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
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.
Hi ! I have problems with PDF exportated works with X4 (on XP) At screen, the PDF seems great. Here is the PDF :http://www.procreat.com/Mandeyrlane_hauteur233_largeur190_page_de_gauche.pdf (17,427 Mo)Then, It has been imported into Quark Xpress 7.31 on Mac OS X for printing in a magazine.I don't think they have seen something strange at screen, but when it has been printed...too late!So here is the result compared with the original that is closed to:http://www.procreat.com/Colors_washed-out.jpg (0.894 Mo)As you can see at right, the colors are washed-out.If some Corel developers would like to see the original file and tell me what's wrong: http://www.procreat.com/Mandeyrlane_hauteur233_largeur190_page_de_gauche_impression.cdr (11,715 Mo)Profil used : http://www.procreat.com/profil_used.jpg (0.105 Mo)It would be apreciated.Just for info, inside the corelDraw file, all the bitmaps of the job have been all flatened in only one CMJN bitmap.. no RVB objects, transparencies, clipboards have been let. I dont' understand...Just a printing provider let me know yesterday in a printing job I have requested him that all vectorial objects in red color (M100, Y100) has become brown on the printing result, and told me that he hasn't seen it at screen....After testing with ripping again, he told me that the profil that was inside the PDF was not good, just he found the solution to supress it and the colors have been fine....Is there any way to control truly the colors before sending to print? Thank you by advance...
Under the Settings -> Advanced when you publish to pdf, what are the color management settings there and does the seperations ICC profile match what it should be? Here for CMYK pdf my seperations profile is usually SWOP or sheetfed coated v2 unless I'm supplied with different from the press a project will be printed on. Get your press to give you the color profile they're using.
Hi Island and thank you for your help.As you've seen on the screen capture I use the default configuration from CorelDraw factory settings:Internal RGB -sRGB for the central color space, Generic profil for the pre-press printing Generic Separation profil for offset printingsGeneric profil for screen...and CMJN checked for the color mode.When I want to prepare a PDF for offset printing, in the PDF settings, I use compression LZW, 300 dpi, text vectorized and for the color management, I choose the CMJN profil, check the ICC profil, check the separation profil and nothing else.Nevertheless, since I search what's wrong with my color problems, I noticed I have choosen the Acrobat 8 compatibility.I suspect grantly this configuration not working and provokes mistakes, but not sure! what do you think about this ? oliver
hi Oliver,
I had a strange situation this last week... No matter what I set in Draw, everything looked washed out in Acrobat 7 Pro.
Turns out something was "Stuck" where Acro was viewing with a profile. Setting it keeps it enabled for the next time you load a PDF. Grrrrr!
I wonder if this is happening for others too.
Try this: Open your PDF file in Reader only, like ver 6 or something. That's how I found out Draw was NOT the problem. :-P
Olivier Fournier said:Nevertheless, since I search what's wrong with my color problems, I noticed I have choosen the Acrobat 8 compatibility.I suspect grantly this configuration not working and provokes mistakes, but not sure! what do you think about this ?
Olivier Fournier said:After testing with ripping again, he told me that the profil that was inside the PDF was not good, just he found the solution to supress it and the colors have been fine....
Unfortunately this is an indication that the service provide has little concept of the process, i expect that the issue was the service providers all along.
Corel CANNOT embed a profile in the PDF file. Corel works on two principles, convert color upon publishing and as an assumed color space. What this means is that Corel will convert colors to a selected color space based on the profiles selected in the main color management dialog during PDF publishing process. There are two methods of RIP color handling, all plate/film setters work on postscript color management and require no ICC profile information for source CMYK files, they will assume their default RGB source profile or need to be set to match the source RGB space for proper conversion. All ink jet or digital composite print devices need to have their source profile set to match the profiles used for the creation of the PDF document.
Your color management setting in the main color management dialog are in my opinion incorrect, go to www.coreldrawpro.com there you will find my book on Corel color management it will explain all you need.