Hi
I have been using Photo-paint for about 20 years, mainly for making family birthday cards. It has always been great for scanning in a line drawing and filling with colour to print out.
What I've always liked is that you can make a design with shapes then combine them and they stay as they look.
I have been looking for the same option in CorelDRAW for months without success.
For example, I have made a hexagon pattern which contains over 300 separate objects and want to combine them as one object. If I use combine I lose all of the detail. If I use group the number of objects remains the same.
Is there an option to combine objects without losing any detail. Please forgive me if I am being irredeemably stupid and thanks for any help you can offer.
In CorelDRAW, "Combine" has a very specific meaning. Combine creates a single Curve shape, so everything in that Curve will have the same Outline and Fill (and some other) properties.
For what you are trying to accomplish, could you share why you wouldn't want to use "Group"?
If you are not already familiar with it, you might look at the "Symbol" capability in CorelDRAW.
If you really intend to convert your object to one and only object, I'd convert the whole object to a bitmap. But Importantly, I'd keep a copy of the original vector object in a separate file.
To me, it seems you may want to Weld certain shapes. If a bunch of shapes are the same color, and you want them to behave as one piece in the Object Manager - then weld then all into one. The Weld function appears on the property bar when you have multiple vector shapes selected. Experiment on a few simple shapes to see how it works.
Richard P said:If I use group the number of objects remains the same
This would be the way I would recommend. Although it says 300 objects, it still acts as one, yet is still fully editable.
Thanks to everyone for getting back to me so quickly. I feel guilty for not checking my emails sooner.
I am clearly out of my depth with CorelDRAW. Using Photo-paint to create the crude illustration in my example, I can create a figure using five rectangles and an ellipse. I can also create a tree using a rectangle and an ellipse.
In each case I have created the desired shape and fill, selected them and clicked "combine objects together". The tree now has a brown trunk and green foliage. If i select it, the rectangle and ellipse move as one item. This is where I get confused. If I do the same in CorelDRAW, the objects remain separate. I can group the five rectangles and ellipse and place them in front of the tree. if I then select the "Tree" I can only select the ellipse or the rectangle. Similarly, the figure is now 6 separate shapes unless selected using shift.
My query was whether there is a way to use CorelDRAW the same as Photo-paint.
Thanks again for your patience