Since there are a number of issues right from application crash to File not opening from the last known location, i just request and wish that we get the latest version of corel thats X5 that could be much faster and also minus all the known Issues n bugs.
I am sure there will be a number of members who are wishing the same
I hope corel guys are listening
NO! DON’T GIVE ME X5. FIX X4 OR I HAVE PURCHASED MY LAST UPGRADE OF CorelDRAW.
Sorry to be shouting but after using version 9 without major problems for years I bought version 11. What a disaster. Unstable, very unstable! Then version 12 fixed the unstableness of 11. But it had its own glitches in the closet. I destroyed a relationship of many years with a vendor that provided my company with photo engravings because the quality of the engravings had dropped off. After a month of finger pointing, I found out that when saving CDR 12 files as Adobe Illustrator, the outlines that were placed behind the fills just vanished during the conversion. There were also problems with the cross-hair cursor, property bar readouts, program slowing to a crawl (memory leak?), slow printing, etc., etc. A few problems were fixed with SP1 and SP2 but not the outline problem when converting drawings to AI. I went back to using version 9. Now I have purchased version X4 which fixed the outline conversion problem but some of the same old problems are back and some new ones too.
I want this version of DRAW to work as well as version 9 does for me or this is my last upgrade. I don’t know what I will go to next but it won’t be a new version of DRAW. Tony, are you listening? I have been using DRAW since version 2.01. When version X3 came out without fixing version 12, I just went away for awhile. I went back to version 9 and stopped reading the forums for years. The only contact I had with the CorelDRAW community was Foster Coburn’s newsletter. Then I found that version X4 was coming out and was one of the first to buy it (got the Tee Shirt to prove it). Some of the problems with version X4 remind me of the version 12 problems. The one thing that version X4 has going for it is it is stable (most of the time). At least it is as stable as versions 5, 8 (second issue) and version 9. Those were the best versions for me. Things that prevent me from enjoying version X4 include but are not limited to: Slow printing on non postscript printers, slow launching, s-l-o-w saving, cross hair cursor problems, crappy toolbox icons (at least version 12 allowed you to color them), slowing to a crawl on certain drawings with text and bitmaps, toolbox and drawing page icons not lighting up when selecting tools and missing parts of property bars (this started with SP1 in X4), coarse zooming (this started with SP1 on CDR12), Layer 1, Layer 1, Layer 1, text on curves scrambled sometimes on re-open (version 9 had this problem but was fixed in SP1 or Sp2), dimensioned objects screwed up when importing into another drawing, some white fills open as black in X4, and other problems which don’t irritate me as much as these. I want to use CorelDRAW and enjoy the features that I paid for. I don’t mind this being a work in progress and things being fixed with service packs. What I do mind is not addressing problems with versions and coming out with new versions. I know you have to sell new versions of CorelDRAW to stay in business, but don’t make me pay to fix things wrong with the previous version or worse yet, pay for a new version that has the same unfixed problems as the previous version. I won’t do this any longer. Give me new versions with new features after you have fixed the previous version. Make me LIKE CorelDRAW again.
John
Interesting. Sorry to hear you're just being thrashed with CD... I doubt whether it's CD's fault though unless you happen to have gotten corrupt uninstalled programs. I would wager that most other Systems out there are functioning a lot better than what you describe. I've been using CorelDRAW since version 1 or 2... many different computers and OS... right from Windows 1 (no GUI even)... Not experienced any of those problems you describe... or many problems at all... very rarely occasionally a corrupt file... maybe twice. But that's why I save incremental versions of files now. There's one other fella on the Forum here that has experienced terrible problems as bad as yours as well.
There could be a certain incompatibility with certain programs being installed before CorelDRAW and Windows freaks. I assume you've kept all the Windows SP's current and all... Windows\Temp and C:\Temp files clean... virus and trojan scans... eg: TrendMicro scan or whatever... not too many fonts loaded; lots of RAM and hard drive space... large swap file capability... fast CPU... good video card with lots of RAM... make sure the RAM is good... Any part of any computer can spontaneously just self destruct all on its own without too much help from the operator. Sometimes it's just ugly for some existing systems. It's almost as if a lemon system has suddenly emerged out of what may have been really good at one time. That is one thing you might try is getting it on another entirely different computer and then start adding your other programs in after you've determined whether CorelDRAW is working well on a clean system.
I'm currently using 5 different computer systems... 3 of them are Macs with XP or VISTA running on BootCamp... 2 are Windows native systems. One is an older, about 6 years, "built it myself" system. All have worked and continue to work almost perfectly with versions of CorelDRAW from 6 now on up to X4. I even put CorelDRAW 4 back on my Windows 95 laptop for a special job I thought I needed it for to convert version 4 cdr files to version 12. However, even though it worked I ended up putting 6 on an XP computer on one monitor and bouncing the files from there on to an instance of CorelDRAW 12 running on a 2nd monitor. Everything worked flawlessly. And I almost always have at least 8 programs running concurrently on the one computer with multiple files open in some of them... it's rare I have a problem that involves anything more than shutting down a program or two to free up some System resources... especially when a file I'm working on is really intense graphically with bitmaps and special effects and multiple pages and all. I've run files as high as 650MB using X3 on a MacBook Pro (vehicle wrap file)... not a hiccup.
