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CorelDraw X7

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Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
Corel isn't getting rid of the perpetual license buying option anytime soon. However, they may stop selling boxed software soon. I wouldn't be surprised if X7 is the last version available to buy with physical media (DVD-ROM discs) and printed manuals.


Regarding the upgrade price, CorelDRAW has charged $199 for quite a few years now. I remember some upgrades costing over $229 or $249. Once in awhile Corel will offer a $149 upgrade price, but that's pretty rare. That kind of upgrade price hasn't been standard since the 1990s. Back then Corel would sometimes have $99 upgrade prices.


I personally do not see enough of a benefit in buying a subscription of CorelDRAW. I think $198 per year is too expensive. Version X6 has been around for more than 2 years. Someone upgrading to X6 at the time of its release would see that upgrade cost spread out to less than $100 per year over 2 years. The subscription price adds up to nearly a full version price over the same period. The Font Playground and QR Code generating capabilities weren't worth that much money for the X6 product cycle. I can't see anything in X7 that's going to be worth paying a premium of double the regular upgrade price.
 
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Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
Just had an update for CorelDRAW X6 pushed to my computer: Hotfix 1 of X6.4. Haven't had much time to mess with it just yet, but it seems like the flaky type handling has been improved to some degree. I'm not sure if this bug fix will affect whether I try out CorelDRAW X7 or not. We'll see.
 
TyrantDesigner

TyrantDesigner

Art! Hot and fresh.
-sigh- I love Corel (have both painter and draw) ... but man ... they really do make you not want to upgrade for a few versions ... bought draw 12 ... next upgrade was x5. I'm going to say it now ... if they want to charge $20 a month ... adobe wins. If I used more than Illustrator and photoshop ... I would completely get the $50 creative cloud since it comes with EVERYTHING. Corel needs to add in painter and really watch people switch from adobe if they want to charge anything near $20 a month for their subscription software. Even at $17 a month ... it's a big pass. The subscription is supposed to save you money, not cost you more. I mean geez! QR code generator? http://qrcode.littleidiot.be/ there ... saved you $200 ...
 
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Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
Corel is already looking at an uphill battle to stay relevant and survive. IMHO, they need to be doing more to strengthen the drawing toolset rather than throwing in things, like QR Code generation, that are arguably wasteful fluff. Painter is a great program, but it is not a substitute for Adobe Photoshop.

In CorelDRAW one of the biggest things I want is improved control over node/anchor point positioning and alignment. Corel X6 on my computer system doesn't do controlled node alignment properly at all (the same is true on another Win 8 machine running X6 in our shop). Anchor point alignment is clunky in Adobe Illustrator. Neither program offers any precise, numerical positioning of anchor points. Neither program offers numerical control of anchor point handles (position, handle length, angle, etc.). Those kinds of controls would be extremely valuable for a variety of technical drawing tasks -like font creation for instance. If Corel would just concentrate on beefing up object editing tool capabilities they could leap out in front of Adobe Illustrator.

Video & Motion Graphics will play an increasingly larger role in sign work. LED-based electronic variable message centers are becoming more affordable and sophisticated in their capabilities. HDTV monitors are replacing printed menus on menu boards and printed posters in display cases within some businesses. Many of these businesses do not have employees in house who can create content for these displays. Someone else has to do that job, preferably someone who knows outdoor & point of purchase design. More than likely they're going to be using Adobe applications for this kind of work. Adobe is way out on front of Corel in this regard, thanks to how Illustrator & Photoshop integrate into After Effects and Premiere Pro.

I don't think Corel has the resources to develop a motion graphics and video editing suite to match that of Adobe. But I think the company and CorelDRAW can still survive if Corel concentrates hard on making DRAW a lot better than Illustrator. They need to make the application something no graphic designer can live without. Right now that's not the case.
 
Colin

Colin

New Member
Just received my boxed upgrade (from X6 to X7) today. Will likely install tonight.

For those who assert that recent versions haven't contained enough improvements over old ones to upgrade, I'd disagree; with the newer versions, you get all of the latest import filters, making dealing with the myriad customers' files a breeze. I'd hate to be stuck with v12 now-a-days. The ability to display glyphs in text in X6 was worth it just for that one function alone. I use it all the time, as more & more fonts have alternate characters.
 
SignManiac

SignManiac

New Member
Just downloaded the trial to play with. Unfortunately, right out of the gate, X7 won't let me import my X6 workspace. I have no intention of trying to rebuild all of my custom settings I've grown accustomed to working with over the past gazillion years. Major fail unless I'm a dumbass and missing something obvious...
 
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Bobby H

Arial Sucks.
Colin said:
For those who assert that recent versions haven't contained enough improvements over old ones to upgrade, I'd disagree; with the newer versions, you get all of the latest import filters, making dealing with the myriad customers' files a breeze.
Click to expand...


That only works to a certain degree. While CorelDRAW X6 can import Adobe Illustrator AI & EPS art files up to version CS5 it is prone to goofing up things like gradient fills. The funny thing is Adobe Illustrator is prone to doing the same thing when opening CorelDRAW .CDR files or Corel-generated AI & EPS files. This is yet another reason why I find it necessary to have both applications running on my computer.


Version X6 did add some other features that were pretty big, like proper extended character support of OpenType fonts. But that's something that should have been in CorelDRAW back when Adobe was adding similar support in their applications -12 years ago.
 
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