The next step is to invert our image. We want to invert it because we are going on black granite tile which engraves up white. Thus what is white becomes black and what is black becomes white. Go to EFFECTS (1) TRANSFORM (2) INVERT (3).

You can see that my image now is the opposite of what it was and it looks more like a negative rather than our normal image.

Now we need to create our grid that will represent out tiles. The Hot Key is D

Ok how many tiles do I need to create? Well we have 12 by 12 inch tiles and our overall image size is 24 by 36. Thus we need 2 wide (24 / 2) and 3 down (36 / 3). BEFORE you create the grid type in your values (1). In this case I am using 2 wide and 3 down

Draw a Grid. Do not worry about what the size is as we will adjust his after. Notice I have 2 across and 3 down.

Before you type in your size of the grid make sure the "Lock Button" (1) is unlocked. If you do not do this the grid will proportionally scale. Type in 24 for you "x" and 36 for you "Y" (2). Our grid now matches our original image and they are both 24 by 36.

We now need to align the two images. Seeing that they are both the same size than we can just center then both to each other. FIrst off all select both images the photo and the grid. Now go to ARRANGE (1) ALIGN AND DISTRIBUTE (2) ALIGN CENTERS HORIZONTALLY (3). Repeat the same steps but do ALIGN CENTERS HORIZONTALLY (4). Note: You can see that both these commands have a hot key. Thus we could just press the E key and than the C key and we would have got the same result.

Aligning the two objects have placed them over each other. Make sure the image is selected by pressing the TAB button till it is – look in the status bar.

We now need to select the Power Clip command. Go to EFFECTS (1) POWERCLIP (2) PLACE INSIDE FRAME (3)

Make sure the photo is selected not the grid (1). You can see that I have the photo selected. Your cursor is a big black rectangle. Move it over and click on the grid. This is telling the PowerClip command that you want to place the photo inside the grid (2).

You can see from the status bar that with the photo selected we now how have a PowerClip group comprised of 6 objects (the 6 grids we created) 7(1).

With the PowerClip still selected go to ARRANGE (1) UNGROUP (2)

With everything still selected click on the "X" that is located in the colour palette (1). This will remove the red width around the 6 rectangles.

This removes the outlines around each one of the grids

Now when I separate the grids from each other there is no outline on the grid. We now place each tile on a 12 by 12 page and engrave them

Each tile is 12 by 12 and I am going to engrave 1 tile at a time. As a rule I would do one tile as each tile is probably not exactly the same size and this more than not may introduce a repeatable error issue. Create a page that is 12 by 12 (1) Make sure the grid (image) you want to use is selected and press the "P" key and this will center the image onto your page.

One of the things that I do a lot when I am creating murals whether it is with a laser or it is by sublimation is I always increase the size by a small percentage to account for differences in the tile and also to get the "full wrap". Make sure your lock button is engaged (1). Notice that our percentage is 122.6 by 134.6. I am going to increase the size by 2 percent from 122.6 to 124.6 (2)

I have increased my size percentage by 2 percent from 122.6 to 124.6. My height will automatically increase as I have the "Lock" button engaged. Notice that my size goes to 12.2 by 12.2 (2). Also very important is that my x and y center stay at 6 by 6 which means my image is still in the middle of the tile (3).
We now can go ahead and engrave each one of the tiles and create our mural.

Here is my group of tiles that I used to create my mural

Here is my image I downloaded off the Internet. It looks alright from this level but if you zoom in on the image you will see that there is a lot of artifacts from the compression to JPEG.

Here is a momentous job here. Our original is in the bottom right hand corner and you can see it in relation to the size it needs to be. It goes to show you what we can get away with when it comes to laser a photo if you think about what you are doing and be careful with reviewing you image at each step.

Seeing the Image is very small I need to resample the image up. Select BITMAPS (1) RESAMPLE (2).

