Design & Usability Enhancements
Shape Editing
A pair of important new shape editing tools have been added, one of which adds or appends to an
existing shape, the other erases parts of objects, and can act as a vector erase tool or as a soft eraser
tool.
Shape Builder Tool (Pro only)
This tool enables you to 'paint' onto an existing shape to enlarge it, add new areas or adjust the shape or
outline. It does this in a vector way, and is a much more direct and often easier way than using the Shape
Editor tool. You can adjust the size of the 'brush' as well as its aspect ratio and rotation angle.
The Shape Builder Info Bar provides controls over brush size, the roundness, brush tip angle and the
softness, as well as a smoothness control which adjusts how accurately the brush stroke follows your
mouse movement.
Note: This tool can be used on photos, but it's only useful to enlarge an already edited or cropped photo
outline.
Shape Eraser Tool (Pro and PGD)
This is really two powerful tools in one, and can be used to perform hard-edged vector erasing of
shapes and photos, or soft erasing.
Hard Erase
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When used with a hard edge, it's a fast and direct way of adjusting the vector outline of a shape
inwards. If you stroke around the edge of a shape with your mouse, it just moves the outline
inwards. (In Pro: It acts as a great complement to the above 'shape builder' tool in that it can be
used to adjust the vector edge of shapes and photos.)
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Dragging a hard-edge erase stroke completely across an object will cut it in two and create two
separate objects. If you click and hold (i.e. don't perform a brush stroke), it will simply cut a hole
in the shape.
Soft Erase
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You also have a soft erase option; strokes over any object (which can be any shape, text or
photo) will erase, ie make transparent, the brush-stroked area. The softness control adjusts how
soft the edge of the brush stroke is.
Non-destructive editing
One of the great things about this soft erase feature is that it's not destructive, that is it doesn't change the
underlying erased shape or photo at all, unlike most other photo editing programs.
This has some important benefits: not only can change your mind at any point and re-adjust the erase, but
you can also un-erase and even remove all the erase strokes and recover the original, unmodified shape,
text or photo. What's more you can, for example, apply a soft erase across some text, or perhaps a 3D
extruded shape, and then still edit that text, or adjust the 3D extrude, after the erase has been applied.
Text Styles
Designer now supports Text Styles, a powerful way to alter the appearance of text throughout your
document with just a few clicks. Update an element of your Text Style eg font, color, line spacing etc,
and all text with that Style applied throughout your document is instantly updated ? headings, titles or
body text. Consistent text styles help you create professional looking documents, and now it couldn't be
easier.
What's more we offer 'live' Style preview; Simply select some text and then traverse the Style menu - the
selection will change to show your text in each Style. It's a quick and easy way to try out your Styles
without having to actually select and undo each in turn.
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