Re: Transparent Tifs

[Pete Kloppenburg <pkloppen -at- CERTICOM -dot- CA>]

Melonie asks:
> 2nd question: Has anyone had problems with Corel cutting
> of the left-most line of an exported graphic? Any
> solutions?

I've had that happen frequently, and the answer is rather stupid.
In fact, Corel is often stupid, but I won't start in with that.

Here's the deal: If you create a graphic in Corel which has
a thick line in it, things can go wrong.  Basically, what
happens is that the export function will create a square boundary
which extends to the furthest hairline in the graphic.

The furthest *hairline*, you understand.  When you create a
line with a certain thickness, the hairline is at the center, and
the thickness of it extends out on either side.  So if you create
a circle with a 0.5 inch thickness, that thickness goes out
for 0.25 inches on either side of the hairline.  But sometimes
(and I couldn't tell you with certainty when) if that
hairline happens to be at the edge of the graphic, the export
function will clip off the 0.25 on the outside edge - giving your
graphic a truncated look.

If this sounds like what's happening with you, the solution is
fairly easy.  Instead of creating a thick line, create an area
of fill to achieve the same effect.  For instance, if you want to
create a circle of some thickness, instead of drawing the circle
and adding line thickness, draw two circles, combine them, and
then fill them.  Use only a hairline outline, or better yet, none at
all.  This sometimes requires some trickery, but it's not so bad.

Actually, the technique of using only fills for graphics instead of
lines is a basically sound one - your graphics will scale very
cleanly always, even if you forgot to add the "scale with image"
option to everything.

Cheers!

Pete Kloppenburg
Technical Writer
Certicom
Mississauga, Ontario
Canada

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