Help with outline problem

[Erin]

I am trying to set up some text with an outline. I am using Corel 11. How I've always done it is by selecting the outlined text and then converting the outline to object. However when I do that something strange is happening and I can't figure out how to fix it. I've attached some pictures of what I mean.

Is there another way to go about doing the entire outline process? Can someone help me fix this? Thanks

 

[Scott Reynolds]

Double the size of your text and then retry the outline.

 

[Shovelhead]

The problem is....

that you have extra nodes that need to be deleted.............
break apart the object so that you can work on each letter individually.
Zoom in and look for the suspected nodes...........
Sometimes you'll have to contour individual "text" objects because the entire "text" object will give you your above results even if you think you've gotten rid of the stray nodes.
This frequently happens when an object was originally created in Illustrator or even worse......Uggggggghhhhhhh.....Freehand.

 

[Scott Reynolds]

Can you post the file please.

 

[Bobby H]

Erin,

The best thing you can do is break apart the complex paths into separate objects and then manually combine the proper objects. You may have to use the reverse path direction button to fix some of those "holes" that show up solid. On top of that, you'll likely have to fix a lot of odd-ball points.

Corel's two methods of making outline effects both have drawbacks. And those drawbacks have grown even more serious in later versions of the program.

The contour function often creates objects with hundreds or even thousands of control points. Very often the objects are nothing more than line segments with huge numbers of points trying to imitate a fluid curve. That really really sucks.

The Convert Outline to Object function doesn't generate nearly as many points. However, you have the more serious trade-off of lots of errors in the path. You'll have two or three points duplicated right on top of each other and strangely not selectable by the shape tool. I've seen objects with as many as 7 nodes dumped onto the same coordinate. Again that really sucks.

In the end you wind up having to do a fair to serious amount of path editing to get a result that is professional in quality.

Alternatives:

I would recommend using Adobe IllustratorCS2, or Macromedia Freehand MX if you can get it. It's still for sale as of this writing. But Freehand did not get an update as part of the Macromedia Studio 8 release. And the Adobe-Macromedia merger likely has Freehand's days numbered.

Anyway, to get to the point, I now always use IllustratorCS2 to generate path offset/outline effects and type and objects. That program gives you at least three different ways to generate outline effects. Illustrator's quality is so much better than that of CorelDRAW. The curves are more accurate and have only the minimal number of points needed to define the object.

You can still run into some confusing things dealing with outline strokes on objects, such as specifying even-odd fill rules or non-zero winding fill rules before expanding the stroke into an editable object. Still, you'll be able to generate much better outline effects faster and without all the headaches in IllustratorCS2.

 

[Erin]

thanks for the replys. I will see what I can figure out. Man, this "favour" for a friend is turning into alot of work.

 

[Lance]

Hey Erin, may be a lot of work but ya learnin something aren't you, so am I and a lot of others.

These sorts of questions all help to take this board to the top of the stack.

From newbies to top rate pros, we are all still learning.

Praps one day I might even know enough to actually answer a question.

best

lance

:Australia

 

[Erin]

Hey Erin, may be a lot of work but ya learnin something aren't you, so am I and a lot of others.

These sorts of questions all help to take this board to the top of the stack.

From newbies to top rate pros, we are all still learning.

Praps one day I might even know enough to actually answer a question.

best

lance

:Australia

I learn something new everytime I visit signs101. This place is amazing!!

 

[Jackpine]

Corel outline

I use the contour function in Corel 10 and then seperate from the test. If I want round corners I then use outline mode and set round for corners or I node edit the corners to make them smooth.