Start and open drawings

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CorelDRAW lets you start a new drawing from a blank page, a template, or 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 information about starting a drawing from a template, see To start a document from a template. For more information about creating and using templates, see Templates.

Notes for starting new drawings

When starting a new drawing, CorelDRAW lets you specify page, document, and color management settings. You can choose from a list of preset settings, which are based on how you intend to use the drawing. For example, you can choose the Web option if you are creating a drawing for the Internet, or the Default CMYK option if you are creating a document destined for commercial printing. However, if the preset settings are not suitable for the drawing that you want to create, you can also customize the settings and save them for future use.

Notes for opening existing drawings

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 that you can import into 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 such as keywords, file names, and text entries outside the drawing window — for example, in the Objects and Object Data dockers. To display text correctly in the drawing window, you must use encoding settings. For more information, see Display text correctly in any language.

If the drawing you are opening contains an embedded International Color Consortium (ICC) profile, the embedded color profile remains the document’s color profile. For more information, see About color management.

You can search for drawings by different criteria, such as filename, title, subject, author, keyword, comment, text within the file, and other properties attached to the file. For more information about searching for files, see the Windows Help. For more information about browsing and searching for content, see Find clipart and other images with the CONNECT Content docker.

You can also display previous versions of a drawing.

To start a drawing

 

You can also
Change the unit of measurement for the page	Choose a unit of measurement from the Drawing units list box.
Change the page size	Choose a page size for the drawing from the Size list box or type values in the Width and Height boxes.
Change the page orientation	Click one of the following page orientation buttons: • Portrait • Landscape
Choose a page viewing mode for the drawing	Click one of the following buttons: • Single Page View — to view one page at a time • Multipage View — to view all pages Tip: • To set the default page viewing mode for new drawings, click Tools Options CorelDRAW General, click the Page View mode you want, click Save as Default, and click OK.
Set the number of pages	Type a value in the Number of pages box.
Set the default color mode for the document	In the Primary color mode area, enable one of the following options: • CMYK • RGB
Set the resolution for effects that will likely be rasterized, such as transparency, drop shadow, and bevel effects	Choose a rendering resolution from the Resolution list box.
Choose an RGB profile for the drawing	In the Color settings area, choose a default RGB profile from the RGB profile list box.
Choose a CMYK profile for the drawing	Choose a default CMYK profile from the CMYK profile list box.
Choose a Grayscale profile for the drawing	Choose a default Grayscale profile from the Grayscale profile list box.
Choose a default method for out-of-gamut colors to be mapped into gamut	Choose an option from the Rendering intent list box.

When you choose a color mode from the Primary color mode list box, it becomes the default color mode for the document. The default color mode affects how colors work together in effects such as blends and transparencies. It does not restrict the type of colors that you can apply to a drawing. For example, if you set the color mode to RGB, you can still apply colors from a CMYK color palette to the document.

The primary color mode also specifies the default color mode for exporting documents. For example, if you choose the RGB color mode and export a document as a JPEG, the color mode is automatically set to RGB.

The settings that are displayed in the Color settings area of the Create a new document dialog box are based on the settings that are specified in the Default color management settings dialog box.

If you do not want to show the Create a new document dialog box and prefer to use the last used settings to create new documents, enable the Do not show this dialog again check box.

You can restore the Create a new document dialog box when starting drawings by clicking Tools Options CorelDRAW, clicking General, and enabling the Show New Document dialog box check box.

To create a custom preset

You can delete a destination preset by choosing the preset name from the Preset list box, clicking the button and then clicking Delete Preset.

To open a drawing

 

You can also
Extract an embedded 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	Click the arrow button next to the Views button, and click Extra large icons, Large icons, Medium icons, or Small icons.
Choose a code page	Choose a code page from the Select code page list box. This option is not available for all file formats.
Search for a drawing	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	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 Help.

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.

To open a file you have recently worked on, click File Open Recent, and click the filename. To clear the list of recently opened files, click File Open Recent Clear Menu.

If you have multiple files open, you can navigate between them by clicking Window, and then clicking the name of the file that you want to display in the drawing window.

The features documented in the Help are available in the full version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2021. Some features may not be available in this version of the product.