Corel drives me nuts.

We have Corel Draw 10 on PC and it has the infuriating habit of choosing files at random and causing an illegal operation whening trying to print. So I have to export the file as an eps to place and output from another app. This didn't work today as the eps was displaying correctly but giving wrong seps (red pms colour outputting on blue pms colour sep). What a crazy program.

[CitrusZ28]

CorelDraw, 10 versions and they still can't get it right. Big PITA to output from that program. You are on the right track to save as an eps and out put it through another program. I've worked with CorelDraw before, luckily the shop where I'm at now does'nt have it and will not be getting it. I've been here three years, and only one CorelDraw job ever came in, I kicked it right back and told them to save their files as eps's. Turns out that the person using it took a design class where the instructor completely sold her on the program, now she complains that she can't find anyone to output her files. Big surprise.

[bctshari]

Well, I happen to be a Corel lover, but it depends on the version. We work in Version 7...yes I know we are in the stone age, but we upgraded to Version 9 and I hated it. It seems that the higher the version, the more the programers want to make the program do more for you. It's kind-of like having a car tell you when to shift...very annoying. If you are going to be forced to work with the software, I would recommend buying an older version.

[miyu_vip]

We don't have Corel at my work, we have Illustrator, but this client's designer provided everything in Corel. They don't want to deal with the client anymore. IS there a way of opening Corel in Illustrator without the fonts and everything going all sh*t?

And also the client wanted heaps of changes in the brochure.

Each page was done up in Corel. Also they have all their order forms, envelopes, and all stationary done in Corel.

[PrePressKev]

Well miyu......the short answer is - you can't get there from here.

But if the file isn't too complex, you be able to get away with having the "designer" save/export the Corel file as an .eps/ai document, open it in Illustrator, salvage what you can, and re-create the rest. (Be sure you get a laser for reference)

I seem to remember that the later versions of CorelDraw can save/export files as .ai files, however most of the special effects (like the Extrusion & Perspective features) can get a little buggy when opened in Illustrator.

If this is an established client, you might be able to find a recent version of CorelDraw on ebay. That way, you are able to satisfy the client while keeping some of your hair from turning gray(er).

[pspdfppd]

I don't know if this will be of any help but last year we received a lot of travel brochures in Corel draw X? (something like that.) After taking a little time to figure out what the hell was going on (and it wasn't easy) I found the program to be not so bad after all. We had to totally replace one of the languages in the brochure (it was English and Spanish and we had to make it English and French. One thing I liked was when you copied the text from Word and pasted it over the Spanish text it retained the font size, style, etc. Luckily, (since all the photos were embedded) it turned out that they did not need to be color corrected too much and the file was actually made pretty well. Anyway, I figured out how to export all the files as pdf's and Corel actually did a good job of it. Then we imposed them in InDesign. For the really bad pictures we were able to use the touchup object tool in Acrobat.

Corel won't be going away for us since we do some work from Cuba periodically and it seems Corel Draw is their program of choice. And this is pretty high end design stuff......gold leaf and spot varnish all over. I hear there are a lot of other countries where designers love to use Corel as well. So I'd suggest trying to learn a little bit about it because you never know who's going to send you a big job in the program in the future.

[Amsman]

We use Corel 10 - 13 (X3) through to a 7.1 RIP everyday without any problems. It is way more flexible than Adobe CS- CS2 apps.

Always make sure you give it plenty of memory in the setup around 55% to 75% ( And don't have 10 other app's running at the same time )

It can be computer specific though ie: On a dodgy PC it will run like crap.

If you are going to use all it's features like Extrusions, Powerclip, etc.
Be prepared to group the complex objects and convert it to a 600 - 800dpi Bitmap. ( The human eye will struggle to see the alising )

It locks the offending objects making them save and print with far more reliablity. ( Once you see the illegal operation, it's all over start again...)

Hope this helps.......

[almaink]

"It is way more flexible than Adobe CS- CS2 apps. "
Please explain this statement. Are you saying that by converting all the vector effects to raster it's more flexible than Illustrator? If so you have no idea what your talking about, as that can also be done in Illustrator as well although I've never found it necessary to do so.

[Dupple]

Originally Posted by Amsman

It is way more flexible than Adobe CS- CS2 apps.

Unbelievable 8O

What exactly is it that makes Corel so much better? Do you know how to use the adobe apps?

Words fail me

[Amsman]

By giving clients more scope to supply there own work, we use all applications from Quark 6.0 to MS Publisher. ( Unfortunatley )

The harder to process the more expensive the fee. Most then purchase a package which lowers their costs.

No one in there right mind is going to spend Aus$2500.00 to buy Quark or CS2 when Corel is an all in one for Aus$550.00


For about 7-8 years Corel has come standard with Features and Effects like Shadowing, Extrusions, Transparancies, colour correction of bitmaps in the page, a multitude of import filters and imposition sofware.

It also has it's share of faults.

I'm not pushing Corel for all applications ( it handles large volumes of text badly ) but for small layouts like Business Cards, Letterheads etc.
It's quite flexible without having to go back and forth between Photoshop, Illustrator etc. for effects and colour adjustments.