[Solved] Converting CorelDRAW to LibreOffice Draw

[skuddle]

I have 150 CD jewel case labels that are in 150 CorelDRAW files (DRAW) and I need to convert those files into Libre Office (LO). So I downloaded and installed LibreOffice. I need a "jump start" so I can begin the conversions.

When I use LO to open a CDR file I get this:

Page 1 is a template that appears, and Page 2 is the data I inserted while using DRAW. In LO I would like to have only one page that shows the all of the objects, but I never want to print or select the objects that are displayed in Page 1. I thought I might be able to select the objects on Page 1, copy them, and paste them onto Page 2, then delete Page 1 but I can't select them to do that. Where do I start?

[Lupp]

Please attach an example file.

[John_Ha]

See www.zamzar.com

[skuddle]

@John_Ha:
I followed the link to zamzar and it showed me ways to convert files. I don't need to convert files. I want to edit files that I created by using LO to open Corel CDR files.

[RoryOF]

You will not be able to open, edit or Save CDR files from Open- or Libre-Office; you will have to convert them to a suitable format.

[skuddle]

Please attach an example file.

Thank you for replying. This forum will not let me attach a CDR file so I am placing an image of it here:

CDR File Image

I have attached a copy of the ODG file that LO produced from the above CDR file.
Thank you for helping me out here.

[Zizi64]

This forum will not let me attach a CDR file

Try to ZIP it, and upload the arcive file here. The file size limit is 128 KiB in this forum.
Or share it on a free file sharing service, like the Google drive or others.

[skuddle]

Hi,
Here is the CDR file in a ZIP file.

[skuddle]

Could it be that when LO opens the Corel CDR then LO creates an image and placed that on an ODG page? That would explain why I cannot select anything in the ODG file...

[Lupp]

First of all: I don't know anythinmg about recent CorelDraw.

I can well select shapes in the Draw-imported document. To make use of it I would suppose some handywork is needed, however. The functional groups have (about?) seven shapes containing text each + the "PRINTED" shape. These groups overlap partly and two of the four I found are positioned far outside the page Draw chose for the document (A4 portrait in my case). In addition I presume some of the shapes sized undue and the vertical texts not shown the intended way. Looks a bit like a mess.

I first would need information about the intended target paper-size and the intended posutions for the groups. Then I would estimate about five minutes needed per visual group to get it in a reasonable shape in the correct place. This does not include reworking the vertical parts.

Attached as an .odg is what I got based on guessing in about 10 minutes.

(Well I did it with LibreOffice V6.1.3.1, but using a recent AOO shouldn't make much of a difference.)

In what way did you come to the conclusion that you can't select? I found the shapes on 'Slide 1' not well frouped, but that's another thing.
To get my slides number 3 and 4 I copied the Slide number one 1, and pasted it as a new slide using the slide or the page panel. Number 5 shows what I first got this way.

[Lupp]

So I did a bit of research. Of course, I could only access the objects Draw created when loading the .cdr file. However, software developers commonly won't re-invent every kind of wheel every day. Thus I would presume that the relevant objects have a similar internal representation here and there.

What was most irritating with the first page was the object looking like a frame around everything. First I supposed it to be a group shape containing everything else as members. That was wrong. It is a single PolyPolygonShape in fact - and used in a gravely misleading way. It hides the fact that the two white rectangles NOT are rectangular shapes, but just two parts of the pages background we get an eye on looking through two window the PolyPolygonShape with its coloured area leaves. In the same way the vertical lines looking like being four lines actually are only two, but with their middle parts overlaid with the PPS coloured area.

As a whole the template page -by its structure- is more of a joke than of serious design. Should we blame exclusively "our Office" for this?

Hough!

By the way: Every member of this forum should give some information via his (f/m) signature. OS? What Office suite(s) (AOO or LibO), what vesrion(s) at least.

[John_Ha]

@John_Ha:
I followed the link to zamzar and it showed me ways to convert files. I don't need to convert files. I want to edit files that I created by using LO to open Corel CDR files.

