Help: making multiple duplicates

[00bolt]

Hi all, this is my first post. I own a small trophy/award store and I use Corel Draw all day every day. I recently upgraded from 8 to 11.

I have one question, not sure if this is possible or not but would love it if it were...

Lets say I use the graph tool and make a large graph of something like 10x10 (100 small boxes)...

I then type something in text.. for example SCOTT. If I break apart the graph I can select the word SCOTT and hold shit and select one of the boxes and align it in the center. But I need the word SCOTT in the center of all 100 boxes.

Whats the fastest and easiest way to do this? Is there a way to make it do it to all 100 boxes? Or is the best way to create a single box (not using graph tool), center in SCOTT and then make 100 duplicates of that?

Problem is I need the boxes directly side by side like it does in the graph and if I do it the last way, it just seems to take a long time... looking for an easier way out as I have to do this numeruous times a day ....

thanks ahead of time

[Grafixman]

Perhaps you could start with a single rectangle, type your text and center it on the rectangle, group them together and drag duplicate it. Ctrl R repeats the action and you could have as many copies as you want by repeatedly pressing the key combination. Or you could use the transformation docker to do the same thing.

[sallybode]

Gman's right, the Transform docker is the ticket, use it allot to do all kinds of impositions. If you are doing this to print on labels such as Avery Label, there is no need, just go Layout/Page Setup and choose Labels. You can in fact create custom labels that will take one name and impose it just the way you want, you make one template, and type your name ONCE! Then if you are printing, which I think you are, go print current page and you will see a lovely imposition all made for you in print preview. Of course, I have a feeling you may have a custom page size but you probably know how to do that.

[00bolt]

Well, I think we might be on right track but still a little confused. Let me try and explain a little better exactly what I am doing.

I own a trophy/award store and engrave alot of little plaques that go on trophies. Sometimes I may engrave 10 little plaques at one time for a small order, or sometimes I may engrave hundreds.

The material that I engrave is a thin plastic, I put that in my engraver and one print I print out the TEXT, then with a second print I print out the box outline (vector print) and it cuts out the boxes. So when Im done I have 10 or 100 seperate little pieces of plastic plaques with engraving on them. Hope this makes sense... Also, my engraving machine has a small margin, so for example if I am making a plaque 1"x1" and I have 4 of them, then the 4 boxes measure 2"x2", I will probably use a material of about 2.5"x2.5" and when it cuts them out, I will have excess that I throw away....

Now, as for the plaques, they are all different sizes.. some of the most popular sizes is 2.75" x .688 But the plaque might be 3.75", 4.75" or whatever length... but .688" height is pretty popular.

Now, if its a small YMCA trophy order for 10 kids, then I only need to engrave 10 little plaques... but if its a big trophy order of like 500 trophies, then I need 500 little plaques. Alot of the time the big orders all same the same wording... but almost all the time the small orders have individual kid's names on the plaques. Something like:

John Smith #23
Mavericks Basketball
Spring 2007

so all 10 plaques will have line 2 and 3 the same, but line 1 will change... if these plates are 2.75 x .688 size and I did a graph of 2 rows wide, 5 deep the size of the boxes would be 5.5 x 3.44... but i would probably make the material 6x4 or something like that....

so I would need a page layout to be 6x4 for this job, but would change for every job I do depending on the number of plaques, sizes, etc...


So now you have a little idea of what Im doing, here is the process I do it, let me know if you can think of a better way to do it.


use graph tool and set the number of rows and aisles I need, draw the box. Correct the size so it matches what I need and each individual box is 2.75x.688 or whatever....

Then I break the boxes all apart. Type out my text, change fonts, sizes, etc to way I like it and group those lines together. I then center that text into the first little box in the top left corner. Then I just duplicate that grouped text 10 or 100 times to fill out all the boxes. I then group it all together and center it in the middle of the page. Then depending on the size of the items, I change the size of the page layout to have about a half inch margin on all 4 sides.

Then I go and change the kid's names or whatever other text I might need to change if needbe, if all plates say same thing Im ready to print...

[00bolt]

Here is an example of a typical layout I might print. I have this layout saved because its a popular plaque size. I then just go back and change the text according to the order (new names, team name, date, etc)

This makes it a little bit easier, because if they needed only 8 instead of 12, I just delete a few of the boxes and go and change the text... center it up in page and change the page size...

but if somoene needs alot like 100+, I have to duplicate all this, then go change the text 100 times... its just a hasel and wondering if there is an easier way to do all this other than way Im doing it...

[Grafixman]

Perhaps something like this: http://www.ob
eronplace.com/draw/tricks/printmerge.htm
Not exactly sure how to adapt it to your situation. Perhaps Sally or others could add their ideas.

[sallybode]

Sometimes the least obvious solution works best, the Find and Replace Wizard can replace text and every instance of the same text string. So you should be able to replace all of the text with just telling the wizard once so long as all the text is in one document.

I ran a test on your file and it works perfectly. Since as you say, you have many different setups, it is easy for you to edit an existing setup with this Wizard, you find it under Edit/Find and Replace/Replace Text. Works for whatever you need to run. I tested it on the name. You need to type in exactly what it is replacing and be sure to match Caps to Caps, lower case to lower case.

As far as how you set up an original page, I'd use the tranform docker, create one setup of how you want the engraving to be including the outer line, then make so many copies horizontally, then so many vertically and you are done. So you click for move and duplicate with the specified offset positively in the horizontal axis (x axis), and negatively in the y or vertical axis. If you need ten down a page, you click nine times. It doesn't matter which you do first, horizontal or vertical, the principal is the same.

Once you find what works for you, easy to do it again. How long does it take to click anyway? CorelDRAW also lets you do impositions in the print preview window. That way you leave a one up set up and then tell DRAW the height and width of the page and how many to impose both width-wise and height-wise.

Once you get the hang of it, it isn't hard at all. And it saves a lot of time. I prefer the transform docker. It is worth its weight in gold. Don't let it intimidate you, you can ask the help file how to do it, and it is easy to learn.

[Sark]

I think your question has already been answered, but to go back to your original post and problem, the following is an explicit step by step approach to achieve your goal.

1...Create a single box with the rectangle tool and type your text and center it in the box before grouping.

2...With snap to object enabled, drag the the box to align it up against itself, but before letting go of the left mouse button click the right mouse button to create a duplicate.

3...Now just keep hitting Ctrl/D (smart duplicate) to ceate further duplicates horizontally.

4...Once you have ten horizontal boxes, select them all and repeat step 3 on all ten boxes vertically then once again keep hitting Ctrl/D to duplicate vertically.

Just another approach. Depends what you consider easiest for your needs.


Sark