When our company downsized, our department inherited the responsibility of making updates to technical manuals that another division had created. This location used a standard blue rounded-rectangle (with a stroke and drop shadow) as a background for all of the graphics used in their documents. There is an Illustrator file that contains about a dozen of these rectangles all with the same width (the intent is that this width is never to be adjusted) and varying heights. Occasionally, a graphic will fall “in between” two of these pre-made rectangles, but resizing it vertically (using the Direct Select tool) and maintaining the corner radius is simple enough. Unfortunately, during a recent office move the PC that had Illustrator crashed. We don’t have the hard copy of the software, and long story short, we’re not going to get it from the folks who do. The company can’t/won’t purchase a new version of Illustrator, so my only option going forward is Corel.
Opening the AI file with Corel breaks the rectangle into a group consisting of three distinct parts: blue rectangle with a stroke (as a curve), a separate stroke (as multiple curves), and drop shadow (as a bitmap). If using one of the pre-made rectangles, this isn’t really an issue. The issue arises when my drawing is too tall for one rectangle, but would leave too much empty space (top and bottom) when using the next higher option. Unfortunately, vertically resizing the group causes the corner radius on the rectangle/stroke to distort.
Re-creating the rounded rectangle in Corel is simple enough; but despite hours of effort trying numerous combinations of presets, X & Y offsets, transparency, and feathering, I cannot match the drop shadow from the original AI file. I am beyond frustrated, as I would love nothing more than to have one rectangle that I could just re-size vertically as needed. I’m hoping that someone here can help me either create a rectangle in Corel that will match the original, or perhaps just enlighten me as to how to make the one I have do what I want it to do.
Thanks in advance for any guidance/assistance, and my apologies for the novel.
For reference, the particulars on the rectangle (in Illustrator) are as follows:
AI file: http://wikisend.com/download/265058/Blue Box.ai
CDR file: http://wikisend.com/download/392978/Blue Box.cdr
He could also check if http://wetransfer.com is reachable.
There is one more thing that may be good to know.Draw calculates the shadow feathering based on the object's size, or actually the smallest of the X and Y values. This means that if you change the size, the shadow feathering (blur) may also change. This is confusing and in my opinion also wrong, but that's how it is.FYI, I worked with a rectangle at about 4.28 x 5.67".
Ronny - not sure if X7 still has the same restrictions or not, but X5 requires I select a preset before I can make any adjustments to the shadow. Which preset did you/should I start with? Or does it even matter?