Creating and applying color styles

A color style is a color you save and apply to objects in a drawing. Since an infinite number of colors are available in CorelDRAW, color styles can make it easier to apply the exact color you want.

When you create a color style, the new style is saved to the active drawing. After you create a color style, you can apply it to objects in the drawing. You can also delete color styles if you no longer require them.

One powerful feature of color styles is that you can create a shade or series of shades based on a color style. The original color style is referred to as the “parent” color, and the shades are referred to as “child” colors. For most of the available color models and palettes, child colors share the same hue as the parent color but have different saturation and brightness levels. With the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM, PANTONE Hexachrome, and Custom spot color palettes, child and parents are linked to one another but have different tint levels.

CorelDRAW has an Auto-create feature for creating color styles from selected objects. For example, you can import a drawing and Auto-create color styles from an object in the drawing. When you create color styles from an object, the color style is automatically applied to that object so that if you decide to change a color style, the object’s related color will also be updated. For more information on importing files, see “Importing files.”

When you use the Auto-create feature, you can choose to create few or many parent color styles. After you have converted all colors to color styles, you can, for example, use one parent color to control all red objects, or many parents, one for each shade of red in the drawing.

When creating child colors, colors added from a color-matching system are converted to the parent color’s color model so that they can be grouped into appropriate parent-child groups automatically.


To create a color style

CorelDRAW btnbacktotop Creating and applying color styles
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Click Tools CorelDRAW onestep Creating and applying color styles Color styles.
2.
 
In the Color styles docker, click the New color style button CorelDRAW pgx new color style Creating and applying color styles .
3.
 
Select a color from the New color style dialog box.

You can also
Apply a color style
Select an object, and double-click the name of the style you want to apply in the Color styles docker.
Delete a color style
Right-click the color style in the Color styles docker, and click Delete.

CorelDRAW tip Creating and applying color styles

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You can also create a color style from an object or the color palette by dragging a color to the Color styles docker.
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You can also apply a color style to an object by dragging a color from the Color styles docker.

To create a child color

CorelDRAW btnbacktotop Creating and applying color styles
1.
 
Click Tools CorelDRAW onestep Creating and applying color styles Color styles.
2.
 
In the Color styles docker, choose the color style to which you want to link a child color.
3.
 
Click the New child color(s) button CorelDRAW pgx create linked color Creating and applying color styles.
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In the Create a new child color dialog box, specify the settings you want.
5.
 
Type a name in the Color name box.

CorelDRAW tip Creating and applying color styles

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You can also create a child color by typing values in the Saturation and Brightness boxes.

To create a series of child colors

CorelDRAW btnbacktotop Creating and applying color styles
1.
 
Click Tools CorelDRAW onestep Creating and applying color styles Color styles.
2.
 
In the Color styles docker, choose the color style to which you want to link a child color.
3.
 
Click the New child color(s) button CorelDRAW pgx create linked color Creating and applying color styles.
4.
 
In the Number of shades area, type a value in the Create box.
5.
 
Enable one of the following options:
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Lighter shades — creates child colors that are lighter than the parent
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Darker shades — creates child colors that are darker than the parent
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Both — creates an equal number of light and dark child colors
6.
 
Adjust the Shade similarity slider.
Move the slider to the left to create very different shades; move the slider to the right to create very similar shades.

CorelDRAW tip Creating and applying color styles

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You can also create a series of child colors by right-clicking a color style and clicking Create a child color.

To create parent and child colors from an object

CorelDRAW btnbacktotop Creating and applying color styles
1.
 
Click Tools CorelDRAW onestep Creating and applying color styles Color styles.
2.
 
Select an object or a group of objects.
3.
 
In the Color styles docker, click the Auto create color styles button CorelDRAW pgx auto colstyles Creating and applying color styles.
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Enable any of the following check boxes:
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Use fill colors
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Use outline colors
5.
 
Enable the Automatically link similar colors together check box to link similar colors together under their appropriate parent colors.
6.
 
Click the Convert child palette colors to CMYK check box.
If you want to convert colors added from a color-matching system to CMYK so that they can be grouped under an appropriate parent color, enable this check box. If you want these colors to represent separate color styles, disable the check box.

CorelDRAW tip Creating and applying color styles

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If you enable the Automatically link similar colors check box, move the Parent creation index slider to determine the number of parent colors created. To test different slider values, click Preview.

Creating and applying color styles