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In this tutorial I had a customer ask me how to do an offset on a line of text that was .1 inches. This is easy to do in CorelDraw by using the contour command.
Type in some text
I just typed in some text called “test”
Get rid of the fill
I am just going to cut out the word so I can get rid of the fill by clicking on the fill icon (1) and selecting “no fill” (2). I iwas going to raster the text first and than cut it out I would leave it in.
Switch to Wireframe
Once you get rid of the fill on the text the outline of the text will not display because by default the text has no outline. Switching to wireframe by going into VIEW (1) | WIREFRAME (2) allows us to see the outline of the text.
Convert to Curves
Although you do not have to do this typically I do as I just like working with the text as an object. This is becasue typically I need to do some node editing.
Select the Contour command
Now we are going to create our offset by selecting the offset command
Contour Offset
When you select the Contour command you have the property bar that shows you the available commands for the contour. First is the Contour Offset. This is the actual offset that you want to create. I want a .1 of an inch so I have put in .1 inch here (1).
Contour Steps
This is how many steps or contours that you want to create (1). In this case it is one.
Outside Contour
Once you have entered in the previous two values you can click this button called the outside contour (1) and the contour will be created out from the original line. For this example I will create the offset so it is on the outside.
Inside Offset
If this was to be a cutter offset than you would use the Inside Contour (1). This is becasue the line becomes thicker becasue of the cut so we need to make the line to the inside to compensate for the cutting of the line.
Break the Contour Apart
Typically we need to remove the inside contour so we only have the newly created contour. First select the text. Next select ARRANGE (1) | BREAK CONTOUR APART (2).
Delete the inside contour
Deselect once you have broken the contour apart and select the inside contour. Note: you can use the TAB key to toggle through each of the objects.
Give the contour a pen width
I want to cut out the contour so I am going to give the contour a line thickness of hairline. To do this select the Pen tool in the toolbox (1) and expand out the tool library buy clicking on the small triangle on the icon (1). Select the Hairline Outline (2).
Our contour is outlined
If we select the contour and look at the status bar you can see that the outline is set to outline. Note: In X5 i seem to be having issues with displaying the line width. However in X4 and earlier this would display. Now you can send the job to your laser
