i need to find the area of an irregular shape

Can you show us the target shape?

Use a macro.

Sub AreaOfShapeSqIn()
ActiveDocument.Unit = cdrInch
MsgBox Round(ActiveShape.DisplayCurve.Area, 2) & " Sq In"
End Sub

it is not a circle or a square 

I ported this to fusion360 and managed but it would be nice to be able to solve it in corel

I still use the old Get Area Isocalc macro. I had to tweak it for CD X7, but it still works just fine in CD 2020.   

GetAreaX7.gms