Corel has many keyboard shortcuts which, when memorized, can speed up your work dramatically. Clues to the shortcuts are found beside many of the commands on the screen. For instance, to duplicate something, press Ctrl+D. You can also do the same thing with your mouse, but it takes longer. The duplicate command is similar to the copy and paste commands when used together, but it works faster and uses less memory.

CorelDraw lets you customize your program so that commands you need the most will be on your screen all the time, or will behave a certain way consistently. One of the greatest features of CorelDraw is the UNDO command (Ctrl+Z). You can set the levels of undo - that is the number of actions you take that you might want to undo in any given sequence. Set the number of undo levels by selecting Tools, Customization, Workspace, General. At the menu that comes up at this point, set regular undo levels to 99. This tip assumes that you have at least 2 GIG of RAM and at least a 20 GIG hard drive. Let's face it, it takes a lot of memory to remember all the keystrokes and pictures from a long sequence of actions. If, after setting the level to 99 you discover your program running slower or crashing, set the level lower. (You can also REDO an UNDO by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Z).

Powerclip is another great feature in Corel. It allows you to place your picture into a shape you have drawn. The default is to center the picture in the shape, but this is seldom what you want. If you have drawn a box on a section of your picture that is placed over exactly the part of the picture you want, then you don't want the image centered when you powerclip it. To turn off auto center so that the image will be placed where you expect it, go to Tools, Customization, Workspace, Edit and unclick Auto-center new Powerclip contents.

There are two ways to ungroup things and it is important to know the difference.

Control U ungroups things in the sequence in which they were grouped. 
Ungroup All ungroups everything at once. 
If you accidentally Ungroup All you can undo the step with Ctrl+ Z.

When you do either kind of ungroup, the ungroup does not take place until you click somewhere outside the group and turn off the little black boxes. Only then is the ungroup complete, freeing you to move individual units within the group.

If you want to change the size of something by a small fraction, you can use the plus or minus sign in the numbers box and simply add or subtract the extra width or length.

If you duplicate something then rotate or change the size of it slightly, you can then duplicate it repeatedly and it will keep on changing the size or rotation by the same increment. This creates fantastic effects very quickly.