Starting and opening drawings

CorelDRAW lets you start a new drawing from a blank page, from a template, or from an existing drawing. A blank page gives you the freedom to specify every aspect of a drawing. A template provides you with a starting point and leaves the amount of customization up to you.For more information about creating and using templates, see “Working with templates.” Basing a new drawing on an existing drawing lets you reuse objects and page settings. CorelDRAW lets you open existing drawings saved to the CorelDRAW (CDR) format as well as drawings and projects saved to various file formats such as Corel DESIGNER (DSF or DES), Adobe Illustrator (AI), Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), and Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM). However, you may not be able to open certain files, depending on their file type and contents. In such cases, you can try importing the files as objects in an open drawing. For information about the file formats you can import in CorelDRAW, see “Supported file formats.”

If the drawing you are opening is from an earlier version of CorelDRAW and contains text in a language different from the language of your operating system, you can choose code page settings to ensure that text is properly converted according to the Unicode Standard. Code page settings help you correctly display text outside the drawing window, such as keywords, file names, and text entries in the Object manager and Object data manager dockers. To display text correctly in the drawing window, you need to use encoding settings. For more information, see “Encoding text.”

If the drawing you are opening contains an embedded International Color Consortium (ICC) profile, you can extract and save the profile. You can also preserve a drawing’s layers and pages.

If you are using Windows Vista, you can search for drawings by different criteria, such as filename, text within the file, and other properties attached to the file. For more information about searching for files on Windows Vista, see the Windows Vista Help. You can also display previous versions of a drawing.


To start CorelDRAW

CorelDRAW btnbacktotop Starting and opening drawings
 
Click Start CorelDRAW onestep Starting and opening drawings All programs CorelDRAW onestep Starting and opening drawings CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 CorelDRAW onestep Starting and opening drawings CorelDRAW X4.

To start a drawing

CorelDRAW btnbacktotop Starting and opening drawings

To
Do the following
Start a drawing from a blank page
Do one of the following:
 
On the Welcome Page, click Quick Start CorelDRAW onestep Starting and opening drawings New Blank Document.
 
In the application window, click File CorelDRAW onestep Starting and opening drawings New.
Start a drawing from a template
Click File CorelDRAW onestep Starting and opening drawings New from template, choose a template, and click Open.

CorelDRAW note Starting and opening drawings

 
When you start a drawing from a blank page, the drawing is based on the default CorelDRAW template.

CorelDRAW tip Starting and opening drawings

 
You can specify different page layout settings. For more information, see “Specifying the page layout.”

To open a drawing

CorelDRAW btnbacktotop Starting and opening drawings
1.
 
Click File CorelDRAW onestep Starting and opening drawings Open.
2.
 
Locate the folder where the drawing is stored.
3.
 
Click a filename.
4.
 
Click Open.

You can also
Embed International Color Consortium (ICC) profile to the color folder in which the application is installed
Enable the Extract embedded ICC profile check box.

This option is not available for all file formats.
Maintain layers and pages when you open files
Enable the Maintain layers and pages check box.

If you disable the check box, all layers are combined in a single layer.

This option is not available for all file formats.
View thumbnail of a drawing
(Windows Vista) Click the arrow button next to the Views button, and click Extra Large Icons, Large Icons, Medium Icons, or Small Icons.

(Windows XP) Do one of the following:
 
Enable the Preview check box.
 
Click the View menu button, and select Thumbnails.
Choose a code page
(Windows Vista) Choose a code page from the Select code page list box. This option is not available for all file formats.

(Windows XP) Choose a code page from the Code page list box.
Search for a drawing (Windows Vista)
Type a word or phrase in the search box.

The search box looks for files only in the current folder and subfolders. To search for a drawing in another location, you must first navigate to the folder where the drawing is stored.
Access a previous version of a file (Windows Vista)
Do one of the following:
 
Click the arrow button next to the Open button, and click Show previous versions.
 
Right-click a file, and click Restore previous versions.

You can access a previous version of a file only if System Protection is turned on.

For detailed information about accessing previous versions of files, see the Windows Vista Help.

CorelDRAW note Starting and opening drawings

 
You can view file information, such as version number and compression ratio. For example, a compression ratio of 80 percent means that the file size was reduced by 80 percent after the file was saved. You can also see in what application and language the drawing was last saved, and you can view keywords and notes associated with a drawing.

CorelDRAW tip Starting and opening drawings

 
You can also open a drawing by clicking the Open button CorelDRAW pgx open button Starting and opening drawings on the toolbar.

Starting and opening drawings