's on page 1
and you need it on page 2, or you just
don't want it on page 1 anymore,
drag it down to page 2.
Earlier I said we were going to do some
cleanup to delete layers. We can see
our layer ones are all empty on
our pages so we don't need
those anymore. Select the layer and then
click the Delete icon. There's no
plus sign here which means there's nothing on
the layer, so delete that one as well.
Let's close up our Object Manager and
our file is nice and clean and organized.
Another way to delete a layer is
to right-click on it and delete it.
Another nice thing about dealing with layers
is that each page can have its own
guides layer. Natively the program
creates guides on the master layer.
See these guidelines here, but if you
want guides on page 2 you can drag
it to the guides layer on page 2.
We're on page 2 so we can see it but
if we go to page 3 you can see the
guide is not on page 3. If you do a lot
of work in wireframe you can just
associate a color with each layer.
Click on this black box next to
the name to bring up the color dialog
box, select a color and click OK.
Double-click on the box next to
the phone layer and select another
color. It looks like nothing happened
but if you go to View > Wireframe,
now each of those colors we selected are
now assigned with each of the
objects on those layers. So if you have a
complicated design where you're trying
to discern different objects from each
other this works great. Now it's time for
my three tips about layers in CorelDRAW.
Tip #1: if you create art with layers in
CorelDRAW and you need that art in
PHOTO-PAINT, just export the CorelDRAW
file as a .CPT (PHOTO-PAINT) file.
Choose Maintain Layers in the export
options and those layers will appear in
PHOTO-PAINT, just like you created them
in CorelDRAW. Tip #2: when you
need page numbers on pages, use the page
number function in CorelDRAW with a
combination of a master layer to number
pages in a brochure. Let me show you how
to do that. Go to File > New and
create a blank 8.5 x 11
page and we'll also create a
new master layer in our document.
Now if we go to Layout > Insert
Page Number > On Active Layer (the
active layer is red) it's going to add a
page number. I'm just going to make it big
so you can see it. Now if we add
extra pages to our document, they're
automatically updated for you just by
using a master layer inside the Object
Manager. Tip #3: use the Object
Manager when you're having
trouble finding or selecting an object.
Iside the Object Manager you see
the objects as a list, like a spreadsheet,
with all the objects' properties, like their
colors and fonts, right in front of you.
In order to see those properties, all you
have to do is make sure you click on the
plus signs to expand each of these groups or
layers and you can see all the details
listed right in front of you. If you're
watching this video on YouTube you'll
find a link in the description below
that will take you to our tutorial page
on the Discovery Center. Here you can
download a written copy of this tutorial
and the business card exercise file to
follow along, and find other helpful
tutorials for CorelDRAW.