If I could just handle curves in Illustrator as I can do in CorelDRAW, I would live in a perfect world.

…and when you send your illustration to print in typography, recommend your soul to wichever God you trust more…

You can create a lots of good things in CorelDraw. But the problem is… It’s crashes a lot and the gradient steps is awful.

I’m a CorelDraw fan … once you get the hang of the program it is truly an awesome tool. It gets a bad rap only because people don’t take the time to get to know its ins-and-outs (who has the time anyway, can’t blame ‘em). Either way, I use it in conjunction with my Adobe tools when necessary. As a vector program it is one of the best.

Sorry, its your opnion and I respect but…but I’m stronglity against it.

Well, its not because something is there for 20 years that is must be good. Something could be still bad for 20 years… and that is the case of the CorelDraw.

CD is one of the most buggy softwares ever. It has tons of errors on it: like the exibition of the red – that is more an orange than a red, double-click on a file and it will open ANOTHER instance of a heavy program (for God Sake…), the especifc/weird kerning (you simply can’t match Photoshop/InDesign/Illustrator kerning on CD).

And even CD knows that it has some bad features: Open the X3 version, go to proprieties of the FX and you will see the color mode of the effect and there it says “RGB (used on all previous versions). That is AMAZING O_o

Many people started on CD, even me. But, every professional (PROFESSIONAL, not wanna-be computer users) that I knew had moved to Illustrator/InDesign. Some people loves to OVERUSE CD, making 400 pages folders on it, using it for everything (like they use Word, pay attention).

Sorry guys. To a professional use CD…is the same to eat soup with a fork.

(Infelizmente, aqui no Brasil as pessoas tem o péssimo costume de continuar a usar essa porcaria).

I used CD a lot in the nineties and remember the great path tools and some other striking features. Since Indesign I use Illustrator like most other people because of the product chain. It took me a while to manage its path tool and even today Illustrator is a very unstable program.

I remember CD as a great program that was by far better than AI. But around the year 2000, CD was a little bit behind in exporting graphics for the web.

very very nice article. Thanks

In my previous job I had to use Corel Draw, to be honest I had never bothered before with that program since I’ve always used Ai instead.

The only advantages I can find are the align tools are way faster to use, since it has shortcuts. In Ai I always have to open the align panel to do this.

But when it comes to working with the bezier tool Ai is way better than CD. I often had trouble drawing paths in CD, I found myself first drawing a geometrical shape like a square and then having to add paths to it so I could shape it into whatever I needed to. To me, that’s very inconvenient.

And Finally the main reason why I think Illustrator beats Corel draw easily is just the compatibility between all of the Adobe Suite. It’s a matter of just dragging and dropping… Who can argue with that!?

Is the CorelDraw gradient mesh tool works better than that of AI? I don’t think so. I tried mesh illustrations in both but felt Illustrator far better. And the end result comes cool in AI.

AI is simple, user-friendly and the BEST

“(Infelizmente, aqui no Brasil as pessoas tem o péssimo costume de continuar a usar essa porcaria).”

Douglas… é trash msm… Tem horas que Corel me dá nos nervos. X(

Have you ever heard about Xara Xtreme ?

There’s no better for Logo Design, but for Illustration I always end up adding effects and colors in Illustrator + Photoshop. I wouldn’t use it as a primary design software but it can speed up your process.

i was used to it years ago and i loved it… after this article im thinking about to look to the newest version… grreat article thx…

btw… i love your pic ANNE ^^

Im Coreldraw User, and im glad to see this article good luck everyone, i just winner on corel apac, and im very happy about it…love corel because it is not Awkward software, it is the most powerful vector software for creating vector

I am neither for or against CorelDraw. For nearly half of my design career was taken up using CorelDraw. When I switched to AI I found it difficult to use and awkward, obviously now with 5 years of AI i have totally reversed, due to lack of CorelDraw use.

Still I still have a copy and still pop in fro time to time and I find that it is a jack of all trades but a master of none.

bush was there for 8 years…

Well, corel has so many problems that I became to hate it since i begun work with AI. Color bugs, crashes, not interacts well with photoshop, horrible gradients…just to mention a few.
I completely disagree with the article when it mentions that CD is not user-friendly, it really is, a lot more than Adobe products, that´s why a lot of people think they are designers, just because they can handle someof the cd´s tools.
No offense, that´s not a professional tool.

