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Is CorelDRAW Awkward?

on Sep 3rd 2009 with 104 comments

CorelDRAW had its 20th anniversary just recently. If a software can stand for 20 years it couldn’t be that bad, right? But yes, it looks awkward and many people simply ignore it, since it is not "cool" enough. Its designer community isn’t large and the software itself has some disadvantages, which make it look a bit awkward. Let’s reviews some advantages and disadvantages of using this software.

Introduction

Why is that only people already addicted to CorelDRAW use it? Maybe they know something we don’t. In this article, I’ll review some of the issues with CorelDRAW. I think the developers of this software have created a sharp program, but not so user friendly.

CorelDRAW is very precise and reliable. All the tools give maximum control, but you must fight your way through to learn them. It’s definitely not the software that you can take for a quick spin and easily create great artwork.

The good news is that when you get used to its feature set, it becomes part of your thinking and can be a strong tool for creating astounding artwork. Let’s review a few pros and cons of CorelDRAW.

Er…How Do I Navigate?

First of all forget about the Space Bar equals Pan thesis. CorelDRAW has a navigator board but I must admit it’s not the real thing and most people don’t even know where it is (small box at the lower-right corner of the interface).

The easiest way to navigate is to zoom in and out to the pointer area with your mouse. This can be tricky sometimes if your mouse isn’t smooth enough. Sounds strange but once accustomed to this navigation technique you will get addicted to it. If you still feel lost grab the Hand Tool (H) to pan, and press spacebar to change back to the previous tool.

What About Freehand Brushes?

This is a real pain. CorelDraw’s freehand tools are only a concept but are nearly impossible to use them. Just try to do a quick hatching with the the freehand tool. You will end up with a mess, since you will continuously select the previously drawn lines.

It’s OK though, as this is not primarily freehand painting or sketching software. There are some other industry standard tools on the Corel palette (for example Painter) which excel in this field. But once again this is a week point since the core concept of the software is not to painting.

The World’s Best and Easiest Curves/Nodes Management

When you get down to the details you will be amazed how easy is to use the bezier tool and how precise its curve management is. If you are after vectorization then Corel Draw is great. Corel Draw is excellent software when it comes to vector tools. You have all the control over the nodes and curves with mathematical precision.

The right-click context menu makes vectorization so precise that technical illustration is easy to create. I take a deep bow in front of the team who developed this. This part is the strength of CorelDRAW from the dawn of vector software.

Super Fine Gradient Mesh

You need photo-realistic vectors? Just grab the super easy gradient mesh tool and you will make unbelievable vector portraits in no time. The Corel company has bundled photo-realistic art already in the version 8 clip art, and don’t forget the Hedy Lamar illustration on the cover of version 8. If you check the Corel community galleries you will find some gorgeous photo-realistic portraits, though the galleries are sometimes awkward and the community isn’t very exciting.

Highly Controllable Boolean Operations

I simply love this part of CorelDRAW. When you need to cut, weld, trim or intersect just open up the shaping docker and you have maximum control over the Boolean operations and the resulting shapes. Actually, you can base your style on these fine set of tools. Check them out for yourself.

Strange and Useful Effects

The effect palette is also a strength of CorelDRAW. I use these tools most of the time, especially the contour tool. Try some of this for extra options.

Color Separation and Prepress Goodness

If you’re working in the DTP business, CorelDRAW is your humble servant. It corrects your mistakes silently and makes color separation and prepress work as easy as it can be. The main concept of this software, the precision, has its word in the printing menu.

Screen Refreshing

If you want to spare yourself from getting upset, then don’t forget to press Command + W often to refresh the screen. CorelDRAW tends to forget to do this for you, which can be quite annoying sometimes.

Trace!

CorelDRAW has top notch tracing software integrated. It is quick, highly-customizable, and precise. Even if you don’t like other parts of the software, trying Corel Draw’s trace is a must. As a plus they have included a font recognition routine in the X4 version, which uses What the font! to find out what font was used on your scan. Nice idea!

Who uses CorelDraw Anyway?

Some really great artists from all around the world use CorelDRAW. Here is a short list to demonstrate.

AtixVector (Santiago, Chile)

machine56 (Bandung, Indonesia)

umidelmare(Wonderland)

Igor Tkac (igortshirts)

anhem

trojza (Alexander Poslykhalin)

GruberJan (Tatsyana Prokofieva)

Alexxx1 (Alexey Oglushevich)

RookeMare (Denvah, Colorado)

Ramonova (Russia)

Bmart333 (Pittsburgh, PA)

Conclusion

CorelDRAW can be awkward, especially to new users, but powerful in the hands of a seasoned user. You must decide the right vector software for you.