Just musings...
I understand, but I not agree in one point: X5 must be a next step, a evolution, not a "patch of X4".
I also use CorelDRAW since their first versions. I knew the worst versions (4,6 and 10) and the best versions (3,5,9). Corel 11 was better han 10.0, and Corel 12 was better than 11, X3 was much better than all previous, and x4 is better than X3. The initial version of X3 had many problems, but the Service Pack solved many of these problems. X4, of course, is not perfect, but the initial version of X4 had far fewer problems than the x3. A few people have problems of speed, or conflicts, but the X4 is one of the best version of all. Most of the problems are relative to the Operating Systems. I use CorelDRAW in a old AMD Athlon 1700 MHz (also, made by myself) with 512 Mb of RAM, and a Core2Duo with 2 Gb, and I never have any problem with CorelDRAW, speed, crases or conflicts. And, believe me, I do very large and complex jobs, like books or magazines.
John,
The problem with outlines behind fills is NOT a Draw problem. Illustrator does not support them. This is an Illustrator problem. What you must do, is duplicate the object and put a standard outline on the back object. Output that to Illustrator and it will work fine. This process is how Illustrator users have always had to do it. Another way to fix this problem is to select the Simulate Outline Effects in the .ai export/save dialog box.
I find it frustrating that in the design industry, it's just assumed that every problem is Corel's fault. This one is NOT Corel's fault.
Frank OlivioAmiGraphics
Frank,
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Your explanation might be technically correct but how do you explain my results when comparing CD9, CD12 and X4 when exporting to Illustrator? All were exported as AI-7 (highest available in CD12. At the time we were exporting files as AI to be used on a PC because that is what our vendor used. There is no difference that I can tell between exporting for a PC or Mac destination in my example in a test I ran today for this job. Text was exported as curves. The only other selections were “include placed images” and “include preview image”. None of the simulate options were chosen.
When the exact same part was exported from CorelDRAW 9, the vendor saw the image exactly as I had drawn it. When the part was exported from CD12 the outlines placed behind fills disappeared. This was in 2004 so I opened the same drawing in X4 and exported it as both AI-7 and CS/3 and there was no difference between them in my drawing. But, look at the white line weight in the window outline. It is heavier when exported to AI-7 from X4 than when exported from CD9.
Now you might have another “technical” explanation for this but it doesn’t make my life any easier when the same operation in 3 different versions of CorelDRAW gives 3 different results. When I do something in one version of DRAW, I don’t want to learn how to do it differently in another version as a work-around. I am willing to learn how to do things differently if it saves me time, creates a better “WOW” effect in the final product, etc. What I don’t want to do is know how to do something in one version of DRAW, and then have to learn and remember something different in another version.
Now you might state, why don’t I just use one version of DRAW. The answer is depicted below in my example. I have to use version 9 to do the things that X4 and CD12 won’t do correctly, as fast or as good. That being said, I like some of the features in X4 and try to use it as my main drawing tool but it is so slow saving, printing and just functioning on some art, I just have to use version 9 to get work done. How embarrassing is it when a client is standing over you and you are trying to print something for him and 8 or 10 minutes goes by? Now I down-save the drawing to version 9 and print it in under a minute. Rasterizing isn’t a work-around. The print results are poor compared to just printing in CD9.
So now you say that the problem is not DRAW. “This one is NOT Corel's fault.” Maybe, you are correct. Then there is digital demon’s response, “I doubt whether it's CD's fault though unless you happen to have gotten corrupt uninstalled programs.” Fine, maybe you are also correct. The only thing that I know is my past history using CorelDRAW versions 3, 4, the first version of 8, 11 and 12. They all cause me problems and/or were unstable. Versions 2.01, 5, the second version of 8, and version 9 were stable and worked as expected. There were some problems with some of the initial offerings of my favorite versions but they were fixed with service packs. As in most cases, the offending versions were installed on the same system and were in concert with a version, either newer or older that functioned as expected. This is the case now where I have 9 and X4 installed on the same system on my desktop and two laptops. Sure it might be “MY” installation that is corrupt on all 3 systems. It might also be that when reinstalling X4 a couple of times on the same system trying to fix it, that it is my fault that I have problems. Sure, I highly customize my drawing page and always have since Corel said that I could. Maybe it’s my fault because I don’t clean my browser cache or temp files more than once a day or don’t scan my hard drive with an antivirus more than once a week. It’s also my fault that I have 411 fonts installed even though I have over 50 font groups that I install or uninstall when I’m in need of those fonts for certain jobs. Font management is a lot of work so I slack off a little and sometimes the number of fonts gets away from me.
I could go on, but the thing is, Corel needs to deal with it more, and me less. I have spent a great portion of my working days dealing with things that aren’t supposed to be but are. It’s a complex world, a complex life and computers are extremely complex and even though they cause me no end of grief, I am still simply amazed at what they can do given all of the variables thrown at them (at least PCs).
So, in conclusion, I have to get back to work and get a project done with DRAW. I’m using X4 but saving everything as version 9 now (thanks macro guys). I will continue to use 9 for drawings that X4 can’t handle. I will not upgrade unless X4 is fixed to my liking. AND I will probably continue to read that it’s my fault and not Corel’s. That’s life! Mine anyway.