• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Corel X8 is out!!!!!!!!!!!

reQ

New Member
Is it worth upgrading from X7 right now? I am not following Corel updates very close....
 

Sidney

New Member
So Far it's smooth.... I can already tell I will be purchasing it within the week. The knife tool, segment copy tool, font manager and other features make it a "Definite" upgrade investment from 7 to 8 (just my opinion)
 

Sidney

New Member
The copy curve segment is a feature I will use a lot of. There have been many times I did a section of design work (which was vectorized) and I would have to duplicate it and cut it down in order to have that part alone. Great feature!
 

decalman

New Member
I got Corel x5 . It's fine with me. I only upgrade every 10 years or so.
Why upgrade more? I'm still trying to figure half the stuff out.
 

ams

New Member
I got Corel x5 . It's fine with me. I only upgrade every 10 years or so.
Why upgrade more? I'm still trying to figure half the stuff out.

For one, you will be limited on types of files you can import. If you ever get a message that a vector "cannot be opened" or that it's "corrupt", it's just your version. With X7, I've never once had a file that wouldn't open.
Also the features you use are upgraded to better ones with more options, it's more stable and lots of new features. There are too many reasons to list.
 

Morph1

Print all
The most noticeable change in X8 is the "x8" factor lol nothing else....
New tools ?? really ? or new icons for t same tools lol,
the last4 upgrades were a complete waste of money....
 

Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
There hasn't been any real mind-blowing new features in the past few version upgrades, but there has been a lot of subtle changes over the years that cumulatively would make an upgrade worthwhile if you're using an old version of CorelDRAW.

CorelDRAW X6 is the first version to properly support OpenType fonts. Previous versions don't have access to the extended character sets in advanced OpenType fonts. Version X7 is the first one to add transparency stops to fountain fills (to match something Illustrator has been able to do for years). The Contour tool in older versions of CorelDRAW, such as X3 or earlier, was not very good. The resulting shapes had lots and lots of anchor points. The tool works a lot better in newer versions. The paths are a lot cleaner, more accurate, have far fewer nodes and you get the option to make corners sharp or rounded. Those are just a couple things I've noticed.
 

HP-Simon

New Member
Why Corel?

Hi everyone.
I'm quite new in this part of the printing industry.
I spent 20 years in flexo and packaging and im so surprised that Corel is so popular in the sign business.
In packaging it has been dead for decades..
Could someone explain to me why?

Best regards
Simon
 

J Hill Designs

New Member
Hi everyone.
I'm quite new in this part of the printing industry.
I spent 20 years in flexo and packaging and im so surprised that Corel is so popular in the sign business.
In packaging it has been dead for decades..
Could someone explain to me why?

Best regards
Simon

its a good program.
/end
 

Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
HP-Simon said:
Hi everyone.
I'm quite new in this part of the printing industry.
I spent 20 years in flexo and packaging and im so surprised that Corel is so popular in the sign business.
In packaging it has been dead for decades..
Could someone explain to me why?

Adobe, Aldus, Apple and a few other companies let it happen 25 years ago.

The sign industry has never been dominated by the Mac platform. The earliest vinyl cutters and computerized routing tables used software that ran on MS-DOS and then Windows. Complicating the issue further, the Mac platform was lousy when it came to supporting CAD, CAM & CAE oriented applications. Computer Aided Sign-making software was more closely related to CAD style programs. CASmate was the first sign making app I used; the version I was using ran on MS-DOS.

In the early 1990's companies like Adobe were putting their best efforts into Mac-based products, with Adobe Illustrator being a very glaring example. I bought a Windows copy of Photoshop 2.5 and Illustrator 4.0 in a bundled package; I mainly got it for Photoshop. Illustrator 4 was frustratingly primitive and limited. Meanwhile Adobe made versions 5, 5.5 and 6 Mac-only products. That Mac-only snobbery really annoyed me. Corel was releasing upgrades on almost a yearly basis, packing in more features and more bundled goodies.

Basically if you wanted a proper vector-based graphics program that ran on Windows, CorelDRAW was the first choice. Freehand was a decent alternative, but didn't pack in as many goodies (fonts, clipart, etc.) as CorelDRAW, but at least it could paste AICB vector paths into Photoshop -something CorelDRAW has never been able to do.

Adobe finally started releasing its products with feature parity on both Mac and Windows in the late 1990's, but by then it was too late. CorelDRAW had already become firmly entrenched in sign shops, embroidery shops, engravers and screen printing shops.

Both Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW are now far better applications than they were in the 1990's. But there are still many key differences between the two, unique features found in either one and pros/cons to both. I do most of my design work within CorelDRAW, but also use Illustrator a great deal. I find it necessary to have both for opening customer provided art files accurately. CorelDRAW doesn't do a good job opening complex Illustrator AI & PDF files. And Illustrator trips on itself trying to open Corel-based artwork.
 

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
The sign industry has never been dominated by the Mac platform. The earliest vinyl cutters and computerized routing tables used software that ran on MS-DOS and then Windows. Complicating the issue further, the Mac platform was lousy when it came to supporting CAD, CAM & CAE oriented applications. Computer Aided Sign-making software was more closely related to CAD style programs. CASmate was the first sign making app I used; the version I was using ran on MS-DOS.

This is very true with, as you mentioned, with embroidery shops. Even more so now, over the recent years, as DRAW has been directly integrated with digitizing programs (I use Wilcom) and that just have further entrenched it (although myself specifically I don't load DRAW and as such don't use that integration, but it is there and I'm probably in the minority of 1 that does this).

And if it hasn't been directly interfaced, it has partnered with digitizing programs to provide the same layout feel as Corel (Creative DRAWings etc).

Of course, it helped that DRAW and the vast majority of digitizing programs are only Windows based, so they did "grow up" on the same OS together.
 

myront

CorelDRAW is best
Hi everyone.
I'm quite new in this part of the printing industry.
I spent 20 years in flexo and packaging and im so surprised that Corel is so popular in the sign business.
In packaging it has been dead for decades..
Could someone explain to me why?

Best regards
Simon

How can I make more money? Speed up production. How can I do that? Hmm..reduce the time it takes to design signs! How can I do that?

Uhhh...use CorelDraw!
 

knucklehead

New Member
Used to be, if you wanted the 'new' stuff, not just renamed stuff, you skipped the even number versions, and waited for the next odd number. Still hold true? I haven't quite mastered X5 yet?
 
Top