CorelDRAW, like most drawing and page layout applications, is oriented to sizing and positioning type in relation to the printed page. Design grids and using points & picas as units of measure are standard. Things are different in other design niches, like sign design or designing for pixel specific displays, be they LCD computer monitors or LED-based "jumbotron" signs. The Em square metaphor doesn't work in those areas.
I'd like CorelDRAW to give users the option of sizing and line spacing lettering according to the capital letter height (or M height) built into fonts. This is a feature that has been standard in sign industry specific design programs (such as FlexiSign Pro and Gerber Omega) for many years. Lots of sign designers use CorelDRAW extensively.
Some people may respond and say it's already easy to size artistic text elements in inches, but that's only true to a limited extent.
I can take a geometric looking typeface, such as Gotham, type out a capital letter "E" and size it to 2" and the capital letter itself will be 2" tall. I can position the letter where I want in the layout in terms of inches. Then I can select that letter "E" and type in the copy I really want in place of it. The process is kind of a kludge. I can't simply type out the line of text I want, select it and enter 2" in the dialog box like I can in a sign design program. Other letters that have parts dipping below the baseline or rising above the cap height line will throw off the measurement.
Non-geometric typefaces can't be accurately sized in the manner I just described. Most serif typefaces, script typefaces and various display faces all have parts that go below the baseline and above the cap height line. This sort of thing turns into a problem if you have to trade artwork back and forth between a sign making app like Flexi. If CorelDRAW was able to size letters according to cap height that would make file exchange between sign making programs a good bit more seamless.
Sizing letters according to cap height would speed up things with pixel based design. I do a lot of work making graphics for LED signs. I create layouts first in CorelDRAW then bounce them through Illustrator and then into Photoshop. The text always looks a lot better and more legible if the baseline of the letters and cap height line of letters are matching up with the pixel grid. Illustrator and Photoshop won't let you size type to do that. CorelDRAW can only do it to a limited extent.
It's called typography and fonts aren't supposed to work like that. You can't set type with a program that works like that.
I do appreciate the explanation but when a customer asks for vinyl boat registration numbers in a particular font. 3" letter height is the state requirement . Sizing the font to be a 3" letter ht is a pia. Maybe an option would be to have two control boxes. One for typography setters and one for sign designers. The image below is wrong for designing.
I do not disagree, this is a feature that in my opinion could be a premium feature, a sign mode, another thing could be a complete set of application instructions that specifically set CorelDraw just for specific industries.