Here are the characteristics of my image. The width is 1.8 by 2.7 (1). My PPI is 300 (2). This is a break as my image has a higher PPI than most Internet Jpegs which are typically 72 PPI. My file size is 1.26 (3). I have also unchecked "Anti Alias" as this should never be on unless you are creating images for a monitor such as a web page.

If I increase the width of the image (1) to 24 my height (2) is not enough (2)

So instead let us increase the height of the image to our required size which is 36 (1). Our Width will size up to 24.75 (2) which means we will have to crop the width of the image a bit. This is very important to remember here that we always make our image the size that we want before we do any cropping or conversion. You should not just drag the image bigger as you will probably have issues with quality. Also most images you get do not conform to your final size so you will need to crop them. Finally look at the size of my new image. It has gone from 1.26 MB’s to 229 MB’s (3). That is a huge increase in size. If you have a marginal computer it may chock at that increase in size.

When we blow up this image we really start to see the issues you get with compressed Jpegs which is why if I can get the originals I always will. The green arrow shows my image has become quick blocky. The red arrow indicates that the amount of artifacts is a lot more pronounced now than it was in the smaller sized image. These two issues will cause some real issues when we start to adjust them. We will need to be careful with what we do.

We need to crop our image so that we can get it to the desired size that we need – in this case 24 by 36. We have the 36 but we need to get the width down to 24 inches from 24.75. Select the Crop tool (1) if it is not there let the flyout come out and select it (2).

Draw a box so that it encompasses your crop area. Do not worry about the size.

Adjust you crop box so that it is 24 by 36 (1). Move your photo so that it will be cropped. Make sure that the photo is still inside the crop box.

I have checked my image size and it is 24 by 36 (1).

Convert your image to grayscale by going to BITMAPS (1) | MODE (2) | GRAYSCALE (3).

Here is my image in grayscale. For me it is a little to dark and it needs to be lightened up.

We need to lighten up the image a bit so we will use the Contrast Enhancement. Got to EFFECTS (1) ADJUST (2) CONTRAST (3).

Here is our image opened up in the Contrast Enhancement Tool. Our Original image is on the left (1). Our Preview Image is in the right (2). If you look into the histogram area you will notice that the spatial concentration of pixels is skewed to the left or the dark tones instead of the lighter tones (3). This confirms my assumption that the image was to dark. Move your right side slider (green box) to the left from the right. This moves the spatial concentration towards the lighter tones. This makes the image a bit lighter and increases our tonal value of our image (4). This is always good. Note to be able to preview your adjustments click on the Lock tool (5).

Here is my image. To me a little more dramatic in its depth.

Our Next Step is to Sharpen our image. Go to BITMAPS (1) SHARPEN (2) UNSHARP MASK (3)

We are in the Unsharp mask tool. I am using the settings I would probably use for black granite a percentage of 500 (1) and a radius of 10 (2)

If we zoom in on this image you will see that it has become very blocky and if we laser engrave this it will not be very good. Ok I could probably spend a day on taking about what is going on here and pull a bunch of examples but the thing to remember is that sharpening although it is always recommended as an enhancement tool can also go the other way and enhance a very pixelated image. So the rule is to always zoom in on your image to check it out. This may not have been to bad at a small 4 by 4 tile but this is not what we are making so the littlest issue becomes more pronounced.

To lessen the degree of exaggeration of the photos issues I used a smaller Percentage (1) of 223 and a radius of 3 (2). The radius causes more of the issues with this photo.

As you can see my image has less issues now. I would have liked to have sharpened it a more but I could not risk the issues in image quality.

I need to convert my image to Black and White using our standard error diffusion. Go to BITMAPS (1) MODE (2) BLACK AND WHITE (3).

I have used the Jarvis algorithm for this photo.

Here is my finished image.

Here is the sample Microsoft Word (doc) file I received from the customer

We need to get this output into Excel. The easiest way to do this is to copy it and paste it into Excel.

WIth everything selected go to EDIT (!) COPY (2).

We need to let Excel know where we want the copied text to start. I want it to start in cell A1 so I need to click in this cell so that it is selected (1). You know it is selected because it is highlighted in blue.

