I know there is no direct import for CDR file, but has anyone found the best import/export method to do this? I have developed in Corel for 20 years sending files directly to a GCC laser witch used CDR files. Now I am retired and my GCC died so I thought I would get a less expensive Omtech. Prior to purchase I inquired about exporting CDR file and importing into Lightburn and received feedback that it was not a problem. This is not the case for me. I have tried many of the export/import files types available with problems with each of them. My original file may have just two colors (black and red) yet lightburn sees 4 or 5 colors that need to be adjusted. Graphics don’t come over very easily with Lightburn converting them to unclosed lines. I find a workaround for one problem but have another. There seems to be no concentric way to bring what I would consider a very simple file into Lightburn. What is everyone using for a drawing program?
Not possible, however there are a few methods users do
The document one is here
Does using the macro do something different then exporting in one of the other file formats?
There are certain things that you can “get away with” using CorelDraw and a GCC laser.
All of your “fills” in CorelDraw have to be true fills, in that you can’t have separate filled shapes of the same color that overlap each other. The fill needs to be contained inside one shape.
If you were only using RGB black and RGB red in CorelDraw, Lightburn would never convert those 2 colors to 4 or 5.
There is a CorelDraw macro that Lightburn provides that exports an AI file in the background from CorelDraw, and imports it into Lightburn. That works nice, but you would still need to design your files in CorelDraw the way LB wants to see them.
If you want to, post or PM an example CDR file so I can take a look at it and give you some recommendations.
I tried to upload a CDR file and it say it was not a permitted file type.
you can add a .TXT to the end of the filename
As well as the CorelDraw macro that comes with LightBurn there’s also a colour palette you might find useful.
Sorry for not responding sooner, I had a death in the family that pulled me away.
Thanks for the responses, I will give them a try.
Use the macro, it is the best method I have found for getting Corel files into LB. I still use Corel for all my design work and LB just to send the file to my chinese laser. Depending on your Corel version, the macro install code may need a slight modification to install correctly (or it did when I installed it a few years ago). There are a couple of issues that I have found - depending on what laser machines you may have used before, LB treats engraving slightly different than machines such as Trodat, Universal, Epilog. Make sure you ALWAYS use the preview window in LB so you can see what will engrave. You need to weld all of your text and graphics in LB otherwise any overlapping segments will not etch. As I found to my horror when first using LB, there are many TT fonts that have overlapping segments in them (and all of my legacy Corel design files) and you may want to reconsider how you design things in Corel to avoid this overlapping or open segment difference. You can’t (at least as far as I know) assign a position of the work you are macroing into LB. It randomly locates on the page or where the last mouse position was (eg versus a Universal machine where the location on the page in Corel is the same location in the Universal machine). I’d love it if I could assign coordinates for a macro to automatically go to eg top right corner 75 across 35 down but once you develop a work flow of locating everything you macro into LB then it isn’t that much of a hassle. For some reason, I have also got the different colours but now I just make sure everything is in RGB in Corel and when it gets to LB, check the colours and then reassign them if they have changed.