(sorry for my bad english)

I start working with Corel and illustrator/freehand at same time, in the 90’s and by far Corel Draw was the easiest to learn and with the fastest learning curve of both.

I use it right now in PROFESSIONAL works on its X3 incarnation and i think it is a great peace of vector software (well I hate its limited gradients, specially the radial ones…). But the people works that way, you are cool (and a real PROFESSIONAL) if you design with an expensive Mac with Illustrator and you suck (or let’s say you are a wanna-be computer user) if in a PC with Corel.

The software monopoly are no good for anybody.

I first learned Corel DRAW in College, here in Brazil. Unfortunately it IS buggy as hell. Lot of crashes, clunky interface, terribly slow. I moved on to Freehand, and after that, Illustrator. Can´t see myself using CD again. Thank god I don´t do print work.

Illustrator have it´s drawbacks too in the interface. But, at least, not the “too-many-meaningless-icons-nightmare” that is Corel DRAW.

I really admire those artists in the post. They are the incarnation of patience.

I started using illustrator and corel draw at the same time, about 5 years ago, but i only use AI now. I don’t like CD because it’s very buggy and because im very used to adobe softwares, like photoshop.
In my opinion, it doesn’t matter if you use CD, AI or inkscape; If you have a good final result, it’s ok, even if you’re using Ms Paint

About what Douglas said, in Brazil, i think more than 80% of peoples use CD. As i know, in other countries, there is less CD users. If you are looking for a printing company in brazil, you’ll have serious compatibility problems. I once had to export jobs from AI to JPG due to this incompatibility.

My thoughts … I don’t think that Corel is hard to learn, the other way around, its easy, but thats the huge problem, people do everything with Corel, at least I used to, design books, make vector illustrations, design type, well its because its easy, but thats the huge problem, its a big mess, you learn to do the things the bad way.

With Illus, you illustrate, with InDesign you make layouts for publications, its more organize and more stable, Corel crashes all the time, but lets be honest Illustrator, crashes too, not so often but it happens, there’s no perfect vector program, at least I miss the handle of the curves in Corel!!! Not a perfect world!! people.

I use Corel Draw as well as Adobe Illustrator for different situations. While, Illustrator seems pretty comfortable in navigation and accessibility, there are cases when I need to switch on to Corel Draw:

Many a times, I was asked to design a Flex Hoarding of fairly large size.. say 40 feet. The problem in our locality was that the Flex machine took 72dpi jpeg file for print, and not high res file. For that we always needed to make the file in exact size as that of a print. Now, Illustrator can not handle files more than inches, say.. upto 10 feet max. Whereas Corel Draw will allow you to specify document sizes in FEET, YARDS and KILOMETERS. Without any crash, CD handles 300mb files so easily, whereas Illustrator gives-up in such cases.

Awesome works! Every software has its power hidden, but know how to use it is a tough process. CorelDraw has its own way of interface and requires a different ability to use the tools. Who is used with Illustrator like me will find CorelDraw a little harder. I’ve used CorelDraw recently to send works to be printed, and some tools are really hard to use. Who i used to it, congratualtions! But honestly, Illustrator is the best!

Im BRAZILIAN and i must say, that in Brazil, Corel Fraw is one of the standarts in the advertising and design market!

All the print bureaus accept corel files and some times, ask for corel version of the jobs!

I work on a Design agency that uses both mac and PC and we use all the Adobe Software and Corel Draw

“If you are a fan of South Park, choose Corel Draw because all the characters, scenery, and props are drawn using this vector package,”

-Ferenc

You had a good article going until that stupid statement.I’m cool with DRAW. It’s a darn good program, period. This is coming from an Illustrator user and a fan of South Park.