To paste the text go to EDIT (1) | PASTE (2).

The word doc information is now in Excel. We now need to delete the extra columns. We need to keep the red column and delete the columns with the black words.

We need to select the rows we want to get rid of which are high lighted in blue.

RIght click on the blue selected area. Select the Delete command (1).

Select "Entire Column" (1).

I have deleted everything except for the column I need. Notice that the first row is the identifier field (1). We will use this field when we do our print merge. Save the file.

Open up CorelDraw and create a plate that is .75 by 3

Based on our specs of 1/2 inch letters here is an actual set of text. As you can see the text will over run our plate and will require that we condense the text so that it fits on the plate.

To help in condensing I am going to set a guideline at .125 on the left and 2.875 (3 – .125).

Place a guideline at 2.875 inches. This will be our right margin.

We need to turn on snap to guideline so that our text snaps to the guideline and we maximize our space and the text stays centered. With the Snap to Guidelines on as I condense the text will snap to the guidelines and make it easy to condense the text.

Here is our sample text condensed to the guidelines. Now delete the text we do not need it anymore. Note: It is a good idea when you are setting up your plate and margins that you use the longest line of text so you will know how much you are condensing.

Go to FILE | PRINT MERGE (1) | CREATE MERGE FIELD (2)

Here is the introduction screen click "import text from a file or an ODBC data source" (1).

Select the ODBC Data Source radio button (1). Click on Select ODBC Data Source (2)

The File Data Source tab is open by default. First click on the Machine Data Source (1). Next select Excel Files (2) by double clicking on the text.

When you double click on the Excel Files you will have an explorer window come up. Navigate to the folder where the file is. Select it (1) and click on OK (2).

An informative window comes up which shows us that there is one field called CABLE NUMBER (1) and one sheet.

We come back to our Wizard Click Next.

We have a Field called Cable Number (1). Click Next.

Our Data from the Excel File is imported into the Wizard. Click Next

Once we exit the wizard we are given a floating toolbar (1). Notice that the Cable Number is listed in the Pull Down box (2). Click on the Insert button (3)

Once we click on the Insert button a merge field comes into the page. We know it is a merge field as it is encompassed by a less than figure and a greater than figure (1).

Before we do our print merge we need to format our text so that it is as we need it to be in the job. This job calls for text that is .5 inches tall and the text that is arial. I have resized the text to .5 inches (1).

Because words are all different lengths we need to make sure that our text is center justified. Select the Justification drop down (1) from the property bar.

To merge our text file into CorelDraw we need to click on the :"Merge to New Document" (1). button. What this command does is take each line from the Excel file and create a new plate. Each plate becomes a new page in our job. We thus end up with a job that has a bunch of pages. If our text file is 182 names we get 182 pages.

When we do our print merge Corel creates a separate file called PrintMerge1. This file holds all the pages with the names on each page. Note: It is good practice that we save this file as it holds all the names from the Excel file. The above figure shows the PrintMerge1 file is open the "unititled-1" is the original file.

There where 128 names in the original text file and we have created 128 pages (1) with names on it.

We need to condense each line so that it fits on the plate. We need to check each line to make sure they fit on the plate. Note: in future article I will show you how to automatically condense this text.

We now need to print our names that we have created with the print merge.

Select your laser driver (1). Next click on preferences (2)

Adjust your resolution (1) your power and speed (2) and make you page size the size of the over all sheet you are going to use. For example if we are using a 12 by 24 sheet of material and multiplying our individual plates on it than adjust this size in the laser driver (3) to 12 by 24. Click Ok

We now need to select the layout tab (1).

We will now use the Imposition Command to create our multiple plate. Select the "Edit" button (1).

We now need to tell the program how many plates we want across and down. You can see that I have 8 across (24 / 3) Do not exceed this (if you put in 9 it will make your plates smaller) and 12 down. I could have done 16 down (12 / .75) (1).

You can see that the I have created 128 plates. By default you do not see the text on the plates just a gray overlay. We have an issue here as my plates are not at the top left corner of our page.

