Operation Manual

110 | Corel DESIGNER X7 User Guide
To constrain an object while drawing or editing
• Start drawing or editing, and hold down the Ctrl key.
If you are drawing or editing a line, the pointer movement is restricted to the specified constrain angle. If you are drawing or editing an
object, the shape of the object is restricted.
A rectangle is constrained to a square, an ellipse to a circle, and a polygon to a shape that has sides of equal length.
To change the direction of a line that you’re drawing, release Ctrl, and move the pointer in the direction you want. Then, hold down
Ctrl again to restrict movement of the pointer to the constrain angle.
To change the constrain angle, click Tools Options. In the Workspace list of categories, click Edit, and type a value in the Constrain
angle box.
To change the constrain key
1
Click Tools Options.
2 In the Workspace, Toolbox list of categories, click Pick tool.
3 Enable one of the following options:
• Traditional CorelDESIGNER: Ctrl = Constrain, Shift = Transform from center — sets the Ctrl key as the constrain key
• Windows standard: Ctrl = Duplicate/Leave original, Shift = Constrain— sets the Shift key as the constrain key
Using object coordinates
You can use the Object coordinates docker to draw and modify shapes and lines with precision. The live preview in the drawing window
lets you see the effects of your adjustments.
You can type coordinate values to specify the exact position, dimensions, and angle of rotation of an object. You can also set object
attributes interactively by dragging in the drawing window.
Drawing rectangles and squares
To draw a rectangle with precision, you can specify an origin point, which is one of nine points in the rectangle (four corner points, four
midpoints, and one center point). If you rotate the rectangle, the origin point is used as the center of rotation. You can also specify the angle
of rotation, and the width and height of a rectangle.
If the angle of rotation is 0, you can specify the position of the lower-left and upper-right corners of the rectangle.
To draw a square, you can specify the origin point, the length of a side, and an angle of rotation.