I've designed an image in Corel Draw 10 and have not found a successful way to save it in any format that eliminates the "white box" from appearing around the image. I have tried exporting in GIF and PNG (where at least I am given some option of transparency) but always end up with a black background upon opening after the save.
I want to be able to give this image to another party to use ontop of their own background without the interruption of a white box surrounding it. Hopefully, someone can walk me through a solution.
Hopefully, I am remembering correctly back to version 10.
In the export dialog, there should be a place to check 'transparent backgrond'
also check to see that you haven't applied a page background color. Background color should be set to "no fill" for your page.
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I have designed a logo for a person who is going to be setting up a website and, I imagine, setting this logo on top of an existing background there. They don't want to have the white area around the design.
Thanks so much for walking me through this, step by step. It seemed to work out just fine, though the precision of the PNG format isn't the best. Still, I believe this will work and I so appreciate all your time in helping me find the solution. Many, many thanks.
Hi, I've used CorelDraw products to make business graphics for 15 years. With earlier verisons of Corel and Win98SE things at least limped along and worked. Recently I upgraded my computer, use XP Pro, and loaded Corel x4 (including WPerfect and Presentations).
Tonight I need an image to place in a Presentations slide show but I can't make a transparent background with PhotoPaint. I tried gif and png, 24-bit color, and every time it looks like the background is transparent (checkered) is saved, when I insert it into Presentations, it retains its white bounding box.
It shouldn't be this hard to do such a basic graphics maneuver across two, supposedly compatable Corel products. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
You can try to export yur image as a PSD with transparent background
Thanks, but nope, that doesn't work. I tried "save as" and "export" as PSD in both CorelDraw and PhotoPaint. Nothing worked.
Now, if everyone else can do it and I can't, then I really do have a problem - with my computer. However, I remember that this trick of saving drawings without a white background has always been a problem in CDraw. Only about 15 years ago when the internet got rolling well, did lots of people start explaining how to do this transparent background thing with idiot-proof instructions. Then we all started catching on. As I remember it, Corel never did go out of its way to make it easy.
Now, this isn't the only thing I've noticed about the newest CDraw products that make you rant. Even the newest WordPerfect - that I' ve used successfully since DOS days - has some landmines in it. It used to be that, above all, WordPerfect never did any harm. It could be counted on the act "responsibly". Now, however, I find differences in Help instructions and the actual menus and other pretty poisions that really increase your blood pressure when you're working at, say 1 AM and trying to get something ready for the next morning at work.
Thanks again, and pardon the rant. I hope Corel people stop by these forums once every few years so they can see what their clients are saying. This transparent background thing should not have to be this hard. Thanks.
Hi Flingwing, I hope this thread can help you.
Peace I-)
Aleem, thanks. That other thread was a book of good stuff <grin>. For me it offered some vindication because it shows others out here are having similar problems. The truth is, I'd be happy getting a transparent background with white haze if I could just get the background not to show <g>.
Let me repeat what (I think) I read in that thread:
(1) Corel Draw (CD) does better than PhotoPaint (PP) for making transparent backgrounds. For me has always been the case with other graphic work between the two programs. Probably because CD is vector graphics and PP is raster graphics. Still, PP is good for heavy editing like cropping, cutting and pasting elements together.
(2) Someone in that thread mentioned TIFF formats. Last night, during the heat of my problems, I read that TIFF graphics could have transparent backgrounds. I never knew that before. I tried doing that with PPaint and, during the save process, I never saw transparent background dialogue options. I clicked on the first TIFF save options screen and that was it - drawing directly saved. I never tried with CD because my time was running out.
IMO, someone - preferably the company that makes these programs - should make a definitive list of instructions to do this often-need feature. First off, are the steps EXACTLY the same for CD and PP? If yes, one instruction sheet will do. If not, make two.
Next, tell us: do we use the "Save as" or the "Export" option, or will both do the same work?
Then set up a page with some screen shots wtih showing step-by-step instructions. If users follow these steps, one-by-one, and don't see the same things on our computer screens as Corel has in its instructions, or get the same results Corel says we should get, users can look elsewhere for their problems. That includes ditching Corel for some other - probably screwier - graphics set.
COREL - IS ANYONE HOME?
Meanwhile, thanks for the help in this forum.
I export GIF, PNG, TIFF regularly with transparent backgrounds. It is just as easy in Photopaint as in Draw.
Most people fall down because they: Don't have a transparent background to begin with/don't mask their non-transparent content/don't check the transparent background option in the save/export dialog.
Save as and Export are both workable.