By default because our plates do not fill up the multiple plate they work from the middle and we have have a large top margin. We can get rid of this margin by clicking on the "Edit Basic Settings" (1). Select Edit Margins.

Click on the to move our margin to the top of the page

Now that our pages are at the top we can preview the page by selecting Edit Basic Settings (1) and click on the preview button (2)

The job is ready to go other than I did not condense the all the text (1). When you are done click on the Check Mark (2) to exit out. You can send the job now to the laser. Note: I only condensed the first plate so that it fits on the plate. The rest of the text is beyond the plate and thus is cut off.

Open up CorelDraw and go to FILE (1) IMPORT (2). We are going to import the EPS we created in our previous tutorial.

You can leave your file type as "All" or select the AI format which encompasses the EPS format (1). Select the FIle (2) Click on Import (3).

Leave the Setting as Curves and Click OK

Here is our image in CorelDraw. Click on the Node Edit Tool and click on the wolf.

When we select the object with the node edit tool you will notice that all the nodes become active. What we have here is a vector outline and the vector outline is all the way around the wolf. Note: we could draw out this vector shape all around the wolf with the Bezier tool.

We now need to create our ornament. We need to draw a circle or an ellipse that will be the shape of our ornament.

Create the circle and place it around the part of the photo that you want to keep. You can quickly center the photo and the circle by pressing the "C" key. I am going to use this circle to create a powerclip.

We need to create a second circle that will be our outside cut. The easiest way to duplicate our circle is to select the original circle and start dragging outwards. Before you let go of the mouse press the shift key and drag the circle till it is where you want it. Holding the shift key creates an exact scale of the original ellipse. Before you let go of the mouse press the right mouse button and you will create a duplicate circle.

Before we proceed open up the Object Manager which is located in the TOOLS (1) | OBJECT MANAGER (2)

WIth the Object Manager open you can see the 2 Ellipse’s (1) and the Wolf (2)

We are now going to great an object using the smart fill tool. This object will become our cutout. The SmartFill creates an object between vectors. For an explanation on the smart fill tool click here or here

You will notice that cursor will turn into a "+" symbol. Click inside the area between your photo and the edge of the circle (1). Note: Because there is a clipping path around the wolf ( a vector outline) than the smart fill will work and create a filled object.

The blue area is my smart fill object. We now need to remove the fill. Select the blue fill area that has been created.

If we look in the Object Manager you will see that there is a new object called "Curve" (1) that has been created.

With the smart fill selected left click on the "X" (1) that is i in the colour palette located on the far right of your workspace

I now have an outline of the wolf and ellipse (circle). It is black so you can not see it but it is on top of the inside circle. As we did in a previous step you can see the outline as the curve in the Object Manager.

To change the outline colour of the object created by the smart fill right click on the Colour Palette (1). In this example I have made it blue

My outline is now blue so you can see what I have done. We will eventually use this to create the cutout that goes around the photo and the inside ellipse or circle. We will now create our powerclip.

Select the Wolf. Now go to EFFECTS (1) POWERCLIP (2) PLACE INSIDE FRAME (3).

When you start the PowerClip your cursor will turn into a big black arrow which you can see inside the green circle. Bring it over the inside circle and make sure that it is exactly on the line and click with your left mouse button.

Our image is powerclipped. You can see this in the Object Manager.

We need to now convert out image to get it ready to laser on wood. Click on the Edit PowerClip (1). This will allow us to edit the photo.

We can now edit the photo and do our adjustments.

If you can not select the image by just clicking on it ( i can by just clicking on the bottom right or left side of the photo where is it outside the inside circle) you can select it by clicking on it in the Object Manager.

Convert our Image to Grayscale by going to BITMAPS | GRAYSCALE.

Open the image in the Unsharp Mask. I have set the Percentage to 500 and the Radius to 7.

Here is our image after it has been sharpened.

