Hi friends,
I have been a Corel Draw user since Corel Draw 3, and over the years I have put up with some bad versions, that's why I only bought the Odd Number versions up until now!
I am having so much trouble with un-stable multi page layouts and total crashes. I have loaded in all the CD Patches and updates and they have made no difference at all.
Where is our Colour Button on the left hand toolbox toolbar, it used to be above the Pen Outline Colour.
I have a 800mm tall single page layout, with No Special Effects just plain text and a few solid colours and I tried yesterday to move some text around and tidy up the layout, and each time I tried it totally crashed, so I had to do it in Photoshop 2019.
I also had another bug, each time i typed a certain word it would automatically be replaced with another word, i tried changing the word in Writing Tools Quick Correct, but that hasn't worked either.
I still have Corel Draw X5 and to be honest that seems faster and more stable than the new CD19 and Don't get me started on effects in CD19 it just doesn't happen.
Sorry guys to drop in on you like this and have a whinge but I have suffered in silence enough and at the moment I am actually out of patience and seriously considering asking for my money back for the first time EVER since I've owned Corel Draw 3 and Its not cheap in New Zealand I can tell you that.
Is any one else having stability troubles and bugs and I mean just in general use with CD 19?
I was really looking forward to CD19 because I thought that it would be a very professional Design suite now, because of the number of years the programmers have had to really iron out the bugs.
But i am really disappointed to say that I don't feel that it has progressed all that far when compared to what else is on the market, without mentioning names. I have read a lot of your forum posts and I am seeing a lot of bug issues as well.
I honestly think I will go back to CD 15 even though that still has a few bugs.
Which CD Version do you guys feel is the most stable to use?
Thanks every one for your time and I look forward to seeing your replies.
All the best.
Cheers Kev
Auckland | New Zealand
Since v2019 is unusable, I feel X7 is the most stable, but I also have upgrades to v2017 which is ok also. But many claim X8 and v2018 are the best also which may be, but I skipped those to the disastrous v2019... which remains uninstalled until further notice... which will probably be v2020 or later... or in my case, probably have to use X7 or 2017 until Windows future update breaks them forcing a current CorelDraw version. : (
Maybe try the Affinity products; they're certainly much more affordable and the company seems to be making progress. They're certainly not as comprehensive as CorelDraw in many areas, but then there are interface and usability benefits in other areas and the knock bugs off pretty quick. I've been getting very bad vibes from Corel for a quite a few years and I think they're shooting themselves in the foot by trying to be "adobe-like" rather than making customers feel like they're getting value and consideration. With the new U/G policy I'm finding it hard to justify sticking with CD, since I'm already paying for Adobe CC and the Affinity set (which I'm hoping to transition to). Anyway - Affinity have some 30 days trial versions so give it a go. They only cost me AU$60.00 per app when they had recent specials so it's hard to ignore value-wise. As with you, I've been a Corel user for a long time (first version) but rarely touch it these days as I'm finding the UI too different to everything else I more regularly use - t's kinda hard to just load it up and get to work without cursing (I can understand it's fine if you're using it every day, although why font leading values are divorced from font height I'll never know...)
The problem with Affinity is that you're extremely limited. The list of missing must have professional features is extensive. Web work or print to nonpostscript digital device and you're ok.
Try and really work in professional image, print or signs and you'll come up short not only in capability but where it counts, PROFITS!
I've not used it on any client work, although I've tested Designer quite in-depth, excepting output. I haven't done any print work in years anyway so I don't have much opportunity to test that aspect - everything I do is digital output these days; UI design, web stuff, videos and presentations. I keep Corel for diagrammatic stuff, flow-charts, house plans, things where measurements and automatic line connections are handy. The Affinity stuff does seem fairly raw, and there's a lot of missing stuff that's a pain, but in other ways it's relatively clean and streamlined whereas Corel and Illustrator are like a tiny cottage that has been expanded into a city and the architecture could do with a ground-up redesign. The Designer parametric Booleans are a godsend, but Corel has some excellent basic vector editing features that are also unique. I can't say I'm happy with any vector software - I reckon I could spec something better than any of them just by taking the best features of each and working out how to combine them in a consistent interface.
Prior to v2019, CorelDraw has been and was the BEST in it's class. In order to get Adobe Illustrator to behave something like CorelDraw when it comes to SCALES, dimensioning etc, you have use third party plugins such as Hotdoor Cadtools. WHich is a great plugin, but it feels more like a workaround when using it... very feature filled, more so than CorelDraw, but CorelDraw scaling, dimensioning is NATIVE and feels great.
But again, this is prior to v2019 until they can fix it like as before. It's just not there and Corel KNOWS that...they honestly cannot play dumb here and really shouldn't ACT LIKE NOTHING IS WRONG with the 2019 move... it is the ABSOLUTE WORST VERSION in history. They have broken CorelDraw and running EVERYTHING INTO THE GROUND. : (
Affinity Designer is more a companion piece of software. You get what you pay for... nothing wrong with it, but it's a baby compared to the established fully featured CorelDraw. Recent versions of CorelDraw are trying to keep up with the times is all.
Hi David, I think it is only limited if it doesn't have what YOU (or whoever) need it to have. For most things things I create it is perfect. It's like comparing Sketch with Corel. Sure, Sketch is limited but only by what it wasn't designed for, but it's perfect for what it is designed for. Well, almost perfect. :-) So I don't think it's fair to judge software on it's inability to operate under a conditions it wasn't design to operate under. It IS fair to judge software on it stabiltiy, however.
By design you should be able to create this image created in Affinity Designer (attached) in CorelDRAW. It is realistic to judge Corel on it's ability to allow me to do that. I would NEVER EVER consider doing this in COREL, though, because of it performance and stability issues. I'd have less hair than I do now if I tried.
BTW, if you see banding here, it's because I downloaded a compressed file from a Google Photos backup and added my name with PP.
How is this created? All vector rasterized for upload or is it simply an image placed into Draw?