Armands, I don't think CorelDraw is designed with great ability to do publications.

When you said you have a designate layer for text on every page, and you wish that all the text layers on all pages are activated when you edit one of them, I think it's a bit harsh.

As for the correction, while the text content could be different on each page, I don't think an auto-correct for all pages is applicable. If you mean correcting spelling or grammar, then the Find and Replace tool should work just fine.

 Hi I use Corel for all kinds of publications and as a base to reformat Microsoft products (preparing for print) running the base file through a printer driver importing into Corel and reformatting. As to the suitability of X4, I always buy the odd numbered versions of Corel just remember the best versions of Corel have been 3/5/7/9/11

Hi ARC Design (shoud I call you that?)!

So what's your comment on Armands' problem?

I've just started learning CorelDraw 3 months ago and I am currently working on a 500pg book.

"When you said you have a designate layer for text on every page, and you wish that all the text layers on all pages are activated when you edit one of them, I think it's a bit harsh."

With "activated" I meaned "current". All I want is to manage layer states on all pages at once, including "current" state.

If its one document, there should be something common for all pages, not only some master layer...

Anyway, if there asking about numbers, I think Corel Designer 12 was the best, and with which I'm currently working, though my office bought Me fresh new CorelDraw X4.. we have worked like this for many years (I think, 10 as minimum) and now just becouse of some politics we should stay with old soft? Probably, as we don't have any vistas around too :)

Armands:

With "activated" I meaned "current". All I want is to manage layer states on all pages at once, including "current" state.

If I understand you correctly, an example is like this:

You have a document of 10 pages, each page has separate layer for background, text, picture, graphic, etc.
So when you work on Pg1, you make the text layer visible/invisible, and you want the text layers in all other pages being visible/invisible automatically.

Am I right with the example?

Btw, Corel Draw and Corel Designer is two different products.

MichaelTadashi:

You have a document of 10 pages, each page has separate layer for background, text, picture, graphic, etc.
So when you work on Pg1, you make the text layer visible/invisible, and you want the text layers in all other pages being visible/invisible automatically.

Exactly! The thing is, that I do copy/paste from page to page sometimes, and these different states in each page then makes Me mad :)

We had many projects in these 10 years and sometimes they needs to be updated - imagine the pain...

And with suggestion like I did before, we probably need only one more checkbox in Object Manager "Repeat on all pages" or something like that. Or ability to select multiple pages and then making changes.

MichaelTadashi:

Btw, Corel Draw and Corel Designer is two different products

Not so different, but You're right :) My mistake, corrected.

Armands:

And with suggestion like I did before, we probably need only one more checkbox in Object Manager "Repeat on all pages" or something like that. Or ability to select multiple pages and then making changes.

That's why I said it's a bit too harsh
Why I say so? Simple.
If only minority of CorelDraw users are demanding the feature, they will not consider it.
I think it's minority because I don't think there are many people out there are using CorelDraw to work on publications.
Correct me if I am wrong because I am new to Corel's world.

If you are doing correction on text e.g. spelling etc., isn't the Find and Replace tool works just fine?
If there are more complicated corrections, I don't think an "Apply to all" will do the trick.
I've been working on publication for about 8 years, and I rarely have a situation where I want to apply a mass correction on all pages where the Find and Repalace tool is not enough.

Publication is not catalog type technical project :) Anyway, there are situations, when You wanna switch off say dimension lines on all pages or print whole document without images or certain elements. In CDes12 I simply making one (!) click and so on all pages image layer or dimension layer is switched off!

Anyway, imagine that Your 10 years workflow is broken - so what, is it a big feature? I think, "huge flexibility" will be only then, if users will be able to choose, work with layers like in previous 10 versions or go for new one.

PS. I thought that only M$ can do with their window os users such things without much caring, that they will choose other OS...

Armands:

In CDes12 I simply making one (!) click and so on all pages image layer or dimension layer is switched off!

That is CDes 12, right?

Armands:

Anyway, there are situations, when You wanna switch off say dimension lines on all pages or print whole document without images or certain elements.

So far, I have not encounter any moment like that.
All dimension lines (guides) are non-printable by default.
As for the other elements, I'll need to print everything out for customer's proofing.

Armands:

PS. I thought that only M$ can do with their window os users such things without much caring, that they will choose other OS...

I don't mean Corel is as sh*t as M$, but probably they will only expand the capability of multi page document editing if they want to go further with publishers.

I've been reading this thread and wanted to put in my 2 cents.

I disagree Draw isn't used often for publications. The multi-page feature has always been one of the selling points over Illustrator. Who wants to spend so much on Illustrator and a DTP app when you can do it all in Draw? I'm not saying it's a *majority* of users, but I believe there is a significant percentage of users who do multi-page publications.

Admittedly, I actually set up my longer publications in multiple facing-page files (page 1 and 64, page 2 and 63, etc.). I only do this because it only took one time for a file to get corrupt for me to realize I'd rather lose 2 pages than 64. And that was over 10 years ago. It's also easier to have multiple users working on the same publication when they can each open different pages.

As far as the layers issue at hand, I can sympathize with anyone who complains that things have changed from the workflow to which they have become accustomed. I've already posted about a few small, seemingly insignificant changes, which have cropped up in X4, changes which have made me change my 12+ year CorelDraw workflow habits.

I can't comment on the specific issue as I'm not much of a layer user, but it seems that with the current release, Corel may have tinkered with a few features that really didn't need tinkering.

Hi Guys,

There is a macro in progress to do this by Brian Davies. Also, here is shot of a Custom Docker for X4. I suspect more features will be added, such as "Rename Layer". So, far the tests have been good.

Armands:

Anyway, imagine that Your 10 years workflow is broken - so what, is it a big feature? I think, "huge flexibility" will be only then, if users will be able to choose, work with layers like in previous 10 versions or go for new one.

My workflow/habit when working with publication is very simple.

I don't use much of the layers in pages. Typically I just have one layer with elements arranged in certain order. I find that's easier for me to alter the order than placing different elements in different layers.

As for the file corruption, I always split the work according to chapters/sections. If it ever got corrupted, I can retrieve it from the backup. I set the auto-backup to be every 15 minutes.

And since I don't normally have similar contents on different pages, I never have any headache with mass correction.

Hi Jeff.

What is the advantage of this layer macro since we can do the same things without any problem in the Object Manager?

Hi M,

Some (I am bold to say the majority) prefer the old layer handling.

Important: imagine a 20 page document, so you understand.

How do you do the following in X4, across the whole document?

1. Create a new regular layer in one step (like X3 or below).

2. Move a layer above or below another.

3. Rename a layer.

4. Delete a layer.

5. Hide/show a layer.

One advantage over X3 or below is that with this macro and X4's layer handling, we can apply these processes to a range, for ex pages 1-14.

If an artist is using layers on 1-3 pages, moving layers around, renaming etc. Not a huge problem. Beyond that, a major pain, very tedious.

MichaelTadashi:

Hi Jeff.

What is the advantage of this layer macro since we can do the same things without any problem in the Object Manager?

Jeff Harrison:

Important: imagine a 20 page document, so you understand.

How do you do the following in X4, across the whole document?

In what situation that I need to do that?

For example, I'm working on a 500 pages book, saved into different files according to sections.
Since I have totally different contents (maybe same background, header, etc.) on each page, I've never needed to add/delete/rename/move/hide/unhide a layer on every page.

Maybe an example will help me to understand the problem you guys are having.