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

Finally, below is some artwork from renowned vectorist Roberlan, which showcase the choosing a vector software platform controversy.

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I'm a freelancer from Transylvania specialized in vector illustration. Member of the procrastination clan. Proud father of a young boy.  

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  • Cyan

    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.

  • Rob

    Long live Freehand!

  • andy

    “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.

  • Andre

    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.

  • http://www.madic.ro Alin Ivana

    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

  • maged

    i believe that using coreldraw or illustrator is a personal choice.

    some ppl like the way they work and treat work on CD, others believe that illustrator is the good in the vector story

    its almost how do you use the program and even if you have a vision or not this is the point

  • http://www.thseo.com seo

    very very nice article. Thanks

  • Marko

    One thing more to mention is that CorelDraw for a long time didn’t had unicode support and that cost him so much in popularity. Also, Corel products are known to be buggy, I know some people who still use famous CorelDraw 9, because it was the most stable version.

  • John Stanowski

    Corel DRAW unfriendly? No, I don’t think so. Illustrator is the unfriendly one. I used Corel for 17 years before switching to Illustrator (A. to be more marketable and B. to avoid some color management issues). Anyway, AI stifled my creativity. When I used it it was like trying to play the pianos with bandages on every finger. Three years later and I’m starting to love it, but I’m still struggling. And I still don’t have the freedom I had with Corel.

    You’re right, working with bezier curves in Corel is a dream. In Illustrator you have to remember a lot of strange rules, keyboard shortcuts, secret handshakes, etc. to get the job done. Now that is awkward if anything is.

    I’m surprised you left out a lot of Corel Draw’s good points. Like the Drop Shadow tool. I YEARN for AI to pick this up. Corel let’s you click and drag to create your drop shadow. It’s like molding clay. Not guessing with AI’s dialog box. We’re not computers; I don’t know how far I want my shadow in points. Jeez. Anyway, Corel then let’s you edit the feather of the shadow at any time. You can also change it’s distance at any time.

    And rounded corners! Holy Crap, Corel let’s you drag the corners to any radius you want. Again, with AI you have to enter in a numerical value.

    Don’t know why you said Contour is strange. It’s just like AI’s Offset Path.. but easier to use.

    And AI still does not have a simple way to distort something just by clicking on bounding box nodes. Envelopes are nice, yes, but sometimes I wish I could just drag corners without any curves.

    I also miss how I used to kern with Corel DRAW. I was able to move each letter separately. In AI I have to use keyboard shortcuts to nudge and, well, sometimes I just wish I could drag them like I used to.

    Corel DRAW handles types very nice as far as selection goes. When you select the type, you just select the type. You don’t get an absurdly large bounding box like Illustrator gives you which is ALWAYS getting in the way. (Yes I know you can use preferences to select text by the baseline only but that’s not very easy to do, is it?) I wish AI would follow in Corel’s footsteps with how text is made selectable. It’s a vector drawing program, not something like InDesign.)

    Ah, miss Corel DRAW badly. I’m lovin’ AI now (well it’s a love/HATE thing) but I wish it would take just a few cues from Corel.

  • Janik

    When I speak of Corel Draw, the first thing I remember about the remarkable property of this program – multiple pages!

  • http://Its-NFN.web.officelive.com Neal F Naughton

    I have created a number of technical illustrations and cartoon illustrations in CorelDRAW 3-X3. I produced one illustration in Adobe Illustrator. The difference between CD and AI is exactly the same as the difference between AutoCAD 2008 (CD) and AutoCAD 7 (AI). But I suppose AI is alright for Graphic Designers, but it sucks for illustrators!

  • http://www.supercorel.com/ Supercorel

    Check out Webdesigner Depot’s great infographic of users per design tools featuring CorelDRAW Graphics Suite!
    Actually CorelDraw is far more popular than illustrator…

    http://t.co/zcC3ZCx

  • Marco Antonio

    There’s no good or bad software.
    There’s only desginers with skils or not.

  • Akintunde Emoruwa

    Well i believe software usage is based on choice. I tell u i started with corelDraw but when i laid my hands on Illustrator, waoh it was so amazing. its colours are so magnificent. In terms of colour, i recommend Illustrator. Simple to use when compared. U wont like 2 stop while using it.

