Corel v10

[Not Ziggy]

Ian, I work at a print shop where we do everything from business cards to four-color 36-page brochures in Draw. Attempting that with Illustrator would be madness. If you're planning to use Illustrator with PhotoShop and InDesign then you'll be alright, but you can start planning on three expensive and unreliable upgrades a year instead of one.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Some people like Illustrator for the exact same reason that they like the Macintosh's one-button mouse: it does LESS... and some people find that comforting.

(Did anyone say, George W. Bush?)

[irascian]

Hi Ziggy,

I already use Photoshop and InDesign (before that PageMaker) after finding the few print shops that take Corel Draw files were scathing about releases that have appeared since Version 3. I have Illustrator because I like the way Adobe software runs and to be honest I'm not an artist - I tend to use Corel Draw for clipart or basic diagrams, and then export them to Photoshop and use a bunch of filters to make such drawings look photo-realistings and to hide their clip-art origins. These days Illustrator and Photoshop seem to work together very well. Corel for me has always been a pig. Text disappears on print that was there on the screen. Exporting a vector format that can be displayed properly in Word is a joke: I invariably have to export as bitmap because none of the vector formats work properly (they all have their own individual quirks). Illustrator may not be so powerful but it just feels so much more solid and "tested" than Corel. I tried Corel Xara version 1 but when Corel took them over there seemed little point in proceeding with releases and it's a pain having to keep learning new interfaces.

That being said, I've taken fontman at his work (I run Windows 2000 here) and Corel 10 has just arrived! I haven't installed it yet but I'm already unhappy. The documentation is extremely slim to say the list. NO clip art book for the first time ever. Why not? The clipart is useless without the manual. It looks to me like penny-pinching cost saving despite the high cost of upgrade. I just hope the software itself doesn't prove as shoddy!

Ian

[garvoon]

Howdy folks...

First off Ziggy and Mike... 1950! Beat ya both. Class of '68!

Anyway, NO, Corel 10 is nowhere near the flop that the "rushed-to-market" Corel, version 6 was. Period. Nothing could ever go that low.

So far, everything's been running just fine in Win98 and WinMe... very stable and no crashes. Keep in mind I haven't messed with either R.A.V.E. and/or Photopaint yet (I'm a devout Photoshop/CorelDRAW user), but Draw 10 just zips right along.

One BUG, however:

When specifying line weights, I usually use INCHES vice POINTS (I'm a former engineering tech and old habits stick). From the PROPERTIES BAR, the line weight pulldown displays and works correctly. HOWEVER, when you try to manipulate line weights in the OUTLINE TOOL, the initial pulldown within that menu shows:

None
Hairline
0.0 In.
0.0 In.
0.0 In.
0.1 In.
0.1 In.
0.2 In.
0.3 In.

...INSTEAD of:

None
Hairline
0.007 In.
0.014 In.
0.028 In.
0.056 In.
0.111 In.
0.222 In.
0.333 In.

...AND, when you type in a specific line weight, it displays as NONE/0.0 In. line weight (the lines disappear!).

Things seem to work OK for POINTS and MILLIMETERS (haven't really checked any others).

I'd call this a fairly major glitch and most certainly annoying, BUT, not as ANNOYING as the SNAP TO OBJECTS snag when Corel 9 was first released.

Hope there's a fix for it pretty quick.

Have you or anyone else experienced this?

All in all, to date, CorelDRAW 10 appears to be worth it, and, I most certainly appreciate Corel dropping the "annual upgrade" policy.

'nuff said?

Y'all have a good one,

Gary
(The OLD guy! )
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[davidbrown]

Further to Fontman's original post, has anyone had any success getting Draw 10 to run on Win98 (or win98SE)?

It seems surprising to me that such an obvious problem would have slipped through inhouse and beta testing.

[dshaw]

Hi gang...
I haven't been on the site for a while because I haven't had any problems. That's why I come here.
Now...for Draw 10...just installed it a couple of days ago and haven't realy tested it yet...I'm also still using CD9 until I learn a little more and am sure 10 is stable. So far, so good, but I had a friend who installed 10 with 9 still on her drive and it converted ALL of her Corel files to 10. Mine doesn't seem to change them until I open them in 10 and then resave.
About WinME...I had a crash recently and had the opportunity to have it put on a new computer. It lasted about 48 hours before I ran screaming back to the shop. It is neat and works well...but not for anybody doing graphics for a living. I ran into the shop owner when I went to pick up my machine and was told they never should have put it on my machine to begin with. She said all were told,at a seminar they attended (by Microslush), NOT to seel the product to ANY business users. It was never intended for business use...just for homies.