Thanks everybody for the comments and reading my “awkward” article. Although the aim of the roundup was to shed some light on the “dark side” most of the comments are about comparing CorelDraw to AdobeIllustrator so I maybe should write the “AI vs. CD – the final showdown”.
Thanks again everybody.

iam 100% agree with Gabriela , i use cd sometimes. but when comes to use bezier tool or pen tool, i just shutdown and use Ai or watch movies ,my bad, here in companies they ask cd ,but i made some improvements in ai and used few freebies in my blog. now i have to take my cd book and learn from the begining, anyhow i knw something,.i use cd esp for charcter tarcaing and making them into 3d. it like useful nad awkward, but patientice is more what we need when learning and working with this. for job requirements, i have to do something from cd. esp – print media, le see and wait in how much time i can learn it throughly

Never had any major problems using corel draw, and for me it never was awkward either..there’s no point in complaining if you don’t find a way or solution to your problem..if only people invest more time studying and tweaking its tools instead rather than complaining or giving up, then there shouldn’t be any problem, all it just needs is a little getting used to. Been using both AI and CD for years now, all it takes is a little time,dedication and patience.

I love curves in Corel Draw! So easy and so fast. Dream of all vector’s illustrators.

I using Corel Draw in prepress too. And I don’t have problem. Colour Management is easy. Export to PDF is correct. But sometimes people don’t know, how export to PDF. It is problem. Corel Draw is not problem.

thanks alot for the feature guys!! very much appreciated!!

holla from indonesia!!!

HI !!!!! I JUST CAN SAY THAT THE IMPORTANT THINK ITS THE ART AND CREATIVE OF EVERYONE,,, THESE PROGRAMS ONLY HELP US SHOW ALL OUR POTENCIAL LIKE TO PEN OR COLOR DO IT IN A PAPER… THANKS AND SORRY THE ORTOGRAPHIC….

FROM CCS VENEZUELA!!!!

Great Article! I must say that I am a fan of CorelDRAW. I have been using it since CorelDraw 8. I know this article is about Corel but honestly it is hard not to compare it with Adobe. Adobe is Industry Standard (well in most places) and to me, I think comparing Corel with Adobe is actually complimenting Corel for keeping up with the “industry standard”. I feel Adobe is waaaay over priced. You get a hell of a lot from Corel for what you pay for. Thank you Corel for providing a super powerful application for an affordable price. If only CorelPhoopaint was as powerful as Photoshop then I would switch completely.

I am confused, My mate was going to teach me Coral Draw and I an learnign Illustrator, which one should i go with? mmm

Hi people, nice article and discussion.
I´ve been CDr user for more than 6 years. At that point I could do whatever thing I had in my mind really quickly. I had really control with that program. The last one version “X4″ had improved some tipical problems with the color, and the crashdown bugs. I was pretty happy with it.
Then I started to read about Illustrator and I decided to try with it.
The beginning was frustrating in simple things as the vector paths, (you need until three tools for it!!!), pic the object´s color and trace, etc…
I´ve got about 4-5 months with Ai and I´m starting to understand the way you have to think with that program. It´s kinda more complicated than Corel, but the final appearance is a more polished image, nicers colors and gradients, and of course the natural interaction with the othres Adobe programs (Ps, Id, Pr, etc…). Actually,I think I´m moving to Ai, but keep a good felling about CDr. (I´ll never forget it, hehe)
(Sorry if my english has any mistake)

I think the thing you all should realize is that it’s really not about the program. Those great examples will attest to that. It’s how you use the tools that you have to channel your creativity. Wether you use CD or Ai or whatever other program… It’s what you do with it that counts!

yes..it’s pretty awkward for me to use it..:P

all the presented graphic were created in CD..? nothing else or other side program that incorporated with CD..? AWESOME.

Though using AI for the sake of clean and smooth delivery to the printer, I have to admit to really still like CDr. Its main strength is part of its name: Drawing. For being a chainsmoking hyperactive person with a concentration span of approximated 5 minutes, Illustrators way of handling of nodes and curves drives me mad on a regular basis. Changing a tool 3 or 4 types until a path has its right shape and this for every anchor point from new on… I shot through the ceiling different times, now having an umbrella on my desk. CDr allows me to GRAB THE CURVE. Corel also saw some meaning in having 3 mouse buttons, doing more with it than just open a context menu. I create my shapes exactly in CDr and port ‘em over to AI via .eps. It works just fine. And leaves me time for another cigarette and some licks on my guitar.

