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What Happens When You Import?
Importing (or pasting) graphics is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, although in all cases DRAW uses a filter to perform the task. Filters act as translators. They enable DRAW to convert vector information from other file formats into its own internal object format and to translate bitmap art into printable images. The key word here is translate, and it has implications for you: if DRAW has to translate graphic information from a format you can’t read, how do you know whether DRAW got the translation right?
Until the last few years, the answer to this question might have been, “Cross your fingers, don’t forget your mantra, and only import on Tuesday nights, when atmospheric conditions seem to be more favorable.” Before today’s file format standards were adopted and implemented, exchanging graphics information was all too often one big crapshoot. It required both parties (the exporting program and the importing program) to be on the same wavelength, and even then, elements such as hairlines, typeface names, and color mixes carried long odds of being interpreted correctly.
Today your prospects of accurate graphics exchange are much brighter. Corel is now writing many of the import and export filters itself and working very closely with the third parties that write the others. The Windows Metafile (WMF) format, and its older sister, Enhanced Metafile (EMF), have taken hold and are recognized as accurate and reliable formats for translating graphical information. This bodes well for users of non-PostScript devices, as well as for those who have had to resort to the often treacherous waters of OLE.
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Placing and Interpreting We hold these words to be self-evident...but they’re not! PostScript files—in all their various flavors, like PS, EPS, or PDF—can be imported to DRAW one of two ways. But first, allow us two paragraphs of background. PostScript is a set of instructions, stored in plain ASCII text, that make sense to printers and other output devices having the ability to interpret it. PostScript instructions have one common objective: to describe a page. In fact, PostScript is referred to as a page description language. PostScript is really a programming language, similar to Pascal, Turbo C, and the various flavors of BASIC, but there is one big difference. With few exceptions, PostScript doesn’t live inside your computer; it lives inside your printer. When PostScript instructions are sent to a PostScript printer, the printer begins building an image of the page. To get output from a service bureau that utilizes PostScript devices, you deliver a file made on your computer containing the PostScript instructions your bureau’s imagesetter needs to interpret and image your pages. Encapsulated PostScript is a rigidly defined subset within the PostScript language. An EPS file is not designed to be sent directly to the printer (although, if you know how to manually modify the file, you could do it). Rather, it is intended to be incorporated into another document and then sent to the printer from there. An EPS file can be scaled up and down like any other graphic. Many of the output samples in this book were produced as EPS files and imported into a page layout program for final publishing and printing. Now, as for the two ways that EPS files can be imported:
The criteria, therefore, are obvious: If you want to incorporate a finished piece of artwork into a drawing and you don’t need to change it at all, and you are printing to a PostScript device, then use Placeable EPS. If you want to convert the artwork to editable objects, use Interpreted PS. We elaborate on this later in the chapter. |
Adobe, Corel’s closest competitor in the graphics field, has also been making big strides with the Portable Document Format (PDF), and Corel has not ignored these important developments. Beginning with the Rev B patch to DRAW 8, and in cooperation with Adobe itself, DRAW includes both placeable and interpreted PDF filters. With DRAW 9’s improved filters and Publish to PDF feature, cross-platform file transport has never been easier or more reliable.
Some graphics formats tax DRAW’s filtering to the max. The CGM and GEM file types are notorious for being unruly with fills and outlines, and AI files often get typeface names wrong, although Corel has made improvements to many filters since earlier versions of DRAW. Other formats, such as CDR and CMX, need very little translation. The clipart from Figure 29.2 was stored in Corel’s own CMX format.
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| NOTE In previous versions you could only use File Ø Open to retrieve CDR files. Beginning with DRAW 8 and continuing into DRAW 9, all vector formats which have import filters may also be opened. There is a subtle difference between opening and importing files. Using the Open command will start a new drawing, while using Import will add the incoming file contents to your currently active drawing. We repeat: File Ø Open starts a new file; File Ø Import adds one file’s contents to another. |
Imported art always arrives on the page as one group of objects. We’re not sure whether this is an engineering requirement or just a decision on the part of the developers, but we like it. Generally, the first thing you want to do with imported art is to move it and resize it, and these two operations are eminently easier to do with a group. Although, as we explain later, you can now place and resize the incoming art before it lands on your page, you’ll probably end up moving and resizing anyway. Remember that you can get to objects without ungrouping them; just hold Ctrl when you click on them.
Wash and Wax: Importing Details
In DRAW 9, the Import, Open, and Export dialogs received an overhaul. We’ll cover the first two in this chapter, and discuss exporting in Chapter 30. Was the overhaul worth the effort? Unequivocally, yes. Extension sorting options that previously required a trip to Options are now accessible directly from the Import and Open dialogs. And in usual Corel fashion, more options were added to the import and open functions themselves. We start this section with a few general rules of thumb concerning bringing files into DRAW, then follow with dialog specifics, the Scrapbook, and one or two other details we affectionately refer to as Other Ways to Get Stuff into DRAW That Don’t Fit into a Specific Category, but we’ll call Miscellaneous here to keep the editors happy.
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