We need to now convert out image to Black and White which we do by going to BITMAPS (1) MODE (2) BLACK AND WHITE (3)

I have selected the Jarvis Conversion

We are done so we can click on the Finish Editing the PowerClip (1)

Select the Ellipse Tool

Draw the First Ellipse. I made mine .25 inches and will be my inside circle (1).

I have created the second circle from the first.

The next step is to Combine the two circles together. Go to ARRANGE (1) | COMBINE (2)

With the circles combined they are one object as we can see in the Object Manager (1). Select the combined circles and the large outer circle.

With the objects selected you will see in the property bar the Weld command (1). Click on it.

Our Weld is done. The only problem is we have now is that we have the inside circle that is going to cut and cause the whole inside circle..

The best way to stop the inside circle from engraving is to remove the line attributes. First we need to select the inside line. The powerclip command has made it into a "PowerClip Ellipse" (1). You can click on it in the Object Manager.

With the inner ellipse selected we can remove its attributes. Right click "X" in the Colour Palette (1). This removes the attributes of the line and the software will not see it.

Our image is finished and we can now engrave it

Well here it is finished. We had to take a long way to get this. Although we could have done this a couple of other ways this way requires you to do a number of new techniques. I like it when I can do something that makes me do new things in Corel. It is how I get to know the software and the more you know the software the more you can do with it.

Here is a sample of the ornament that got me to wondering about how to do this. As I mentioned this can be done a couple of ways so my way is not he only way just the way I would do it.

Here is my test file. I wanted to use this one because the fir means a lot of detail and a lot of drawing if you decided to do this by hand and digitize the shape in CorelDraw. We will put this image into our ornament.

Our first step is to remove the background around the wolf. I will not go through the steps to do this. If you have not run the cutout command you can check out this tutorial here. There is a video here at this link. The checker board pattern in the background indicates that our background is transparent. This is important as it is the transparency that we will use to create our clipping path.
Note: Make sure that you have removed all of the background by using the "Remove Detail" brush in the cutout command. If you look closely at the image you will notice that there is a blue marquee line around the image. We want this line to be as close as we can get it to the image we are keeping. This is why we need to remove all of the background.

To create our clipping path the first step is to select our photo. The easiest way to do this is to not select the photo but to select the background. Once the background is selected we will invert our selection and this will select the photo. The way we select objects is with a mask. There are a number of ways to create a mask. In this example I will use the Magic Wand Mask. Select the masking tool from the ToolBox (1). Move your mouse and select the Magic Wand Mask (2). I have kept the tolerance low around 20. So I get any of the lighter shaded pixels that are in the background.

We need to click on the checker board pattern which is the background. Click where the red arrow is pointing. Notice what will happen is you will get a black dotted line (sometimes called the marching ants). This indicates the mask area. If you notice area 1 in our image there is no mask selection here. This is because the ear of the wolf cuts off the background into two parts. To select the image and keep the first part still selected hold the shift key down and click in the area where the (1) is.

You can now see the marquee as it is encompassing the transparent background and only the background not the photo. This is important to know for our next step

Because the transparent background is selected all we need to do is to invert the selection so that it goes from the background to the photo. Go to MASK (1) INVERT (1)

We have now selected our wolf and we can now apply a clipping path to it.

We now need to create our clipping path. To do this go to MASK (1) CREATE (1) Path from Mask (3)

Before the path is created PhotoPaint asks us how close do we want to follow the shape of the photo. This command would be similar to a when we are creating a trace of an image in CorelDraw. A zero smoothness means to follow the shape of the image as close as you can getting every little nook and crannies. As we increase the smoothness we eliminate those nooks and crannies. I am using a value of 0 as I want to get the shape of the photo in my cut out.

The red line indicates our clipping path that is created. Remember that the clipping path is a vector line and thus when it comes into CorelDraw we can treat like any other vector.

You can see that the clipping path is following the shape of the photo quite closely.

To access the export command go to FILE (1) Export (2).

To be able to have the photo along with the Clipping path come into CorelDraw we need to export the image as an EPS file. This is easy in PhotoPaint. Just give the file a name (1) and under Save as Type select EPS (2).