Is Corel Draw the same as Corel Painter X? I was starting to learn corel painter X but went back to school, no time with all other homework.

Love the illustrations there too!

Hi Buzz:

No; CorelDraw is a vector-Drawing programme, whereas Painter is a painting programme (one which closely mimics traditional painting tools like oils, watercolours, etc).

I had a nice time reading this article and the comments afterwards. Thank you, Ferenc, for writing it, since it’s quite hard to find serious articles about CorelDraw in the professional design world. Yes, CD has got a bad rap for years, but I find that normallly, the people who despise it the most tend not to know the software as they should. As your article shows, lots of cool stuff can be achieved with it. I agree: the gradients could be better, but you’ve got a whole more versatility with transparencies than those you get in Illustrator. The node-manipulation is much better; the interface is cleaner and generally, the same things can be achieved in less time because a lot of its tools are interactive (click, pull and it’s ready). And of course, it’s much cheaper.

A lot of Draw users are not professionally-trained designers or illustrators, so that’s the reason you don’t always see killer graphic examples. But that does not mean you can produce great things with it.

What I don’t like about the software: it makes some stuff which Illustrator just won’t do, but not all of those things are top-notch. You CAN do layouting with it, but the text controls are not as precise as a dedicated programme. You CAN produce working TT, T1 or OT fonts, but the pair kerning should be tweaked in software like Fontographer, FontLab or the like.

As to compatibility with Adobe software, I think expecting it to work seamlessly with its competition would be too naive. But for me, what it does, works: I can export to illustrator if I need, it preserves layers if I export to Photoshop, retains layered objects of imported .psd files and exports to a darn lot of formats.

For me, it’s the best vector-editing software there is.

the software doesnt matter. the artist do the job.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 is certainly far more viable for general print and sign work then any of the single Adobe products. In general print work CorelDRAW is more viable then the entire CS line of products brcause in the U.S. 95% of all graphics work is 1 to 8 pages, certainly don’t need Indesign for that.

Color issues, not really simply lear how Corel colormanagement works there is a book at http://www.graphictechnology.com that explains it. Certainly Corel has not supporten non-professional level non-postscript device as well as Adobe but Corel was always aimed at the postscript market.

For me CorelDraw is the easiest and fun graphics software. No. 1 in the sign industry. No. 1 in tshirt design and production. Very affordable.

take a look at some of the tutorials that I have learned form this guy in http://www.coreldrawtips.com

The only thing that matters with any software is the results. Go to http://coreldraw.com/media/ and make up your own mind. If CorelDRAW wasn’t professional, you wouldn’t see results like this.

Working in CorelDRAW is about twice as fast as illustrator. Anyone who knows both programs will admit it.

What’s hard to for Illustrator users to admit: being ripped off enormous amounts of money for a bloated and overall worse set of products – with zero content. The creative content that comes with X4 is worth the price of the package by itself.

While Illustrator has some nice features, overall it’s depressingly difficult to use relative to the speed and intuitive nature of CorelDRAW. The bottom line: no matter how “good” someone becomes with Illustrator, they’ll never be faster than a skilled CorelDRAW user.

It has nothing to do with the artists; The basic functionality shown in your series here extends through the rest of the features.

It’s faster because of the fundamental nature of the software. So, Illus. will become as fast and powerful as CorelDRAW only when it copies more or all of CorelDRAW’s UI methods. I honestly feel sorry for artists who think Illustrator is the leader in this genre. It’s not a crime for them to be misinformed – but it IS unfortunate.

Over the course of their careers, they could get at least TWICE as much billable artwork done using CorelDRAW instead. That means hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.

When you add VBA macros to the mix, CorelDRAW rocks even more. http://macromonster.com/

I’ve started my designs with FlashMX so I used Fireworks for my vector designs. It’s not that advanced as Corel or AI, but it worked fine for my web templates.
Now, I am not into vector so much, and most of the time I use photoshop, but for the vector, I use mainly AI. Corel is my first choice when it’s about exporting images. It comes with the best and smoothest results.

