Which Corel?

[ckelly617]

I am so new to the whole sign industry. I need help! Okay, I am going to be using my cutter for window decals and heat transfers. I want to scan a logo and then cut it. I understand that I need to change the format from bitmap to vector. Everyone seems to like Corel. My question is which version of Corel should I purchase? Please help. I'm very frustrated. -CK

 

[roxym]

I just got the latest version X3, love it.

 

[ckelly617]

Do you know about how much $$ ? What else does it do that I might like?

 

[jimdes]

For a good, stable, tested version, I really like version 10 for the money.

As for the nuts and bolts of the software, versions 10, 11 and 12 are very similar with not much difference than changes in the user interface.

Version X3 is very nice, a little more stable and much more plotter friendly. Corel is improving on the issues they have with an extrordinary amount of nodes and control handels on the vectors.

Now the honest answer coming from a Corel Draw lover . . . don't buy Corel Draw any version. If you are just starting out and can afford an investment in Adobe Illustrator, get it. Illustrator is more widely used in the sign industry and if you're looking for compatability . . . Adobe is much more compatible than Corel Draw. AI also has better handling of the vectors and your plotter won't take nearly as long to cut images created in AI as it will those created in Corel Draw.

As I said, I LOVE Corel Draw but If I were starting over and wanted a program that is more widely accepted, user friendly and plotter friendly, then I would definately go with Adobe Illustrator. It's more expensive but in the long run, you will spend less time cleaning up vectors and rebooting your computer with AI. The time savings will pay for the difference in price within the first three months.

Either way you go, you will want a "full version" and not an upgrade version of the software you decide on. The full version will contain everything you need in one box, won't rely on patching files together and won't rely on possibly corrupt files.

 

[Techman]

and your plotter won't take nearly as long to cut images created in AI as it will those created in Corel Draw

HUH?????

The cutters cannot keep up with the data feeds now. And you can only move material so fast.. How will it make any difference what software you are useing???

 

[Cadmn]

good question Techman, the ports& plotters aren' t near as fast as software.

 

[Bobby H]

Now the honest answer coming from a Corel Draw lover . . . don't buy Corel Draw any version. If you are just starting out and can afford an investment in Adobe Illustrator, get it. Illustrator is more widely used in the sign industry and if you're looking for compatability . . . Adobe is much more compatible than Corel Draw.

Hmm, I don't really agree with that all the way.

First, CorelDRAW is a lot more common in sign shops than Adobe Illustrator. Most sign shops are PC-based. And Corel was the best choice for drawing programs for Windows throughout much of the 1990s. Adobe stuck Windows users with the stinky version 4.0 (whose only good trait was the bundled Berthold fonts and ability to paste paths into Photoshop 2.5). Meanwhile Adobe made versions 5, 5.5 and 6 only for the Mac. Corel built up a huge lead over that neglect.

Adobe has been making up lost ground on the PC platform for the past couple of years, but Corel still holds a pretty wide lead in sign shops. But really, that whole "more people are using" thing is somewhat pointless. Anyone should choose the tools they personally work with most comfortably.

That's not to say Illustrator is greatly lacking compared to Corel. There are areas where Illustrator is indeed highly superior (color management, type handling, full Open Type support, Asian type support, certain effects are produced more cleanly and precisely).

Illustrator can dimension objects accurately to four decimal places while Corel can only go to three. But the trade-off is Illustrator has a maximum art board size of 227" X 227" while Corel can go 100' X 100'. Corel has more fonts (1000).

One downside (still) with Illustrator is in anchor point editing. Corel has some powerful button tools to align points, join, split, span, scale, rotate and other stuff. Anchor point editing in Illustrator requires a lot of manual grabbing and pulling to change the nature of an anchor point. And that really sucks. I'm hoping the folks at Adobe will wake up and improve that situation. Lord knows I've requested it enough at their user forums.

Anyway, both Corel and Adobe have downloadable demos of CorelDRAW X3 and IllustratorCS2. Try them out. Either one will work well with any standard sign making application. Leading plotter plug-in apps like Co-Cut are available for both drawing programs (and even Freehand as well).