The .cdr file is corrupted when opened in LO. So, either

1. Convert the .cdr to something else at zamzar (PDF? PNG?) and insert the converted data into LO, or

2. If you still have CorelDraw, use CorelDraw to export the data to a format LO can handle.

I get a very high quality PDF which can be zoomed to 64x without any quality loss, and from which all the text can easily be copied; and a 6,800 x 2,900 pixel PNG file of high quality.

[skuddle]

@Lupp
I opened the ODG file you sent me and could select and edit the text boxes.

Then I opened some of the ODG files I had previously created. To my surprise, I could select/edit the text boxes.

I now have something I can work with and will mark this thread as "Solved".

Thank you very much! The problem appears to be something in my computer that "corrects" itself over the course of a few hours, and/or when I put the computer to sleep and awaken it the next day. I think I'm going !

@John_Ha
I appreciate your help. Thank you!

[skuddle]

I found another file that has the problems originally described i.e. I cannot select anything that's in them. It is named "Adrian trays.ODG" and I have a link for it below.

Additionally, I have a link to an ODG file that I CAN select/edit the text boxes. It is named "Aeoliah.trays", and have provided a link to that file below as well.

Perhaps somebody could open both files and tell me the difference between the two files?

Thank you...

[Lupp]

Well, I tried the Adrian thing and also couldn't select anything. I didn't find the reason anmd was not in the mood to expend time for research insofar. Why?

Anyway these labels are a perfect mess and you should get rid of them as soon as possible. The adequate way to do so is under no circumstances to replace a cdr-mess with a odg-mess. You need to extract the data and to start anew with a reasonably designed tool for printing labels without a lot of hokum and based on a real data collection instead of putting in info line by line.

The generally recommendable software type for keeping and maintaining / curating data is a database. However, I personally don't like DB much, and though experts would blame me for this I prefer spreadsheets as a kind of DB surrogate in case of a small data collections for private use. In my sense your data is supposed to be a "small" collection of presumably up to 10000 tracks. Tell me if I'm wrong.

Well formatted labels (2 labels per print page) you then can well get from an automatic data selection in Calc itself without needing Draw at all.

If you allow for enough time I may go into much more detail because the task is interesting for me beyond this single question. For the moment I only will give you an example for my claim to be able to extract your worked-in data from your old labels to a LibO or AOO document from where they are actually accessible. It's a Writer document only because this is what my prefab macro creates. It might as well be a table in a spreadsheet.

nonsenseLabelsToRealData_1.odt

(15.53 KiB) Downloaded 124 times

You may also want to see how labels would look if done the way I described above. However, the sheet I can attach is NOT THE SOLUTION. It's just a preliminary sketch I did yesterday.

aoo95740_JClabelsByCalc_1.ods

(110.42 KiB) Downloaded 123 times

[John_Ha]

these labels are a perfect mess and you should get rid of them as soon as possible ... under no circumstances to replace a cdr-mess with a odg-mess. You need to extract the data and to start anew

Hence my reason for suggesting the OP starts again after a visit to zamzar.

The generally recommendable software type for keeping and maintaining / curating data is a database

The OP should try googling with cd labels database as they aren't the first with this need. eg see Creating a free CD or DVD database and labels in OpenOffice.org Base

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

[MrProgrammer]

I found another file that has the problems originally described i.e. I cannot select anything that's in them. It is named "Adrian trays.ODG" and I have a link for it below.

Format → Layer → Locked → {uncheck} → OK.

Edit: This is for OpenOffice. I do not use LibreOffice but presume the same procedure will work there.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[skuddle]

@Lupp
@MrProgrammer
@John_Ha

You know, I've been using CorelDRAW since version 2 came out in 1989. That's 29 years now. And it has always, ALWAYS, given me problems of one sort or another. I'll bet I've spent a full year beating my head against a wall trying to resolve all of the issues I've had over those 29 years. I've received a lot of help on this forum, and I don't think it's worth any of you wasting more time with it.

