From such a simple set of commands comes such a powerful effect! Notice what the status bar calls this new object. The circle used as the container in the exercise above is hollow, but it could also be filled. The fill color would act as the background for the clipped objects. Any type of fill pattern would work, tempered with reason and constraint, we hope.

Interactive PowerClipping
While using the menus is the most intuitive way to PowerClip, there is an interactive way you can do it, too. Try this:

1. Select the object you want to clip.
2. Click and hold Button 2 and drag it into the desired container.
3. Release the mouse, and from the pop-up menu, select PowerClip Inside. DRAW will automatically clip the object in the container.

Montages with Flair
Thanks to the World Wide Web, it is easier than ever to publish photographs, and we find ourselves working with scanned and imported photographs much more often than just two years ago. Whether you are publishing to the Web or to paper, your photo layouts can get a real shot in the arm with PowerClip.
    The following graphics show the progression of steps for a photo montage. This collection of photos, taken from the Digital Stock library, makes up a theme of dynamic and healthy living. But, as you can see, it's not easy positioning them in such a way that their edges are smooth. They meet in the middle in ragged and haphazard fashion.

Figure 3. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
 

    The first step is to turn to the first cousin of PowerClip, the bitmap cropping tool. When you invoke the Shape tool with an imported bitmap image selected, you can crop and shape the image (you are essentially node-editing the boundary of the photo). As with PowerClip, you are not actually trimming the photo; you are just hiding parts of it from view.

Figure 4. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
 

     Now the photos align nicely in the middle. The outside edges are still rough, but we don't care about that because the whole thing is getting clipped inside an ellipse. Remember, anything can be placed into a PowerClip, including a collection of photos.

Figure 5. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
 

     To add the fitted text, we chose the PowerClip itself as the path, and then raised the lettering up by half an inch.

Lots of Containers
As the montage demonstrates, you can place anything into a container. As for the container that holds the clipped objects, the requirements are hardly more stringent: any vector-based object (i.e., any object you create with DRAW's tools) can act as the container for a PowerClip. What's more, your container can be a group of objects and this opens up myriad possibilities. The following three images stars one of the many cartoon characters available in Corel's library of clipart.

Figure 6. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
 

     We placed a series of squares atop this exasperated man, and once grouped, those 30 squares can become a single container for a PowerClip.

Figure 7. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
 

Editing PowerClips
Your palm tree and elephant group probably wasn't positioned within the PowerClip exactly as ours was, but adjusting it is easy.You have lots of ways to modify PowerClips after the fact. The simplest way is to select the PowerClip and then select Effects | PowerClip | Edit Contents. DRAW shows you only those objects inside the PowerClip, with a convenient circle showing where the PowerClip container is, and it allows you to edit them any way you like. When you have done, reach for the Effects | PowerClip | Finish Editing This Level command. (It's so named because DRAW allows you to nest PowerClips within other PowerClips, and if you were editing a nested PowerClip, you would be modifying just that one level.)
    When a PowerClip is selected, you can right-click to reach the Edit Contents and Extract Contents commands. When finished editing a PowerClip, the context menu offers the Finish Editing command. Following are some things to keep in mind as you edit PowerClips.
    Avoid Auto-Centering: We like PowerClip's clean and intuitive design—with one exception. In its factory condition, DRAW sets a default that automatically centers all objects within their containers. Most DRAW users don't like this, for two reasons:

1. Users rarely want objects exactly centered in the container, so making the default no centering would make better sense. It is more typical and more logical to position the objects first and then clip them.
2. The control for turning centering on and off is out of place. You have to go to Tools | Options | Workspace | Edit and look for the awkwardly named Automatically Center New PowerClip Contents check box. We suggest that you find this check box, uncheck it, and leave it that way. If you ever do want to center objects within a container, you can turn it back on for the moment—or better yet, just select both objects and press C and E to center them before you clip.

