Thanks, rustle ... Corel Draw does indeed have the ability to multi-layer either by arranging "to back" or "to front" or in any order at all. If I do several layers of vector graphics, they will print exactly as I intend them to with the colours all in the right places and any intended overlaps correctly placed.
The problem seems to occur only when I try to place text over a bitmap. I have done another test this evening in which I placed a small photo on the page then drew a speech bubble that was half on the blank page and half on the bitmap. I coloured the bubble light blue and added some text. As I looked at it on the screen, there was a portion of the bitmap obscured - as it should be - by the blue bubble and the text was where I placed it but when I printed it out, the bubble was only blue where the blank part of my page was. The portion over the bitmap was without any colour (except the colours in the photo).
The text is unaffected and appears as it should over the bitmap or the page but I just can not get any colour intentionally printed over a bitmap. It's driving me nuts because as far as I am concerned, it should print as I am seeing it on the screen. It was never a problem with Corel 4 so there is a new facility in this much newer version that I cannot figure out how to disable ... or even find out what it is called so I can look it up.