This tutorial will lead you through the process of creating a comprehensive shape library in Paint Shop Pro version 7 or 8.

Shape libraries, or JSL files (PspShape files in version 8), can hold several Preset Shapes, but if you're like me you usually only export one at a time. This is fine, but after a while your "Shapes" folder can get quite cluttered and it gets harder to find a particular shape when you need it.

By taking a little time every once in a while to organize you can make both backup and shape selection much easier. This is also a good way to keep downloaded shapes organized. When I download Preset Shapes from a web site I add all of the shapes from that site to one library and give the library the same name as the web site.

*Screenshots are greatly reduced in size and optimized for faster download times.

Open a new image. This image does not have to be a particular size but you may want to make it fairly large in order for all of the shapes to be visible. I usually use 600 x 600.

Open the Image Browser in PSP and navigate to the folder where you store your shapes. If you have not customized your folders through File > Preferences > File Locations then any shapes that you created are located in the main PSP folder located at the following locations, depending on which version of PSP you have installed:

PSP 7—C:\Program Files\Corel Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 7\Shapes.

PSP 8—C:\Program Files\Corel Software Inc\Paint Shop Pro 8\Preset Shapes.

To learn how to customize your file locations click here.

With the image browser window activated, choose File > Create New Folder and name this folder "temp shapes". Drag any shapes that you want included in the library to this folder. Resize and rearrange the browser window and the image window so that both are clearly visible in the workspace. Zoom out on the image window if necessary and, if the Layer Palette and the Tool Options palette are in the way, hit the Tab key (F2 in PSP8) on your keyboard.

Click on the thumbnail for each shape that you wish to add to the library, and drag it onto the open image. It does not matter, at this point, if some of the shapes are larger than the canvas, but you do want at least a small part of each shape to be visible.

Hit the Tab key (F2 in PSP8) again to make the Layer Palette visible. You should now have several vector layers containing the various shapes (see screenshot).

If you want the shapes to be in alphabetical order in the shape selection area of the Tool Options dialog box, drag each "layer" to the correct place in the layer palette now. If you try to rearrange "objects" or "object groups" after they have been moved to a single layer they will expand and make rearranging more difficult. This has been corrected in PSP 8.

Choose View > Change Grid and Guide Properties (this can also be activated by double clicking on the ruler in the image window). When the "Grid and Guide Properties" dialog box appears use the following settings:

Grids

Units: Pixels
Horizontal Spacing: 150
Vertical Spacing: 150
Line Color: optional

Snap

Alignment Option: Center
Influence in Pixels: 20
Snap to grid: unchecked

If the Object Selector is not activated, activate it. Resize and position the shapes so that they fit within the grid cells. When resizing, right click and drag one of the corner handles to maintain the aspect ratio of the shape.

To center the shapes within the cells, choose View > Change Grid and Guide Properties again, change the horizontal and vertical spacing to 75 and check the "Snap to Grid" option. Move each shape so that the center handle of the bounding box snaps to the intersection created by the new grid settings. See illustration.

Activate the Object Selector , hold down the Shift key and click on each shape in the image to create a multiple vector selection. Right click and choose "Copy".

Choose Edit > Paste As New Image. You should now see a new image with all of the objects and object groups under one vector layer (see screenshot).

Right-click the vector layer in the Layer Palette, and choose "Rename". Name the layer with a descriptive name for the library you will be creating (i.e. Animals).

Right-click on the image and choose "Select None". This step is also important! Only selected objects or object groups will be exported as shapes.

Right-click on the image again and choose "Export Shape" or choose File > Export > Shape. Name the library with a descriptive name (i.e. Animals) and click "Ok".

Important Note: With PSP8, shapes with the same name can't exist in more than one library or the next time you activate the Preset Shapes tool and the shapes cache is rebuilt, duplicate shapes will be detected (that is the reason we moved all of the shapes to a temporary directory prior to exporting).

Activate the Preset Shapes tool and make sure that your shapes are all listed and test them in an image to make sure that everything exported correctly.

If you are happy with your new library, you can use the browser to locate and delete all of the old libraries for these shapes. They should be in the "temp shapes" folder that was created for this tutorial. I keep this folder handy so it will be available the next time I want to organize my shapes.

Now when you use the Preset Shapes tool you will notice that the all of the shapes in the new library are grouped together in alphabetical order in the Tool Options dialog box so that a particular shape can be located more easily. When using the image browser to scan your shapes, the thumbnails will give an accurate preview of all of the shapes that the library contains.

Preset Shape Tips:

The objects in a JSL file (shape library) can be edited. Open the JSL file in PSP, expand the layer in the layer palette and locate the object that you wish to edit, activate the Object Selector and click on the object button in the layer palette and then choose "Node Edit" or any of the other vector editing commands. When finished, click File > Save.

If you are getting error messages when you try to use the Preset Shapes tool, close out of PSP, choose Start > Find > Files or Folders and type "Shapes.jpc" into the search box. The file is located in the "Cache" subdirectory of the PSP7 folder (see screenshot), right-click and delete the file. A new cache file will be created the next time that PSP is opened.

Windows Meta Files (WMF) can be opened in PSP and exported as Preset Shapes.

The drag and drop process, used in this tutorial, may be used any time that you want to add all of the layers from a saved image to an open image in the work space. There are, however, a couple of things you need to be aware of when you use this process.

• When the layers are added to an open image they are automatically grouped in the layer palette of the open image and must be "ungrouped" before they can be moved independently with the mover tool. (Note that this pertains to layers only. The objects residing on vector layers can be moved independently regardless of this grouping.)
• Layers added to an image by dragging them from the browser will not automatically be centered on the canvas as they are when you drag them from image to image in the PSP workspace.