Next, she added a function to scan for the company logo by name, check its bounding box, and scale it proportionally to fit a target frame while keeping the alignment centered. She tested on a sample file and watched the logo snap perfectly into place. She grinned.

Using CorelSCRIPT and VBA snippets she found in forums, Ava assembled a macro called “BannerBatch.” The first version did three things: open a file, find and replace text styled with the “ProductName” paragraph style, and save a copy. It worked, and the relief tasted like coffee.

The macro didn’t just automate tasks; it changed how the team thought about work. Instead of resigning themselves to repetitive edits, they started listing bottlenecks and asking, “Can we script this?” Ava ran lunchtime sessions teaching simple CorelDRAW scripting. Designers learned to look for patterns, to tag objects consistently, and to document workflows—small changes that made automation possible.

For color consistency, she wrote a routine that checked the document palette for the client’s brand swatch—if missing, it added the swatch and recolored elements tagged with “BrandFill.” That saved her from opening each object’s fill dialog one by one.

Ava had been a designer for six years, but CorelDRAW felt like an old friend with new moods. Deadlines arrived like trains—punctual, loud, and impossible to miss. One Friday evening, the agency landed its biggest retail mockup job yet: twenty vinyl banners, each with slight layout tweaks, layered logos, and variable copy. The lead designer was out sick. Ava volunteered.