Is CorelDRAW Awkward? Of course not! Is the best vector-editing software in the world.

Thanks for the feature, my friend!

I do vector graphics (vinyl, laser and cnc router cutting) in the sign industry.
The BIG advantage of Corel is that it’s open shop.
I can import Adobe files and lots of others sent to me by clients.
Try importing a Corel Draw file directly to AI.
Closed shop.

Comparing Corel Draw to Illustrator is like comparing PC to Mac.
It’s a case of “What I’m familiar with is best”.

I strongly agree. Its versatility due to being open shop gives it a special edge. Why, you can even use it hand in hand with AutoCAD.

I not only use it for vectorization, but also for typesetting and layout, due to its multi-page capability. If you get the hang of it, it’s like Illustrator and InDesign merged in one–and it’s lighter too!

I’ve been using Corel since version 3 but switched to AI just a year ago and never went back. I guess it’s a matter of workflow for me. When it comes to combining Adobe Products, nothing beats Adobe products.

But then again it’s up to the user to decide and what works for them might not work for you. Criticizing a product openly in public doesn’t help much for you as a designer.

Just my 2c

There is no other “professional” program that comes even close to match CD in its versatility in the sign industry, in fact it is becoming the defacto application in the sign design and manufacturing field. We use it on a daily basis to make basic layouts for name badges, CNC rout paths, vehicle wraps, etc. All these designs can be directly output to the corresponding
tool, be it laser engraver, wide format printer, vinyl cutter or a CNC router directly from Corel. I also send 14×40 foot full color billboard designs for print to an outsource production facility. Often I upload business cards, post cards, flyers and several page brochure to out of state printer, while I do banners and posters in house for a client. The colors are always dead on, even though the final product came from different sources.
To speed up productivity, I have customized the right mouse button function and seldom use drop down menus or click for certain tool.
I would like to share an interesting advantage of using the mouse with the left hand (I am left handed), resting the index finger on the right mouse button gives a much more natural position and avoids wrist strain,
plus it leaves the right hand for keyboard input. I have several left hand mouse converts in my shop and I did not force them to do this.
Why is CD professional, because it makes me money!

I’ve been a CorelDraw user for about 5 years, tried Illustrator but finally settled on Xara Xtreme which is the lightest and has the fastest rendering engine.

This means you can grow to thousand of objects in your drawing and the software is equally responsive. Iterating trough multiple versions takes less time and that makes me more productive.

I must admit regarding to anti-aliasing and the final outcome of subtle vectors, Illustrator is king.

My top:
1. Xara Xtreme
2. Illustrator
3. Corel Draw

Xtreme looks a bit awkward and seems like is not a professional design tool because it doesn’t have a pretty icon family (which we designers immediately reject) but totally compensates trough speed and productivity.

Long live Freehand!

“I think the developers of this software have created a sharp program, but not so user friendly.”

And illustrator is user friendly? Adobe’s never makes user friendly software. It took me a while to get used to photoshop, and I still probably only use 10% of it.

Nice article, but I can’t think of one good, easy to use vector or image software.

I used to use corelDRAW, but the colour management is terrible, specially when printing to wide format printers. I do agree it is a great vector software, the typography tools aren’t that great.
The one big problem CorelDRAW has though is it only for the PC, just like Xara Xtreme. Why they stopped the Mac version I don’t know, but there is a lot of Graphic Designers like myself who use Mac only, if they made a Mac version I may just purchase it and start using it again.

Well… in outdoor advertising, CorelDraw is highly used, especially for large cuts, designing at 1:1, as for Illustrator you need to downsize the artwork.

In this tutorial at the zooming and panning part… there are 3 Keyboard Shortcuts to remember F2 F3 and F4, they are a charm. In Romania, advertising for outdoor Corel is more used.

I found out that passing from Corel to Illustrator is easier, also if you know your way in photoshop a little.

To use almost the same curve management as in Corel into Illustrator there is a plugin, I’ll come later with the name as I’m on the laptop for the moment.

Great artwork, and also great round-up of pros and cons