When you learn about a time saving feature that has been in CorelDRAW for several versions, do you whack yourself upside the head? I certainly do. I just think about how much time I could have saved had I known about the tip earlier. That’s the focus of our Thursday Tips.

Today I want to tell you about a really quick way to draw a bounding box around selected objects. For those who don’t understand bounding box, it is nothing more than a rectangle. Select the objects around which you want the box. Hold down the Shift key and double-click on the Rectangle tool. Boom! Now often I don’t want the rectangle to be visible. I’ll just fill it with white, remove the outline and move it behind the selected objects.

This is especially handy with a graphic I’m exporting for the Web. Rounded edges sometimes get clipped when exporting. I’ll draw the bounding box and stretch it the slightest amount smaller. Now when I export, there is a white box that is 1-2 pixels largest than the graphic and the rounded edges don’t get clipped.

Not sold on this one yet? OK, here is the killer feature. How many times have you been frustrated that the corners of a rectangle are distorted when you rounded them? Yes, it is a pain. The reason it happens is because you have scaled the rectangle non-proportionally. No problem. Select the rectangle that is getting distorted. Hold down Shift and double-click the Rectangle tool. Now you have a new rectangle the exact same size that will not get distorted corners. Delete the original rectangle and you’re all set.