In an attempt to automate a somewhat tedious manual procedure, I'd like to create a macro to add small triangle shapes around a variable number of boxes. Before i invest any time into this venture can anyone tell me if it is even possible? FWIW, we're still using CorelDRAW 2017 and have no immediate plans to upgrade.
The number and size of boxes will vary. I want to end up with a small triangle around the perimeter to indicate the through-cut location of each individual box.
Here is an example of what the end result should look like:
And here are the specifications for desired triangle shape and location:
I think that's certainly possible, but the complexity might depend on the variety of content with which you want to work.
1 - The rectangle carrier shapes and quantities will usually change per job, so almost every job ends up being a custom layout.
2- Whenever possible parts are set up to have common edges to speed up cut time. We used to allow a .125" spacing between parts in order to have a visual guide for cutting apart after weeding and premasking. If we pack the parts in with common cut edges we can cut and weed faster but then there is no indication where to cut into individual parts. Currently we are manually placing the small triangles as cut indicators.
An idea comes to my mind, but it wouldn't be a "brilliant", fully-automated solution that would examine all of the content, and then figure out where the cut indicators should go.
It would be something only semi-automated, where the user could select multiple shapes, then have the macro place indicators of a particular type, for example:
In all cases above, "located at" would also include the specified offset distance from the reference shape corner.
That would not be a one-click solution, but it could significantly reduce the tedium, and it would work with many different types of layouts.
We could deal with having to run four different macros. It'd still be faster than placing each triangle separately. I'll see what I can come up with. My VB skills are a bit meager but I'll give it a go.
Thank you!
What I was thinking of would involve eight different ways of placing cut indicators. That could be done as independent macro subs, but I think it would be easier for the user to have a user form with eight buttons (arranged around a square to make it easier to understand which type of indicator placement each button performs)
I think that I would build most of the heavy lifting into a single "create cut indicator" function. That way, each of the eight variations would be fairly simple.
We can discuss more if you like. This one is "bite sized" enough that it might be fun to write.