I'm going try the suggestions that you've given me, create my own template from scratch, and use LO from now on. I'm getting too old to keep kicking the same dead horse...

[RoryOF]

There are CDR case templates for download from the Extensions repository

[Lupp]

My perception was that the OP had lots (150) of CD labels in files, and wanted to use the data contained in them with different software. I did not understand some details probably but can well understand the wish not to need a complete new pooling of the data. Thus the first concern should be how to get the data out of cdr-files and shape them in a way that a similar problem will never occur again. This can be done based on the "macro" I mentioned.

Does somebody know a solution for the purpose based on a bult-in in feature of AOO/LibO and without resorting to user code?

If skuddle tells he (f/m) is on the way to look for or design a new template, he tries to do the second step first. I would like to help him to avoid another year of wasted time. The template is not a problem at all. It's the data maintenance first and the connection of a printable software lable to the data. I therefor tried to give a preliminary demo how both steps could be done in the right order.

[skuddle]

@RoryOF
I followed your link, then I entered "corel" into the search box. Only one item appeared: "Screenwrite screenplay formatting template".

@Lupp
Actually I have more. Around 150 CDR files filed by Artist. In the case where I have more than one CD from a given artist, the CDR file contains more than one page.

I spent a few hours designing a template, but haven't yet begun to fill in the data. It's a simple template, and I've succeeded in adjusting the template and locking its objects' position and size. Still trying to figure out how I can make specific objects on a page non-printable. I will be inserting placeholders for the Title, Artist, and Track text boxes. Once I've done that, I can just copy the file, rename the copy, and begin filling in the text.

I have several questions for which I cannot find answers for in the Help files, so I will be posting those questions as time goes on.

BTW I am a 74-year-old male.

[John_Ha]

Still trying to figure out how I can make specific objects on a page non-printable.

You can't - there is no concept of layers in LO apart from Tools > Options > Writer > Print ..., which allows to suppress printing of all imagers etc.

But ...

... making text white hides it on a white background. Frames, tables and table cells can have invisible borders. If you insert a white rectangle with no border, or a white image, it will hide anything behind it.

[RoryOF]

Don't enter "Corel"; enter "CD case template" or some combination of those or similar words.

[Lupp]

This is my final attempt to penetrate with what I wanted to tell.

Any graphical template needing to get filled in data by the user is unservicabel basically. This doesn't depend on whether it is made with CorelDraw or with LibO/AOO Draw.

To have one file with a filled-in label per CD makes no sense.
You need the data as ONE collection, and for the printing a piece of software that can arrange the data of one CD on demand for any CD. The filling-in MUST NOT be done by the user. The user puts in an identifier for the CD and hits a key on the keyboard - and the software prints the label.

@skuddle: Do NOT design a template with Draw or any graphical tool. Graphic elements are bad in taking text content selected by software.
What is wrong with my example? I slightly reworked it to concentrate on the most important things. (I also changed two formulae explicitly to array-evaluation because AOO would not correctly apply the ForceArray with MATCH() otherwise.)

aoo95740_JClabelsByCalc_2.ods

(111.19 KiB) Downloaded 116 times

First sheet is only for the printing, second sheet can contain the data for 1000 CD.

Did you try the Print Preview? In what way didn't it suit you?
Of course you can also have a graphical element there (a logo or whatever), but the elements presenting information must be capable of taking it from the data collection. The first sheet only arranges data from the third sheet for the printing. No label for a single CD will ever be saved.

It may not be the most professional way, but a spreadsheet document can do both the tasks:
-1- Keep the data and offer the functionality for maintenance.
-2- Arrange and format the information for the printing of a specific label on demand.

[skuddle]

Thank you for your help. I downloaded "aoo9574_JClabelsByCalk_2.ods" and had a good hard look at it. And I understand that you prefer database-driven labels, and that's okay with me.

I never was very good at designing databases and I stopped trying over 25 years ago. I think I'll pass on your suggestion and continue designing my labels using standard draw tool.