Dean

[ranchhand]

Just reading the comments here; what I see is a bunch of loyal pros who love the program, and some feel hurt because of Corel policy.
Corel is great. It has apps. and power that makes it a workhorse in the business environment.
I started with CorelDraw3, and had Chris's book in my lap as I labored on a 486-50Mz to learn it.
Crash, Crash, Crash. Thought it was my computer, until I realized that the only thing that ever crashed was Corel. We all discovered later that Corel3 had more bugs in it than an Orkin commercial. I still haven't quite forgiven them. Corel4 wasn't much better. I almost missed a deadline on a project once because CorelMove kept crashing just as I was finishing a sequence; got it completed once, saved the completed project to video output tape, and discovered corruptions that made it unable to run on the client's computers. That was on a Pentium machine. There were other instances.
Sorry, guys, facts are facts. The big shops don't use Corel because it has a rep for releasing buggy products. Want a job in a big shop? Learn Illustrator and Photoshop. Of course to be fair, the shops run Apple systems, and that has a lot to do with it also. But I have had several artists tell me that they have constant problems with Corel files.
As far as upgrades? Corel always has been a bottom-line company. Since they don't have the licensing income that Adobe has because of its large-shop popularity, they must upgrade regularly for income. And, yes, it is annoying. Now that they have "cut the deadwood" off, I hope the new management will make improvements. I suspect (and I have no facts for this opinion), that Corel is attempting to initiate the crossover from Win9x to Windows 2000/ OS that is coming. Corel has never initiated change very well. It also may be that they don't have the capitol resources to test as thoroughly as they should.
And yes, I shall continue to use CorelDraw. It's a great product for the independent artist, even with the annoyances.
just a thought
ranchhand

[garvoon]

Hi Ranchhand,

I've been using CorelDRAW since V2 and am now working in Corel 10. To me, I think CD5 and CD7 worked out REALLY well, and the dog of all dogs was Corel 6.

I live in the Baltimore/Washington area and have had the blessing of several service bureaus that work very well with Corel files. Granted, I rely heavily on Photoshop (my raster program of choice), but Draw has really done wonders for myself and my career. Most of my work is output in the form of exhibits and visual presentations. On the side, I do a lot of silk screen masters for hockey crests, and again, Corel has really come through. For the latter, on occasion, Illustrator files were required, so after I did all my designing, rendering, trapping, etc. in Corel, the files would convert nicely to Illustrator, and the "clean-up" once in AI was rather painless.

Illustrator, though, to me, is VERY labor intensive and never has come up to the level of Corel in instances such as user friendliness and innovation. Belive me, I've used Illustrator since the mid 90's (so I guess I can put my money where my mouth is), but to be honest, I'm really not that happy with it. HOWEVER, as I've stated MANY times before, to each his and/or her own as far as programs go. Whatever makes one happy. My only concern is compatibility, which in my eyes, has become much more do-able over the years.

So, in a nutshell, Corel has done it for me for the last decade (+/- a year or two). You've been blessed with my two cents!

You have a good one, y'hear!

Gary Garvin
Laurel, MD

[mikeius]

I haven't seen anything I can't do with photopaint 7 that can be done with photoshop, but the results seem to be a bit better with photoshop 6 and it should be, I'm ready for a change
----------------------------------------------
There is a lot of things that you can do with Shop, that can't be done with Paint 7.


You will see big differences between PP7 and PP10 after the comming SP1, and after new professionals tools that will be added soon. PP10 could be updated before V11. It has a new structure which allow this. Shop 6 is not much different than version 5.5 other than some web oriented tools, and it is very expensive. After PP10 be fine tunned. It will be better than Shop6.

I performed the following test. 180 MB Tiff image open and display in the same system.

Photoshop 5.5 = over 2 minutes.

PhotoPaint 10 = 20 seconds.

It is true that PP10 needs tune up, and a couple of tools to be better than Shop. But the time is close, and the investment smaller.

So, I advice you to wait until Spring before you jump. If you have enough budget to get both of them, go ahead.

Regards

Michael Cervantes
MC Design Studio

[mikeius]

I haven't seen anything I can't do with photopaint 7 that can be done with photoshop, but the results seem to be a bit better with photoshop 6 and it should be, I'm ready for a change
----------------------------------------------
There is a lot of things that you can do with Shop, that can't be done with Paint 7.


You will see big differences between PP7 and PP10 after the comming SP1, and after new professionals tools that will be added soon. PP10 could be updated before V11. It has a new structure which allow this. Shop 6 is not much different than version 5.5 other than some web oriented tools, and it is very expensive. After PP10 be fine tunned. It will be better than Shop6.

I performed the following test. 180 MB Tiff image open and display in the same system.

Photoshop 5.5 = over 2 minutes.

PhotoPaint 10 = 20 seconds.

It is true that PP10 needs tune up, and a couple of tools to be better than Shop. But the time is close, and the investment smaller.

So, I advice you to wait until Spring before you jump. If you have enough budget to get both of them, go ahead.

Regards

Michael Cervantes
MC Design Studio

[mikeius]

David, I am running on Win98, and the only serious problem I have found is related to Dockers in Paint and RAVE with Matrox Mellenium II driver. If you undock dockers, then the problem disappear.

It will be addressed in SP1.

Draw is running fine. Sometimes CARM appears, but it is good, because it let you save your work, and continue working or just close the application. Before, you can't do nothing when a crash is present. There is not obligation to report bugs with CARM to Corel. If you please you report your problem or not, but it is not mandatory as some users think.

Still there are some bugs, but SP1 will be out soon,I hope. I unistalled V9, and by next Spring, may be I will unistall Shop.

Regards

Michael Cervantes
MC Design Studio.