Corel has put out a great deal of quality products throughout the years. But ever since Macromedia became a player, Corel has been running a close third in the market of graphics software.
Many believe it came from them losing focus and spreading too thin. For instance, what was the point of them diving into making a Linux distribution? This company was known for it office suite and graphics software. But with the release of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12, the team has regrouped and drafted a new player; you, the user. I recently asked a few representitives, above all else what makes, what about this new release is going to win customers back. Their answer? Well, it seems that in developing this version they started from scratch and the let the users dictate what features to have, how things were to work and what new features they wanted to see. They involved testers in the whole process, far beyond what has been done before, making a product that will seriously catch your attention. And oh yeah, the price tag for the whole suite is considerably less than a single product from some of their competitors. And if you’re a student, those new pair of Adidas might run you more than their new release!
Ease of Use
One of the things that might be extremely appealing is the suite’s usability. For instance, one of the first projects I had after installing it was making an application for employment. I had recieved the original application in Word format. I thought to myself, this is alot of Copy & Paste work, so I looked and sure enough, CorelDRAW 12 imports Word documents. I imported it and it appeared flawless. Every bit of formatting in the original document was displayed. Ok, ok, no great feet, but considering CorelDRAW the program is a vector based graphics editor, similar to Freehand and Illustrator, I was thoroughly impressed.
As I keep working I noticed some other features the were slowly improving my productivity. The Smart Drawing tool really takes the burden off the user when creating freehand graphics. It does this by smoothing out out all the imperfections as you draw. Your jagged edges suddenly become smooth. But above all else, the Snap To Objects feature is outstanding. With this feature turned on, as you drag objects around the canvas, you see snap points on other objects. Without any special key strokes you can line your object to the center, on a node(point),perpindicular, on a tangent, at the intersection of two objects, or even within a certain quadrant of another object. I’ve seen this feature in other products, mainly CAD programs, but using it for design graphics, you’ll be totally surprised at how effective it can be in increasing productivity.
The entire suite is riddled with little touches like these that will surprise and delight you. Take for example TrueDoc font embedding. What this allows you to do is embed a copy of all the fonts you use in a project within the CDR source file. How does this help? Well lets say you’ve made a business card template for your company and the print shop doesn’t have all the fonts you’ve used. Normally, you would have two choices. 1.) Make paths out of all your fonts 2.) Supply the print shop with copies of the fonts and make them install the fonts into their system. The advantage of TrueDoc font embedding is that, the fonts come with the file! Which means the print shop can make changes to your business card without you having to send them a new copy.
The suite also comes with a screen capture tool simply called Corel CAPTURE 12. It goes far beyond you normal “print screen” button and it’s way better than Analog X’s Capture which you’ve heard me talk about. It allows you to capture just the active window, just certain areas of your screen and even video. It also can capture your mouse pointer and drop-down menus, which most free capture tools don’t. Another cool extra is Corel TRACE 12. Flash has had a similar tool for a few years, and Corel themselves have put this product out for a while. This is a stand-alone program that will trace and bitmapped image and make vectored paths out of it, allowing you to save it in multiple formats for use in other programs. The difference between this one and the one built into Flash is that Corel TRACE 12 has an array of styles to choose from and the accuaracy of what it outputs far exceeds anything else.
Finally, you’ve got to remember, this is an entire suite of products. Something you don’t always get with other companies. Bundled in the suite are programs like Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12, which, you guessed it, is in direct competition with PhotoShop (and to some extent Fireworks for that matter). To make the switch from one to the other will require hardly require any re-learning. As soon as you open the program you will feel right at home and you’ll be familiar will all the tools, effects and even the layout. Corel DRAW is a step above Adobe Illustrator and a two flight walk above Freehand, but PHOTO-PAINT is neck to neck with PhotoShop. Let’s face it, most companies would love to be at that level and PHOTO-PAINT has always been on par with PhotoShop.
Furthering Corel’s advantages is Corel R.A.V.E. 3. This is Corel’s Flash program built more with the designer in mind. Stripped away are some of the things developers are interested in that designers could care less about. I believe this is the uderlying factor about what makes this suite so great. It’s made for designers above all else.
Scott Harris a former graphic designer for Murdok and currently the design manager for C.A.D. Website Design and RSStatic
