Time to upgrade, but to which product?

**jimhanus** · 28 March 2012, 07:43 PM

I currently use Designer Pro 6, and I was all ready to upgrade to Designer Pro 7, when out comes Web Designer MX (v8). My business is more biased toward websites than graphic design, but I don't want to miss out on something more important in WDMX. Any suggestions from the masses on which direction I should go? Are the improvements from DP6 to DP7 the biggest change, or should I continue using DP6 for vector work and buy WDMX Premium for websites? Any comments are appreciated. I've looked back and forth between the different programs and can't come to any conclusions.

Thanks!

Jim

**pauland** · 28 March 2012, 07:52 PM

Why upgrade now? Wait for the Designer product which always follows shortly after the WD releases. Then make a choice.

**jimhanus** · 28 March 2012, 07:57 PM

Yes I had thought of that, but have been putting this off for some time and was all ready to go. Any rumors on when a MX Designer might surface?

**pauland** · 28 March 2012, 08:16 PM

I don't remember exactly, but it's not so long. Not that I have any special info.

**xtom** · 28 March 2012, 08:28 PM

All my work is web related too but I'll be waiting to see the new Designer Pro. Web Designer Premium is tempting with all it offers and it's cheaper than Pro price and I think it has closed the gap quite a bit compared to earlier versions eg. Web Designer 6 vs Pro 6. But still Pro has lots of good extras that aren't available in the WD products and I love having everything in one good piece of software. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of what the differances are though. Xara tend to compare Designer Pro with Photo & Graphic on their site but I'd like a clearer comparison between WDP and Pro because as a web user they would interest me the most.

**angelize** · 28 March 2012, 09:11 PM

One thing to think about when making this decision is to consider if you purchase Web Designer MX 8 now you will likely (at least this is how it worked last year) get an upgrade discount on the new Designer Pro when it comes out (no I don't know when, but the last few years it has been in the summer) so it works out like a graduated upgrade.

**gwpriester** · 28 March 2012, 09:35 PM

I think they have added a lot of features to WD MX that might be fine for what you need. The web features in Designer 8 or MX or YX or whatever they call it will probably be the same but there might be a few more design features. But if you are doing web design, then MX is a good way to go.

And as Frances points out, when Designer comes out and you find there is must have feature then upgrade.

If you are generating income from web design work, then consider how much you are saving compared to Dreamweaver, and take your wife or SO out to dinner on the difference.