Click Ok to merge the objects. This is just getting rid of the images sitting on different layers

Make sure the "Clip To" (1) is selected. Click the "Ok" button (2).

Here are a couple of sample test files that I have in CorelDraw. You can see that I have 10 colours listed. Each one has different power marked while the speed will stay the same at 100%. Thus I can run a job with 10 different power and speeds and do it all in one job. I can rinse off the spray and than compare. The other reason I like to do this is because I have 10 different samples side by each and it makes comparing very easy. So all we need to do with this file than is to change the numbers on the right so that they reflect the powers or the speeds that we want to use. Make sure you put in the values. Trust me you will never remember them and if you have to come back to your sample a year later like I do than you will know exactly what you have done. Notice I have also placed in the DPI for the file. A lot of times I will test with different resolutions so this will affect my power and thus my settings.

Because we are using 10 colours we will need to use some colours that out of our normal settings. For example it is easy to do Red, Green or Blue as they are 255 and 0, 0 only in a different order. Other colours such as orange and pink are not as obvious as to their colour settings. If you select the colour you are using (1) the status bar will indicate the RGB settings that you need to use. In this case green is R:0 G:255 B:0 (2). Write them down as we will need to input them into the Epilog driver. Note: If you are not seeing RGB values and you are seeing CMYK than you need to go to change your document’s colour space to RGB see the next slide.

Go to TOOLS | COLOUR MANAGEMENT (2) | DOCUMENT SETTINGS (3)

Change your primary colour mode to RGB (1). Click Ok.

If I hove my cursor over the colour green you will notice that the colour is set in RGB

Our Orange colour (1) is R:255 G:102 B:0 (2)

Once out colours are set we need to input our values for each colour into the driver. I have opened up the driver and I have selected the Colour Mapping Tab (1). Next select the Colour Mapping Check Box (2). You can see my colours on the right (3) and my individual selected colour on the left (4) which in this case is Yellow. In the left pane you can see that the RGB colours are listed as R:255 G:255 B:0 (5). Change your power and speed to whatever it needs to be (6). Next click the middle arrow to change the settings (7). To add a colour click on the "+" symbol (8). To move a colour up or down in the order click on the up or down arrows (9). Note: the colours will engrave in the order that they are listed in the right pane (3). In this example Black first Blue second and so forth.

I have adjusted all my colours so that they match up with the colours in the test job.

Select the Advanced tab (1) Make sure your path is "Documents\epilog\epilog settings (2). If not click the "Browse" button and navigate to the directory and exit. Note: I have some extra info here because I run Windows under the Mac. Click on Save (3).

Give your setting file a name (1). Click Save.

My setting file is saved (1). Now the next time we do not have to do as much work. Send the job to the laser and run the file.

You can see that my test tile has created a number of test bars. Some engrave some do not. I suggest you use the lowest power you can get away with.

Here is a Piece of plate glass and you can see I am missing the first row at 5% as it wiped off.

On this piece you can see that there is some flaking going on with the glass.

Here is some marble tile

You can see in the red box my optimal power. This is on a 35 watt. 20 S and 25 power is perfect.

Here is one of my favourites. Now all i need to do is get the real thing Thermak used this on their website.

Here is a 12 by 12 inch Home Depot. Notice that I even got some shading in the background.

Ceramic Tile with Green spray

Here is a bronze tile 12 by 12 from Home Depot. Note: The colours other than bronze need to be mixed with Denatured alcohol and an air brush. DO NOT USE A FOAM BRUSH.

Here is my air brush. I picked it up at an art store. Do not cheap out on this attachment.

Here is tumbled marble. Note: I had to use a Krylon clear coat as the compound does not fully adhere. I used a satin finish to keep the original look of the tile.

Here is a high ball glass. This is pretty fine text.

Here is the gold. You can see a little bit of roughness on this close up shot. However at normal zoom it is hard to see it

I did two colours on this tile. I did the blue first and the green second.

