CDR file format: fills, outlines and fonts

From CorelDRAW 4 on, fills, outlines, fonts and bitmaps are kept in tables in the LIST doc, and each object names the ones it uses by id. These are the layouts libcdr reads; bytes it steps over are marked unknown. “Coordinate”, “angle” and “unsigned” change size with the version, as on the objects page.

Colours

A colour is a colour model and a 32-bit value whose four bytes are the components, lowest byte first.

Version	Layout	Size
3	Model (1 byte), value (4 bytes).	5
4	Model (2), four 16-bit components, 2 unknown. The value is made of the low byte of each component.	12
5 and later	Model (2), palette (2), 4 unknown, value (4). Model `0x1E` has no palette or unknown bytes: model, then value.	12, or 6

Model	Meaning	Value bytes, lowest first
1, 2, 21	CMYK, 0 to 100	C, M, Y, K. From X3, libcdr reads model 1 as a palette colour.
3, 17	CMYK, 0 to 255	C, M, Y, K.
4	CMY	C, M, Y, unused.
5	RGB	Blue, green, red, unused.
6	HSB	Hue (16 bits, degrees), saturation, brightness (0 to 255).
7	HLS	Hue (16 bits), lightness, saturation.
8	Black and white	Not zero for black.
9	Greyscale	Grey level, 0 to 255.
11	YIQ	Y, I, Q.
12, 18	Lab	L, a, b (18 stores a and b offset by 128).
20	Registration colour	Tint, 0 to 100.
25, 30	Spot colour from a palette	The low 16 bits are the palette entry.

fill and fild: fills

Field	Size	Description
Fill id	4	The id objects use.
Unknown	8	X3 and later.
Fill type	2	0 none, 1 solid, 2 gradient, 7 two-colour pattern, 9 bitmap, 10 full-colour pattern, 11 texture.
Rest	varies	Depends on the type, as below.

Solid

2 unknown bytes (13 from X3), then one colour.

Gradient

Field	Size	Description
Unknown	2 (8 from X3)
Gradient type	1	1 linear, 2 radial, 3 conical, 4 square.
Unknown	11 (19 from version 6, 17 from X3)
Edge pad	2 (4 from version 6, 2 from X3)	Signed.
Angle	angle	The direction of the gradient.
Centre x and y offsets	2 × signed	For radial, conical and square gradients, in percent.
Unknown	2	Version 6 and later.
Mode	unsigned	How the colours blend; libcdr keeps the low byte.
Midpoint	1	In percent.
Unknown	1
Number of colours	unsigned	libcdr keeps the low 16 bits. 3 unknown bytes follow from X3.
Stops	varies	For each: a colour; 5 unknown bytes from X3 (26 from X5); the position in percent as an unsigned; 3 unknown bytes from X3.

Pattern, bitmap and texture fills give a pattern or bitmap id, a tile size and offsets, with layouts that differ from version to version; they are not described here.

outl: outlines

Field	Size	Description
Outline id	4	The id objects use.
Records	varies	X3 and later: records of a 4-byte id and a 4-byte length, up to the one with id 1. The fields below follow its header.
Line type	2	Bit `0x01`: no outline. Bit `0x04`: dashed. Bit `0x20`: the width scales with the object.
Caps	2	0 butt, 1 round, 2 square.
Joins	2	0 mitre, 1 round, 2 bevel.
Unknown	2	Versions 6 to 12 only.
Width	coordinate	The line width.
Stretch	2	The nib’s stretch, in percent.
Unknown	2	Version 6 and later.
Nib angle	angle
Unknown	0, 52 or 46	None up to version 5, 52 for 6 to 12, 46 from X3.
Colour	colour	The line colour.
Unknown	10 or 16	10 up to version 5, 16 later.
Number of dashes	2	n.
Dashes	n × 2	Dash and gap lengths, in line widths.
Arrowheads	2 × 4	Start and end arrowhead ids, 20 bytes (22 from version 6) after the number of dashes.

font: fonts

Field	Size	Description
Font id	2	The id text uses.
Character set	2	Version 5 and later: the Windows character set.
Unknown	14	Version 5 and later.
Name	varies	Ending in a zero: 8-bit characters up to version 11, UTF-16 from version 12.

bmp: bitmaps

Each bmp chunk starts with an unsigned bitmap id. Up to version 4 a complete Windows bitmap file follows, starting BM, with its size at bytes 2 to 5. From version 5 libcdr steps over 14 bytes (46 in version 6, 50 from version 7) and then reads a header of its own with the colour model, width, height, bits per pixel, palette and pixels; a second image, a mask, can follow. That header is not described here.

.CDR File Format – Fills, outlines and fonts