Hey all, been a while....
Can X4 natively export to PDF?
kumorigoe said:Can X4 natively export to PDF
Yes and there are issues for different work flows. For example power clipped duotones shift to RGB, native color PDF creates a color shift to RGB when output to Onyx and VersaWorks RIPS. Metadimentions has trapping issues with transparency when published from Corel but not from Distiller.
Also, you can't use te imposition and other features of the Print preview for create a PDF using Publish to PDF. If you need it, you must create a Postscript file and convert to PDF using Acrobat Distiller
It is interesting that coreldraw doesn't support imposition to the export pdf function -- I wonder why not? This would seem like quite a handy feature request for X5.
Right now I found one inexpensive easy way to go was to purchase cutepdf pro to impose/booklet pdfs exported from coreldraw (at a fraction of the cost of acrobat.)
On the other hand, I do find having a seperate pdf engine to be handy a couple of times now when I've encountered a print glitch using the normal print and got around it with the publish to pdf (but most of the time it goes the other way where I wish I had the features of the normal full print engine in the built-in pdf export.)
This has been requested over and over again. Fortunately there are excellent free PDF generators like this.
Also, in Monstermerge, we have our own imposition engine that allows one to impose right inside Draw to a new larger sheet size.
Note: the only way for PDF marks such as bookmarks and hyperlinks to be preserved in final PDF is to use Draw's PDF engine. Yep, I found out the hard way...
Island said:It is interesting that coreldraw doesn't support imposition to the export pdf function -- I wonder why not? This would seem like quite a handy feature request for X5.
For a really nice looking program, the licensing of Monstermerge seems somewhat undesirable to me.
Quote: " This means if you buy the macro now, and want to run it on a brand new machine or different machine after receiving your first activation code, you must buy it again. So, think carefully about which system you want to run it on, because each MonsterMerge Macro you receive will be locked to one system only - forever."
For a $70 macro, it would seem much more fair to me if you could freely unregister it from the old machine and reregister it to a new machine should you want to upgrade hardware/os/etc. I guess it's not my right to criticize a programmer for wanting to maximize profit, but one thing I've always liked about CorelDraw itself is the fairminded licensing. If I upgrade hardware or change computers I never have to worry about it -- I just use the "one license = one instance running" "moral" license. Even adobe licensing which I consider to be a bit more of a pain allows you to "check out" the license if you want to run it on a laptop for example...
Hi Island,
Interesting point. But once you understand the value of this product relative to our immediate competition, you'll have a new perspective:
XMPie = $3,940.00
designmerge = $4,995.00
monstermerge = $70.00 (this price may increase once the demo is done)
Getting the picture? Users can easily afford multiple seats. I have no sympathy. If I put on a suit and tie, and offered services that this macro can produce, then I would expect between 25k and 100k in additional projects and print sales over a year's time.
With this product, any designer can enjoy the proven benefits of variable imaging with Monstermerge. That was my goal. To bring it to every designer. Specifically CorelDRAW X4 users.
We've sold a bunch already, with almost no promotion. The reasons:
1. the price is insignificant relative to the power of the macro
2. people buying it know what the purpose is, they already understand and have been following the impact of variable imaging.
So, the terms of sale will not be changing. The price may very well increase. The power users who saw it at the CorelDRAW Unleashed Conference could see in 10 seconds the great value that it is.
BTW, someone selling a competiting product was not happy at all when they learned about Monstermerge. Too bad!
Island said: For a $70 macro, it would seem much more fair to me if you could freely unregister it from the old machine and reregister it to a new machine should you want to upgrade hardware/os/etc.
Yes, it's not my place to criticize it and I almost feel bad for posting, but I simply don't like software at any cost that's married to particular hardware. It's the principle of the thing with me, even though $70 or $140 or $210 for your macro may be a bargain regardless if you have to buy it twice or three times over to continue using the same software. (the oem version of windows vista does something similarly limiting in that you're stuck with the vista license married forever to the origial hardware, but likewise, it's bundled with oem hardware so cheaply that it sometimes still saves you money over buying retail copies)
hi Island,
Yes, just like Vista and XP, MonsterMerge is locked to hardware. We could have gone the dongle route, but that adds too much $$$ to the software right off the bat.
Like the OEM versions of Vista and XP. The retail versions of Vista and XP can be installed on different hardware by doing the activation again in most cases or in a worst case having to call MS on the phone.
Anyway, I'll stop harping on this now. It just surprised me that you went this way as hardware-independent one-license-per-user vs. hardware-tied licensing has always been a real bonus of Corel for me vs. other venders that I've avoided for the pain-in-the-neck issues.
But in other cases now that I think of it I've reluctantly accepted limited software in the case of our Feiry RIPS for example (since there was no equally good option not locked and lmiited) where we can't upgrade the hardware under our lease so for example we have one RIP that's still running with 128 MB of RAM on an 850 mhz cpu a 5-year lease that takes 5 minutes to chew through each job -- pains me that I can't speed that machine up with faster RIP hardware now that it's so out of date and so cheap to have a cpu, ram, and hard drive 3x faster, but I've accepted it as a package, so I suppose I can accpet your software being hardware limited. In a worst case if I bought it I could always keep it running on the old computer on my desk if I couldn't convince myself to just pony up the cash to buy the same CD over again when I upgraded hardware :)
Yes, but Microsoft reserves the right to make the final decision on whether they want to reactivate.
One of the sweeping misconceptions about software is that a user owns it when they buy it. They are only buying the right to use it, under specific circumstances. If a potential user doesn't agree with the terms of sale, they retain the right to walk away before spending a dime. That's why we are 100% clear up front.
There have been customers that were astonished with our protection systems (Esp. on some products that are only 10.00), which are far more fortified than CorelDRAW itself. They probably had the idea that they would buy a product once and install on their favorite 10 systems. No dice. Begrudgingly, they bought multiple copies - because there's no other way to get the benefits of some of our products without fairly rewarding the people who are the best in the world in this field.
Our products are intended for serious users with real production problems.
Heh... I can see your point of view as a user, since I am one also. But I guarantee that when anyone is on the other side of the table as software vendor, they're defensive with their "kids", thinking about the endless hours put into development of the programs.
As an AC member and Beta tester for X4, I have new respect for Corel and what's involved to get from point A to Z.
Island said:The retail versions of Vista and XP can be installed on different hardware by doing the activation again in most cases or in a worst case having to call MS on the phone.