updated on 05 August 2022 | reading time: 2 minutes

Working with files

Starting a new document

New document

You can create a new file from two places: The Welcome screen and the File menu.

The Welcome screen is a pop-up panel that opens when you launch Corel Vector.

You can hide the Welcome screen at startup by selecting Don’t show anymore at startup on the bottom right.

Start with the right canvas size

The most popular print and screen sizes are accessible right from the Welcome screen. You can easily start a project without using any other template, or you can set the design size yourself.

Imagine you need to create a cover design for a YouTube channel. From the Welcome Screen, you can go straight to the Social Media category (3) and click on the chevron icon to open a drop-down.

Social media category

Select the YouTube Cover(1) option from the drop-down list to start a New Document with the 2560x1440px canvas.

Youtube Cover

You can choose from various predefined canvas/page sizes divided into five categories:

  1. Print is a collection of the standard print sizes (for example, A0, A2, A3) and popular print project sizes (for example, business card, flyer, postcard).
  2. Web/Desktop is a collection of traditional web-design sizes.
  3. Social Media is a collection of social media cover and banner sizes. There’s a size for every big social media platform, popular in the western world.
  4. Devices is a collection of templates for popular mobile devices. If you don’t know the iPhone X screen size, open the Devices drop-down and it there.
  5. Print on Demand is a list of sizes for designers promoting and selling their designs on popular online platforms, such as Amazon Merch, Redbubble, Teepublic, and Cafepress.

Start with your own size

The panel on top of the New Design page of the Welcome screen lets you create a custom size for a design

Type values in the Width (1) and Height (2) boxes, select the units (3) from the drop-down and click the Create! button (4) to start a new document. Corel Vector has units of measurement suitable for both print and screen design.

Custom size panel elements

Tip: When designing for screen, use pixels (px). If you design print content, use real-world units such as millimeters (mm), centimeters (cm), or inches (in). You can also use special typographical units such as points (pt) or picas (pc). Learn more about points and picas here.