 

[OldPaint]

"But the trade-off is Illustrator has a maximum art board size of 227" X 227" while Corel can go 100' X 100'."
ITS 150 FEET X 150 FEET of work area.
what jim is sayin....not that it actully cuts faster...(which ai. format does)for the reason of NODES.....corel and TT type fonts are loaed with NODES. plotter reads and cuts fron NODE TO NODE....hence AI. & TYPE 1 fonts have less nodes....so it would seem to cut a bit quicker. i found this out with corel 3-4 and some of the problems it had with cursive fonts that was TT. same font in an TYPE 1 adobe format would cut alot faster and cleaner. but that was old tech....since 7 corel has goten a lot better at reducing nodes on the TT font and CDR/CMX format. illistrator is good for engineering/building trade graphics.....corel is better for sign cutting.....10 is the least you should have if you runnin XP. 11, 12, X3 are all good X3 being a lot faster then the rest....

 

[Bobby H]

Fonts have only so many nodes, regardless of what application is using them. Corel doesn't "add" any more nodes to fonts than Illustrator does. The fonts only hold the number of nodes used to originally design them. There are some minor differences in how Postscript Type 1 fonts are generated versus that of True Type. And those differences go into the OpenType category as well since OTF fonts can contain either Postscript outlines or True Type outlines.

Now, it is agreed Adobe-branded fonts, as well as fonts from a number of other highly reputable vendors (House Ind., Font Bureau, Font font, etc.) will feature the bare minimum of anchor points needed to generate that letter shape.

However, the fonts bundled in with CorelDRAW are not bad either (most are from Bitstream, with some from ITC, URW and others). I certainly would not call them "loaded with nodes."

The area where Corel has run into trouble in the past is in regard to some of its vector path effects, particularly the Contour function and Convert Outline to Object function. Those effects do indeed load the resulting path with lots of nodes. The Convert Outline to Object function doesn't add quite as many nodes as contour, but can do even worse things by having 2, 3, 4 or even more nodes popped right on top of each other in the same exact coordinate position. Those kinds of issues can effect vinyl cutting and parts routing quality. Creation of such effects is such an area where Illustrator is clearly superior.

 

[Shovelhead]

Does anyone here...........

who has COREL 12, have issues with the font flyout menu locking up for a while?

 

[roxym]

I have that problem with Corel 11, still haven't figured it out. Went to X3 and and no problems yet.

 

[edwin]

I am so new to the whole sign industry. I need help! Okay, I am going to be using my cutter for window decals and heat transfers. I want to scan a logo and then cut it. I understand that I need to change the format from bitmap to vector. Everyone seems to like Corel. My question is which version of Corel should I purchase? Please help. I'm very frustrated. -CK

Corel draw any version 9 or better

 

[ckelly617]

I downloaded the corel draw x3. It's not tracing the image well at all. Does Adobe Illustrator have a free trial? I haven't found one.

 

[Bobby H]

Adobe's tryout page is here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jsp#product=27
Scroll down the IllustratorCS2 link.

The Live Trace and Live Paint features in Illustrator are powerful. However, they are only going to work so well based on the quality of raster images you throw at those functions. A tiny 200 pixel by 200 pixel JPEG pockmarked with quantizing errors from severe levels of compression is going to be worthless. Basically the higher the rez of bitmap image, the better the vectorization quality will be. However, no auto-tracing tool is perfect.

 

[ckelly617]

Bobby H. I am going to download it now and see how it compares to Corel. I hope this is the one. You guys are alot of help on this forum. I'm glad that I found signs101. What would I do without you? (Probably spend too much money and still be lost)

-CK

 

[Jackpine]

I have used Corel since version 1. We cut vinyl by exporting the file directly to the plotter port. The scale was off by 1.6% so before exporting we scaled the graphics + 1.6%. Came out exact every time. The plotter was a Roland PNC1000. What a workhorse! We cut from SignLab now but design and print from Corel 10. In between we used version 3 and 7. I read all the stuff about X3 and bought the upgrade last night at Amazon for $149.99 total. I am looking foward to the node and trace improvments. I have never been disapointed with Corel.

 

[2NinerNiner2]

I have also used Corel since Vr. 1.0 and also had AI Vr.1.0, when it was called Illustrator '88 (meaning 1988!). As mentioned here, the node editing and manipulation in CDR is by far, in my opinion, WAY easier and more flexible than AI and can be done without using the keyboard; right-clicking does most of the common functions. But also as stated here, AI's colour management is far superior. I have recently been trying to get back into AI with Vr. 10 and have become SO frustrated trying to find how to do the equivalent function that I so easily do in CDR. Then again, it is all what one gets used to using. I have cut many, many, many logs of 15" vinyl on my trusty old CAMM1 PNC-1000 using Corel and SignLab. Once the newer windows drivers came out for the CAMM1, I no longer needed SignLab - direct to the CAMM1.