Squirrelly Guidelines

[Philip Shantz]

This has been bothering me for the last couple of versions (I now have ver 12) and I'm wondering...

WHY when I enter a number in the guidelines setup does the program not set it exactly??? In the sample below the entrys were all written is as, say: 25.75 or 121.5.

What's with the inexact result? And most importantly, how can I make it work correctly? I'm a precise kind of guy...
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/584/guidelines3iv.jpg
Thanks,
Philip

[sallybode]

Under Options (dbl click your rulers) then find either horizontal or vertical guides as you have showm. And enter the number you want, click on add, highlight the number you replaced and click delete. Before exiting your options include the guideline saving under Document so that it will save your settings.

You can exactly place a guideline in the property bar which gives your x and y coordinants just like in AutoCAD.

But you must create a guideline and then you can move it to the exact coordinant.

Or you can line it up to your ruler and correct the slight error it has made.

It isn't AutoCAD but you could maybe get more precision in the add-on IsoCAL. I don't have it as I am no longer a technical illustrator so I have no need for it.

Even with my snap set to high, which I prefer, the snap to rulers isn't powerful enough, but snap to grid is and you can specify what grid spacing you want and then if you have the grid on and you want your guides at a particular spacing, it snaps right dead on the setting for guides.

I hope this helps.

[Philip Shantz]

Thanks. Sally -- (you seem to be the "go to" person on this forum).
I have tried every combination of guideline entering (numerically in the "add" box and manually on the ruler), and every combination of grid coordinates and snaps and drawing precision parameters and still get the results outlined in my original post.

If you have a minute or two next time you're in Draw, try this:

In a new document, set units to inches, edit the scale to: 1 inch "page distance"= 16 inches "world distance".
Then set guidelines at 0, 16, 20.5, 25.75, and 30.25.

Do you then get the same readings I do in the guidelines setup screen? (0, 16, 20.50003, 25.74998, and 30.25002)

And why might this quirk be happening?
Philip

[Grafixman]

I tried what you said and got the same thing. The numbers are being rounded off. I even set the max. limit for decimal places and still got the figures rounded. Not sure. Maybe Draw computes these things in another unit internally and rounds off the figures when converting? It's not a CAD program, after all.... Close enough is good enough for most designs.... If you have to put measurements afterwards, cheat.... .

[sallybode]

If you know ahead of time that the guidelines aren't accurate, duplicate the vertical or horizontal guideline you snapped into place and under the edit menu, it will offset the new guideline then move it to the correct x & y coordinants by the numbers on the property bar.

If you enable your grid also that will help you. But snap isn't as strong in 12.0 as in previous versions. I have mine set to the highest level.

However if you are interested in accuracy, use your property bar always to determine your height and width of all objects.

I do believe you can download IsoCAL as a trial, it may be for you.

You can also ask these same questions to Foster Coburn of Graphics Unleashed at Unleash.com. He's been using CorelDRAW many more years than I have and maybe able to give you a more definitive answer.

Or you can use CAD. There again your guideline snap to a grid or you specify the x, y and z coordinants. Or you can use Illustrator if you really want to throw up. It is the industry standard. Who decided that I'd like to know.

You can also make custom guidelines which will snap and have all the properties of guidelines, but are really objects: you cut and paste them on the master page layers. Then lock those items that layer if you don't want them to move or turn off the editablity.

There is no magic way of making them either. But you can specify where you want them to go. But they can be made from guideline construction. This method allows you to use shapes for guideline such as curves or elipses.

You can also divide the page by objects, by double-clicking in the box tool, it will draw a box exactly the height and width of the page, by enabling snapping to objects, you can really drive yourself nuts on placement of items but it has it's purposes, as you can use the property bar to multiply or divide for you. For example, if you need a box 1/2 the page width, having made your box, it would be "x/2" being sure the ratio is unlocked otherwise you will get one 25% of original size proportionally. You can also enter 2 1/4in and it will know you mean 2.25". If you forget what your decimal equivalents this is very handy. I often use this method to find the center of my page to set guidelines for an odd sized page I don't feel like figuring the math for centerlines.

Computers are time savers but not mind readers.

Corel isn't perfect but no program is, or to anyone's satisfaction, it doesn't exist. But it comes closer for the money than most.

[Sark]

Corels scaling is rather eccentric. I discovered this when I was using fonts to get paths into Photoshop. Points are a fixed size like inches, or centimeters etc. There are 72 points to an inch. If you have Draws document resolution set to 72DPI, each point matches a pixel. However, if you work in pixels and create an object on the page, changing the units to points should show an identical sized object (albeit in points) in the scale boxes. It doesn't. A 92 pixel object will have a dimension that is something like 91.986 points. This doesn't make sense and try as I might I could never solve the problem. To be fair the errors are insignificant. I can understand the frustration though, as there is no logic to it. That's just Draw for you. As Sally says, all apps have their issues, Draw just has a few more unfortunately.

Sark

[sallybode]

The trouble that plagues me most are two things: fonts that don't stay when editing (I start typing the second letter then go back and delete the first letter) and rotating 180 degrees does so with an offset (when we do business cards with bleeds I set up four up but the cards go top one up, second one down upside down, then third up, fouth down). But when DRAW does this it offsets about 1/4 of an inch. So I now outline my business cards until I am done so that I can realign the cards without the offset. We have a slitter so we have to have them right on when they go to plate. But since I know how to fix it, I can live with it.