    And also, the on screen display of illustrator pdf imported into corelDraw is so poor and discouraging. Good users of CorelDraw make so amazing designs like we seen above. Great job! Good article!

  • Akintunde Emoruwa

    Well i believe software usage is based on choice. I started with corelDraw but when i laid my hands on Illustrator, waoh it was so amazing. its colours are so magnificent. In terms of colour, i recommend Illustrator. Simple to use when compared to illustrator. U wont like to stop while using it.

    And also, the on screen display of illustrator pdf imported into corelDraw is so poor and discouraging. Good users of CorelDraw make amazing designs like we ‘ve seen above. Great job! Good article!

  • http://greenleegazette.blogspot.com James L. Greenlee

    I’ve been a CorelDRAW user since version 2, when it still had an exclamation mark. I’ve used it for business and personal use ever since, and have become proficient in Gerber Omega Composer (sign software that largely incorporates Corel’s conventions). I have many times tried to use Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop, only to be frustrated at every effort. The Corel suite is so easy, so intuitive, and Adobe? I hate it with the white hot firey passion of 1,000 suns.

  • Anthony Maseki

    in Corel I trust….. from Africa

  • Morgan S. Bailey

    I use both CorelDRAW and Illustrator and there’s one thing I’m sure about: If their good parts were combined, we’d have the super vector design program. Neither of them is a perfect program, especially when compared to the other.

    • Alok Ghosh

      Please give your suggestion to Corel Corporation…

  • Ahmed Mostafa

    i have been using corel draw for 4 years and it still my favorite, the only problem i have had with it is the instability of the software and its crushing that made me lose hours and hours of work

  • sam

    I’m doing a uni project about a business that uses corel Draw to design it’s products. I’ve never used Corel Draw before so i was just wondering if programmes such as solid works or photo shop are better ?

  • http://www.coreldraw.com K-yl3

    Been using CorelDRAW since Version 12. It has some great benefits over Illustrator. But it can be better. Colour Management. Big file management. More effects. Illustrator has brush import support. Simple take the best of Illustrator and implement it.

  • mel

    let’s say both corel and illustrator are good but, they also have their weak and strong points. There are some that you can only do with corel and creating vector with corel is not that limited unlike with illustrator. and the best part with with corel is that it has BACK-UP :)

  • XPLSV

    My first design job, back in the early 90s, was at Xerox corporation. It was like a mini Kinko’s servicing sales team and other internal departments. We had all three major players at the time: Illustrator, Freehand and CorelDraw! Some favored Illustrator for its vector capabilities. Others favored Freehand for its multiple page layout capabilities. I immediately gravitated towards CorelDraw! because it combined the best of both worlds. Plus is it MUCH more than Illustrator back then: transparencies, multiple pages, photo effects, native Photoshop files with layers separated out which you could manipulate from within Corel, and my favorite, PowerClip, which created clipping masks with just a right-click. Everything was just faster in Corel: gradients, mesh fills, blends, etc. Vectors were so great to create and modify with the different bezier options. Also loved how you could apply color to things, left-click for fill, right-click for stroke. I became the fastest designer in the shop and popular because of the quality of the designs.

    Corel beat Freehand and Illustrator in pretty much all areas, specially in the large format printing area. The problem came when prepping artwork for press. PDF technology was still in its early stages so PDFs created in Corel ofter had errors. And many printers avoided native Corel files because of Postcript errors. I found myself exporting hi-res TIFF images which printers didn’t really care for since they had no trapping information or they feared pixellation, etc.

    Corel was/is a great software package. I think had they released Mac versions in the early years, it would be neck to neck with Adobe today.

  • preetha

    long live freehand…its very useful….

  • Chris lambright

    I guess I’ll throw my two cents in here for what it’s worth.
    I have used both CD and Illustrator over the years in print design and now in sign design and CD is a very nice program but Illustrator is the industry standard so I have had to be more efficient in Illustrator.
    The biggest issue I have with CD has been the object manager. Illustrator’s layer manager is not perfect either but when looking for a particular object or curve in Illustrator is much easier to find since it has a thumbnail of the object next to the item. In CD there is no thumbnail just curve, curve, curve etc. so finding the right “curve” in your layer is particularly more difficult and quite frustrating for me. I think if Corel would address this in CD I would be more inclined to use their program more often than I do.

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