Lets us understand the concept of group and combine in depth and compare both of them using certain commands.
1. Open Corel Draw.
2. Draw rectangle using Rectangle and fill it with red color. Keep it selected.
3. Go to Edit > Duplicate
4. You will get another rectangle filled with red color. Fill the second rectangle with green color. Keep them side by side, on the same level with a very less space in between. Select both of them.
5. Go to Arrange > Group
6. Both the rectangles are grouped and still filled with the different colors.
7. Go to Arrange > Ungroup
8. Now the rectangles are ungrouped.
9. Go to Arrange > Combine
10. The objects are combined and filled with single color.
11. You need to do this smoothly as we are going to use the same rectangles further to explain the difference between group and combine.
12. Go to Arrange > Break Curve Apart
13. Click anywhere to deselect the object. Select any object using Pick Tool. You will observe that now you can select any object separately and fill the color of your choice.
14. Delete any one rectangle. Select the rectangle left on the page. Click on the fill tool and select Fountain Fill Dialogue. Select Radial in Type and Two Color in Color Blend. Choose any colors for From and To boxes. Click OK to fill the radial fill in the rectangle. Keep the rectangle selected.
15. Go to Edit > Duplicate
16. You get another identical rectangle with redial fill. Please try to observe the nature of the radial fill in those two rectangles. They have two centers.This means both the rectangles have their own identical separate radial fills. Keep them side by side, on the same level with a very less space in between. Select both of them.
17. Go to Arrange > Group
18. Both the rectangles are grouped and still filled with the separate radial fills.
19. Go to Arrange > Ungroup
20. Now the rectangles are ungrouped. Select both of them.
21. Go to Arrange > Combine
22. Both the rectangles are combined. Now please carefully observe the fountain fill. When grouped, the fill are separate with two centers in each rectangle. After combine command is applied, both the rectangles are treated as one single object and hence the two fills are turned into one single fountain fill. This fill has one center and both the rectangles are treated as big one single rectangle.
23. Go to Arrange > Break Curve Apart
24. The object is separated again and we have two different rectangles with two separate radial fills.