    You can also use the Lock Contents Option, which is also somewhat hidden, but it is more useful than the auto-center option. When you create a PowerClip with this option on (the default), the contents are initially locked to the container so that the whole PowerClip is treated as a single object. This means that the contents move, rotate, and scale along with the container.
    Most of the time, you will want to keep this lock on, but sometimes you'll need to change the relative positions of the container and the clipped objects. You can always do this with the Edit Contents command on the PowerClip menu, but that is cumbersome for simple adjustments. That's when the time is right to unlock the contents. Right-click and uncheck Lock Contents to PowerClip. The container then acts as a movable window, letting you view different parts of the objects inside. When you are done repositioning everything, relock the contents to ensure that the PowerClip again moves as a unit.
    Group while Editing: In the simple exercise earlier, you grouped the palm tree and elephant before clipping them. You could have just as easily marquee-selected the two objects and clipped them without grouping, but we wanted you to see that grouping simplifies your PowerClipping tasks. You can ungroup, regroup, combine, and delete elements, change fills, or do anything else to the contents of a PowerClip. When you use PowerClip | Edit Contents, think of the contents as a separate drawing that will eventually be cropped by the container outline. Nearly anything you would normally do to objects in a drawing can be done at this point. Then, when you select Finish Editing This Level from the flyout, the PowerClip is reapplied to the contents. The one thing you cannot do with the Edit Contents command is reposition the container itself, but that is easily done before you create the PowerClip (by simply editing it) or afterward (by unlocking the contents).

Faking 3D with PowerClip
In a two-dimensional drawing program, it is not possible to place an object through another. Consider this simple drawing.

Figure 9. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
 

    In CorelDRAW's world, the dog can either be in front of the hoop or behind the hoop; it cannot be going through the hoop. Yet to any reader's eye, this acrobatic canine is making this circus catch while jumping through the hoop held by his master.
    PowerClip is responsible for this illusion. To follow along, create an ellipse and then find a dog or other animal from Corel's clipart library (we used dogwfris.cdr from \Clipart\Animals\Pets). Place the animal in front of the ellipse. Then do this: 

1. First, go to Tools | Options | Workspace | Edit and uncheck Auto-center New PowerClip Contents. This first step is crucial to the entire operation—you don't want any auto-centering of your PowerClips to occur. 
2. Draw a rectangle over one half of the dog, making sure that the rectangle is inside of the hoop, as shown in the figure below.
   
   Figure 10. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
    
   
3. Select the dog and copy it to the Clipboard with Ctrl+C. From this point forward, make sure not to move the dog. If you do have to reposition it, then press Ctrl+C again afterward.
4. PowerClip the dog into the rectangle: select the dog, go to Effects | PowerClip | Place inside Container, and then click on the rectangle. 

   Figure 11. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
    

   
   
5. Remove the outline of the rectangle, and if there is any fill pattern to it, remove that too. You want the rectangle that contains the dog to be completely invisible.
6. Press Ctrl+V to paste a copy of the dog back into the picture.
7. Press Shift+PgDn to move the copy to the back. And voila! You see the figure below.

Figure 12. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)
 

Let's recap. You essentially have cut the dog in half, placing one half in front of the hoop and one half in back. Because they are exact copies, one goes right atop the other, and the half that is in front is PowerClipped. So the stacking order is
     1. half of dog in front of hoop;
     2. hoop;
     3. half of dog behind hoop.
That is what creates the illusion that he is jumping through.

Better PowerClip Access for Advanced Users
PowerClip is very easy to use, thanks to the intuitive nature of its controls. However, once you begin using PowerClip regularly, you will likely grow tired of all of the incessant clicking. Your mind will say, "Select this and clip it to that," but your fingers will still have to say, "Effects...PowerClip...Place inside Container..."
     This is a job for a custom hotkey. Create a hotkey for the Place inside Container command (Ctrl+1, for example) and now your fingers can move at the speed of your brain:

1. select object to be clipped;
2. press Ctrl+1;
3. click on container.

When you learn the commands, you don't want the user-friendliness, you want speed. That's where customized hotkeys and icons will become your best friends.

This is an excerpt from Rick Altman's upcoming book from SYBEX Inc., Mastering CorelDRAW 9 (ISBN 0-7821-2520-4), available June 1999. If you would like to be notified of this book's availability, click here and send us a blank e-mail. We'll know what you mean.