Here is a photo. Glass can be a bit tricky and the image looks better when the glass is full of a coloured liquid preferably white.

When you first open up CorelDraw you are presented with a default screen that gives you a number of options. Typically we want a new document to come up. First I deselect the "Always shows the Welcome screen at launch". (1) Leave the "Make this the default Windows screen page" checked so a new document will always by default come up.

This is the default page setup screen that comes up. Just click OK we can make changes in another window.

For the most part we need to be working in RGB not CMYK as is the default colour space for CorelDraw. Select TOOLS (1) COLOR MANAGEMENT (2) DEFAULT SETTINGS (3).

Here is the Default Colour Management Setup Screen.

We need to make some changes in this dialogue box. First of all we should typically be working in RGB so make this change (1). Next we need to change the colour engine to None (2) Uncheck map to CMYK (3). I change my spot color definition to to RGB (4). The first 4 are for Laser people. The next 4 are for sublimation users. For opening jobs I change RGB color space jobs to default color profile (5). For CMYK I use Assign Default Color Profile (6). Import and Paste I leave as they are (7) (8). If you want to use different setups for different devices you can choose to save the Preset and give it a name (9).

I have saved the preset color space as Laser (1). Click OK to save it.

Close that page down and reopen a new page by clicking on the open new pave Icon. Notice now the Primary Color mode is RGB.

If you leave your mouse over one of the color swatches you will see that my colour docker is not CYMK anymore put RGB.

Now we need to make some more changes so we need to open up the Options Dialogue box again. Go to TOOLS(1) | OPTIONS (2)

The first step I do is to change the way that CorelDraw opens a document when we first start up or create a new page. Click on General (1). This displays up the following dialogue box. Click on the pull down menu (2). Select "Open an Existing Document" (3).

Next we need to change our powerclip setting. Select Edit (1). Next select "Never" (2).

A couple of things I like to do is to do away with auto backups and making a backup on save. Select Save on our right hand panel (1). Next Uncheck the the AutoBackUp (2). This will stop auto backups from happening. Ok I know windows is crap but it is a lot better than before. Also I hate having backup files of the files I saved. That is why I save them. Uncheck this (3). This will get rid of all the backup files that are saved when you save an image.

Change our text to inches from points. I like to work in inches so I a happy to change away from points. Go to Text (1) and select inches (2) in the pull down menu.

The other thing you may want to do is to change your menu bars. Note: if you lose a menu bar this is one way of getting it back. Select Command Bars (1) and select the menu bars that you want (2).
Note: any changes in this section require us only to click on the Ok button and exit. The next section in the Document section requires us to save the settings with our Save setting the Document section.

We can change our page size from within this dialogue box. Here I have created a 12 by 24 which is a common size of laser machine (1). If you use this size a lot you can save the page size by clicking on the Save icon (2) and give it a name (3). This size is now available as a selection in the pull down menu (3)

Once you create a custom size you can than access the page size in the pull down menu from the Property bar in CorelDraw. Notice I have a 12 by 24 and a 5 by 7 size in the pull down menu. I could add a number of other page sizes.

The one thing that you may want to change is the Nudge setting. When you press the arrow keys on your keyboard you are moving or nudging the object by the value that appears in this section. By holding down the ctrl key or shift key you can get either a micro nudge or a super nudge.

Once you are done click on the Document in the left hand pane (1). To make your settings permanent check the "Save options as defaults for new documents" (2). Check any of the changes that you have made such as Page Options (3) we made changes to the page size and Ruler Options (4).

Go to TOOLS (1) | OBJECT STYLES (2).

We need to open up the Default Object Properties. You can find this in the Object Styles Docker (1)

Expand the Folder so that you can see the different property objects in the menu (1)

Select the Artistic Text Object (1). Now you can change any of the attributes for the font (2). You can change your font height (3). Make your Text Center Justified (4).

To make sure that our vector lines cut we need to set them to hairline. I like to keep this as a default so we can change this. in the Graphic characteristics..

