CorelDRAW - New Version Soon?

[Bobby H]

I received an email from Corel about a webinar they're broadcasting Tuesday, March 15. The guy running the presentation is Gérard Métrailler, VP Products, Graphics & Productivity. The tagline in the email said:
Join us for a FREE 1-hour webinar and discover unparalleled power and versatility.

Anyway, I would be surprised (and annoyed) if this webinar was just a showcase of the existing "X7" version of CorelDRAW. The company has usually followed a 2 year time line in version releases over the past 10 or so years. So "X8" or whatever it will be called is now due since X7 was released in early March of 2014. I'm kind of surprised some sort of announcement about the next version of CorelDRAW hasn't already been made.

I'm hoping for a number of key improvements. It's a long shot hope, but it would be nice if Corel would make a Mac-based version and have customer licenses by platform agnostic, just like Adobe Creative Cloud is now. That would make switching between Mac and PC platforms a little easier.

 

[ams]

Yeah I've been hunting for hints on the new version also. I can't wait to get it. I really hope they make the layout more like X4, that was the best interface.

 

[player]

They will probably announce a subscription based upgrade.

 

[Kottwitz-Graphics]

They will probably announce a subscription based upgrade.

If they did that, how many customers would they loose?

It's about time for me to upgrade, since I'm only on x5, but personally, if they attempt subscription rates, I'll stay right where I'm at...

 

[WildWestDesigns]

They will probably announce a subscription based upgrade.

They already have a subscription based system as it is that you could have upgraded to at least the x7 version. Now you can still do both a subscription or perpetual license, but both are already available. Rather or not it becomes the sole option is what will get people.

My digitizing software, which at least was (and maybe still is), directly interfaced with DRAW used to run a year behind DRAW and their release schedule. Only thing is that, there was no release for x7, only x6, so they are 1 yr behind as of this now, so I have to wonder what's going on with them. If there is a major departure with how things are done with the Corel version, then they might have needed extra time to start integrating that with their software. Unless they departed from the Corel partnership.

If they did that, how many customers would they loose?

It's about time for me to upgrade, since I'm only on x5, but personally, if they attempt subscription rates, I'll stay right where I'm at...

They already have a subscription system in place. The big deal becomes if it's the sole option (at least with me, I don't mind choices, it's when they eliminate one of those choices that happens to be the one that I want, then I find out ways to keep what I have). With graphic files, I don't have to worry about running the latest and greatest as most of the time, I get raster files, so I have that luxury and thankfully CS6 is more then I would need in functionality for what I do.

...but it would be nice if Corel would make a Mac-based version and have customer licenses by platform agnostic, just like Adobe Creative Cloud is now. That would make switching between Mac and PC platforms a little easier.

Very much a long shot, since they tried that with v.9 and that didn't go over to well. If they tried it now, it would be like they were trying for the first time and it would more then likely be filled with bugs that people (who already think Adobe is the only way to do design work (and Adobe on a Mac)) would think, why switch to Corel when Adobe works much smoother? And more then likely be another failure? I'm speculating on that, but I can easily see it going that way.

 

[OldPaint]

i have been a corel user since verion 3.0 1992. so i have worked with or played with every version right up to X7. HISTORY OF CORELS:
3.0, 4.0. were very alike with some speed improvements in 4.0 over 3.0. got to remember THEN a 386 DX 40 processor, 4 MEGS of ram, and a 30 MEG hard drive was the hot ticket.
5.0- 6.0 was a lot like 3 & 4, again with some speed improvements & COREL LEASED the ability to cut from corel(engine or code)to a company called EURO-CUT/PRO-CUT. WHO WAS SELLING TO THE SIGN MARKET computer end market. there selling point at shows & adds......."it works directly from inside corel draw." no kidding it was COREL CODE/ENGINE))))))
so by doing this corel 5.0-6.0 WERE UNABLE TO WORK AS A VINLY CUTTING PROGRAM(((i loaded both 5 & 6 and had to reformat h/d and go back to 4.0 to cut vinyl.
COREL 7.0 WAS THE BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT EVER!!!!! went from a 30" X 30" desktop work area to a 150 feet X 150 feet!!!! they put back the code/engine TO CUT VINYL!!! now it was a great SIGN CUTTING PROGRAM. THEY ADDED some of the best text manipulation in the shaping........ WELD, CUT THRU, INTERSECT......
and it was faster and easier to work within. this was the LAST GREAT COREL PRODUCT.
COREL 8.0 was COREL 7.0 with an english company that corel united with called XARA. most of the improvements in 8.0 WAS FROM XARA. after a year or 2 corel took all they wanted from their program and dropped them. the addition of XARA components made corel a lot more usable in many more ways and it continued with 9.0-12.
X3-X7........all are bout the same...........nothing really outstanding in how the program work except for stability. newer X* seem to be a lot better at never crashing.
X8????????????????????well............i sure dont want the cloud crap, and i dont see much they can add from ILLY to make corel better then it is. ao i think X8 will be..........for those who think owning the lastest makes you better at what you think youre doing..................so well)))))))

 

[ams]

I hope the tracing feature gets better.

 

[Bobby H]

We're using X6 at my workplace and I have X7 on my computer at home. Both have featured worthwhile improvements, some things subtle but still worthwhile. CorelDRAW was very late to the game with supporting all the features of OpenType. I have a lot of different "pro" OTF fonts whose extra character sets were only available in Adobe's programs for a long time. The snapping functions in X6 and X7 are much more precise than earlier versions.

X7 for the most part does a much better job at importing PDF and Illustrator artwork. This is partly due to extra capabilities in X7 such as transparency levels on gradient stops. There's a number of other Illustrator-dependent effects that only work within Illustrator and to a limited extent in other Adobe applications. X7 is kind of aggravating in how it saves .CDR files down to earlier versions. Some unexpected problems with type do happen. This mainly due to CorelDRAW versions from X5 and earlier not fully supporting OpenType.

I'm hoping X8 will be even better at importing .AI and .PDF artwork, as well as solving some of the annoying issues I've had with X7.

Corel seems to be focus grouping the idea of developing a type design tool within CorelDRAW or alongside it. If they're really doing that I'm not sure why they want to bother. FontLab Studio is the leading app for that kind of thing. A couple competing apps on the Mac platform, such as Glyphs, give FontLab Studio serious competition. Basically the standards bar for type design tools has been raised really high.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Apparently there is a little teaser here

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Looks like it may be a new version, since I don't have x6 installed and I don't have x7 period, I had someone else check their x7 and they couldn't find a dark theme appearance, so it does look like it's going to be a new one based on that preview.

 

[Bobby H]

Well, I'm still planning to check out the CorelDRAW webinar tomorrow morning. But it looks like CorelDRAW X8 is now already available (download version; the boxed version ships on April 5).

From what I can tell there's not a whole lot of new must-have creative tools in this release. A bunch of the sales pitch seems to center around Windows 10 compatibility (I seem to be doing alright running X6 in Win 10), support for high resolution monitors (like 4K) and better multi-monitor support. The user interface icons and other features can be scaled and re-colored. This version has better support for touch screen devices, graphics tablets and hybrid devices like the Microsoft Surface notebooks.

CorelDRAW X8 offers up a new Corel Font Manager to replace the badly aging Bitstream Font Navigator. I'm wondering if this new font manager supports Postscript Type 1 fonts. Its blurb said "for managing True Type and Open Type fonts."