As before, thank you for your information. And based on your post, I continued this experiment - or troubleshooting - with a trial drawing that needed a transparent background. The results are below. NOTE: PP = Photo-paint and CD = CorelDraw. Presentations = Presentations x4 by Corel.(1) PP = “Save as” and “Export” as TIF in PP do not work - no transparent options anywhere in either process.(2) CD = “Save as” TIF in CD doesn’t work. No transparent option.(3) CD = “Export” as TIF in CD does have a “transparent background” check box. However, when the graphic is inserted into Presentations the graphic’s white background shows.
NOTE: so TIFF doesn't look like it works with my computer.
(4) PP = *GIF* export in PP does have transparent dialogue with transparency, image color and eyedropper options. It looks like it works. However, when the exported file is inserted into Presentations, the dialogue box says “converting document” and then puts the whole thing in - white background and all.So none of these work for me now. I want - need - to find a fix for this. However, I’m in the middle of looking for information that needs to go into a presentation and this glitch Corel products is costing me too much in work time.
Rikk, In past decades of Corel use, I never had to mask the areas of the drawing that I wanted transparent. After I learned the steps to take, all I did was go to "save as" or "export", used the eyedropper to make the background color transparent, and the saved/exported file worked anywhere I used it. That's why I haven't spent time yet to try masking first, before saving. Maybe that 's the key, but if it is, it's a new step in the process.
Now, maybe the problem is that all these trial files I've tried saving *would* have transparent backgrounds on a web page. But they don't in Presentations, another Corel Product. So I wonder what the deal is. Files between older PP and CD and Presentations program versions worked fine.
Moreover, this transparent problem has been around for a long time. For me, it’s gotten worse in the newest versions of Corel Products. Back later if I have new results.
I don't run the X4 Presentations suite but:
New Document in PhotoPaint: Select No Background in the document.
Put a couple of shapes on the image as new objects.
Save As TIFF
Drag and drop on to a PowerPoint Slide: Voila: Transparent background.
New Document with a white background
Create some text
Select text object, CTRL M to create a mask from object
Export as Tiff
Drag onto a PowerPoint Slide: Voila: transparent Background.
Just because the dialog doesn't say transparent background doesn't mean that it wont be. If you PP file has a transparent background or you apply a mask at time of Export, Tiff will do this. Like I said before, I have never had an issue with transparent backgound creation. It works flawlessly, easily, and repeatedly.
With PNG files, there is an additional PNG Export dialog where you select Masked Area (3rd option down) to gain the transparency. Works in Export and Save As. With a background or without, provided you mask. If you start with a "No Background" file, you can omit the step of creating the mask.
Gif is a different animal. It wants you to select a color as the transparent area. I never use them so I don't fiddle with them.
In my testing I created two files: One CPT that had a white background, and one CPT that had a transparent background. I created multiple objects on each. With the transparent background file, save as and export both yielded perfect Tiffs and PNGS. With the white background. I had to select all but the background in the Objects Docker, Hit CTRL M to mask and the export or save as. Both the Tiff and the PNGs were perfect.
I dont' know how it could be easier or simpler. Other bitmap pixel-level editing programs behave very similarly.
Draw is a little different: It does have an option on PNG and TiFF export for Transparent background but that is because you are also going from Vector to Raster graphics. PP is already in the correct graphics type and the masking (alpha channel) is understood by either having no background or applying a mask from the objects.
Rikk, It's almost midnight here so for now I tried just one of your suggestions. We're making some progress but COREL is making NONE! :-/
I started with your first suggestion that began with "New Document in PhotoPaint: Select No Background in the document". I did that and saved it as a TIFF.
I followed it through and, except for "Drag onto a PowerPoint Slide" (how to drag from Photopaint to another program?), here's what happened. First, I tried copy and paste into PRESENTATIONS program - the Corel program that traditionally rivaled and surpassed PowerPoint. This did not work. The three red shapes I made in my TIFF-saved file covered the existing text in the slide with the 3 shapes AND their white background.
Then I tried using "insert" to put the file into Presentations. Same result - white background intact and covered the slide text.
------------
Then I tried inserting the file into POWERPOINT - the "Brand X" program from Microsoft. The result? The file with its 3 red shapes went into Powerpoint WITHOUT a white background. It worked - sort of. The problem was is the one that Microsoft always has in MS Word with any text boxes and graphic lines: it has a large but transparent box with it. Still it IS transparent just as you said.
Now, I'll try your other suggestions tomorrow morning. However, I think it speaks reams that COREL Photopaint will NOT put a transaprent box into its own sister program, Presentations, but it will put one into Brand x's PowerPoint.
What I need to figure out now is what is preventing PPaint, CorelDraw and Presentation - all programs that have been around for decades - to suddenly stop talking to each other.
I'll take a look at your other suggestions in a few hours after some sleep so I don't chuck the "confuser" out the window. But I will say that I, even as a late learner, always used the eyedropper tool with GIFs in Photopaint and Win98SE usually without problems.
Current Score = PowerPoint 20 - Corel Product Compatability 0 <grin>.