The Interactive fill tool lets you apply fountain (gradient), texture, and pattern fills to objects in a drawing. You can edit the fill you've applied interactively and view the result of your edits as you apply them.

In CorelDRAW® 12, the Eyedropper and Paintbucket tools have been dramatically improved to make your work easier. In addition to sampling and applying colors, you can now use these tools to copy:

• complex fills
• outline properties
• text formatting
• effects (extrusions, drop shadows, envelopes, and more)
• transformations (rotating, moving, sizing) applied to objects

To apply and edit a fill by using the Interactive fill tool
In this procedure, you will apply a fountain fill to a polygon and edit the fill interactively. You will then apply a simple distortion effect to the polygon to create a flower, change the object's outline, and then add colors to the fountain fill.

1. Open the Object flyout , click the Polygon tool , and drag in the drawing window to draw a polygon.
2. Open the Interactive fill flyout , and click the Interactive fill tool .

3. Choose Linear from the Fill type list box on the property bar.
The fill appears in the drawing window together with the interactive vector handles that let you change the fill properties.
4. To edit the fill, do the following:

• From the onscreen color palette, drag color swatches to the start and end vector handles. In the example below, we dragged a yellow swatch to the start vector handle and a red color swatch to the end vector handle.
  
• To change the direction of the fill, drag the vector handles. In the example below, we moved the start handle to the top corner of the polygon, and the end vector handle to the polygon's base to create the effect of a light source from above.
  
  
• Move the slider to change the midpoint of the fill. The midpoint is the imaginary line where two colors in a fountain fill converge. In the example below, we just moved slightly the slider towards the red vector handle to increase the amount of orange in the fill.
  

5. Open the Interactive tool flyout , and click the Interactive distortion tool . On the property bar, choose Push-pull 2 from the Preset list box.

6. To create a more suitable outline for the flower, click the object using the Pick tool, and do the following:

• On the property bar, choose 8.0 pt from the Outline width box.
• To change the outline color to yellow, right-click the yellow color swatch on the onscreen color palette.
  
  

7. You can edit a fill interactively even after you've applied an effect and changed the outline of an object. Click the Interactive fill tool , and drag any color swatch to any point on the vector arrow to add more colors. If you make a mistake and want to remove a color, right-click the color handle. In the example below, we dragged the magenta color swatch to the middle of the vector arrow to create a richer fill.

To copy fills, outlines, and effects by using the Eyedropper and Paintbucket tools
Next, you'll copy the fill, outline and the distortion effect that you created in the previous procedure, and then you'll apply them to another polygon.

1. Using the Polygon tool, drag in the drawing window to create another polygon. On the property bar, type 8 in the Number of points on polygon list box.

2. Open the Eyedropper flyout , and click the Eyedropper tool .
The Eyedropper and Paintbucket tool property bar appears.

3. On the property bar, choose Object attributes from the list box.

4. Click the Properties flyout, enable the Fill and Outline check boxes, and click OK.
5. Click the Effects flyout, enable the Distortion check box, and click OK.
6. Click the flower in the drawing window to copy the fill, outline, and the distortion effect.
7. Open the Eyedropper flyout , and click the Paintbucket tool .
8. Click the polygon to apply the object attributes you copied in step 6.

Note that all fill and outline properties (including outline width) as well as the distortion effect have been copied to the new object.

To explore the full potential of the Eyedropper and Paintbucket tools, you can try copying transformations applied to objects or text properties. You can copy a single object property or transformation, such as a fill or a rotation applied to an object, or a combination of object properties, transformations, and effects. You can also use the Eyedropper tool to sample a color by selecting Sample color from the list box on the property bar.