To make your text and graphic characteristic default select the Style Sheet Flyout (1). Next select Set as New Document Defaults (2). THis will make these value changes default.
These are typically the changes that I do to my system when I first install CorelDraw.

Here is a bad lens. You can see that the lens has a large area in the middle of the lens where the coating is coming off the lens

Here is a lens that has a discoloration in the coating of the lens. This will cause issues in how the laser beam is focused to the material.

Here is a lens that is new and is in perfect condition.

As with lenses your mirror have to be clean and the coating has to be intact. Here are some really bad mirrors that over time and lack of maintenance are in very bad shape. As with Lenses when your mirror coating breaks down the mirrors start absorbing the energy from the laser and you thus lose power at your engraving area. When mirrors work properly they reflect all the laser light with very minimal absorption rate of usually < 1% per mirror.

This is a good mirror. There are no scratches, no dirt and the coating is perfect.

When it comes to cleaning your optics you need these 3 items. We have our lens cleaning solution. (1) This solution is a high quality camera lens cleaning solution so it you need more you can go to a camera store and purchase more. We have lens cleaning paper (2). We have good quality Q Tips. Remember if the Q Tips are cheap than they are abrasive and can scratch your lens over time. Best to get your Q Tips again from the local camera store.

Typically when we talk about maintenance on a machine most people think of cleaning the lenses and the mirrors. However it is also important to clean the actual machine when it starts to get dirty. As I tell all my customers dirt is your enemy.

Here is a Y rail that should be silver but is now brown with rust.

This customer did not clean the machine. You can see that the steel screws are starting to rust. We had to scrape off the residue on the ruler.

Here is another look at the ruler. It is coated with residue

The encoder reader is very dirty here. Dust in the reader can cause the text to become very jagged.

You can see the build up on the rail is very bad and can cause issues in the movement of the machine

It is always good to to at least once a year to pull off your exhaust pipe and make sure that you clean it

The internal exhaust ports get dirty and need to be cleaned. This one is almost plugged.

Here is the Logo that we need to reproduce

Select the Text Tool from the ToolBox (1)

Your mouse will turn into a "Plus" symbol with an "A". You will get a flashing cursor.

Before you start to type let us select the font. I believe this font is Times Roman (1) and is a Normal setting (2)

I have typed out the text that needs to be manipulated

Turn on WireFrame mode. Go to VIEW(1) | SIMPLE WIREFRAME (2)

You can see that the logo is a light gray. We are going to superimpose the typed text on top of the original logo. We can see both easier if the WireFrame is selected.

I have dragged out a number of guidelines so that I can drag up my text to match the text. Notice the "S" is below the Guideline (1)

Click twice on the guideline so that you see rotation arrows. To move only one side of the guideline requires us to move the origin – circle (1). Hold the left mouse button down and drag to origin to the left (2)

The origin has moved over.

I have rotated the guideline so that it is at the top of the "S" (1). With the origin at the "M" when you drag the line down only the right side moves.

To make sure that the logo does not get accidentally selected right click on it and select the "Lock Object" (1)

Move your text so that it fits in the and between the guidelines. Notice how all the letters line up. In some situations you may need to move a letter to get it to line up. Luckily this was a pretty basic logo job.

We need to resize our text by clicking on the middle top handle (1) and dragging up. Drag the artwork up so that the "M" is in line with the guideline.

Go to ARRANGE (1) | ENVELOPE (2)

Select Add New (1) from the Envelope Docker.

Our cursor will change into a cursor with a rectangle and nodes (1).

If you zoom in on the envelope rectangle you will notice a center node. Click on it and drag down (1)

Drag down the Node till it touches the lowest spot which is the top of the "P" and the "T" (1)

Drag the node handle (the blue arrow) (1) down till it lines up with the letters

Drag the other node Handle as we did in the previous step (1)

All we need to do is to drag the node down so that the "S" lines up

Select the Pick tool to finish the envelope

The text is now mimicking the original text. If you select the text again you can continue to modify it to fine tune it.