We currently use CorelDraw 2019. We never upgraded cause there hasn't really been a need to but I've posted a few times here and have been told this version is less than ideal. I think I was explicitly told that this version is unstable and gave that specific person a lot of issues while using it. Recently I've had files that just crash Corel when I try to open them. Obviously this is hugely inconvenient as we have to work off of back up files which may or may not require editing to restore the lost information but sometimes the backup also crashes and the job will have to redone entirely. Is this a Corel 2019 issue? Is this a Corel issue in general? Is it our PC? We upgraded PC's twice in less than a year, we spoke with the company Dell and they built us a PC with specs to work with what we need to do and we're still getting crashes and slow downs on big files. I've been told for other programs the actual file names can be issues; could that be an issue? I've started making longer file names to include as much info as possible to find the files later cause we have to go back to old files all the time. Because they are so long I use hyphens, parenthesis, and brackets to break the information up so the names are easier to read as well. I've heard that can cause issues with other programs as well.
Should we upgrade Corel Version? I've thought about going to Adobe Illustrator too, but learning the ins and outs of that program with seriously halt my productivity which wont be possible to do going into the fall season but maybe by December we could make that switch
CorelDRAW 2024 is available through Humble Bundle for as little as USD70 right now.
No guarantees that it will solve your problems, but I think it's worth noting that 2019 was the first version released after they made some significant changes to CorelDRAW, and were also introducing a Mac version. In addition to some new features introduced since then, I would think that they have also had time to smooth off some rough edges and fix some problems that might have been present in 2019.
The 2019 release of CorelDRAW definitely had problems. The 2020 version (22) was considerably more stable. Plus it (finally) added support for OpenType Variable fonts.
The past few version upgrades of CorelDRAW have been very paltry in terms of new feature additions or application improvements. My current recommendation for anyone wanting to buy a copy of CorelDRAW is to get the one time purchase version. I think the subscription version is a rip-off; you get only two full blown applications for that money. I think it's a better deal to buy the one time purchase version and then ride it out for a few years before buying again.
I've used Adobe Illustrator alongside CorelDRAW since the early 1990's. Both applications have unique features as well as some unique strengths and weaknesses compared to their rival. There are some tasks I prefer doing in CorelDRAW and there are others I'll choose to do in Illustrator.
Sometimes it's just little things that make the difference. For instance, CorelDRAW has the best align/distribute keyboard shortcuts of any vector drawing application. I've been unable to replicate some version of those shortcuts in Illustrator without causing a bunch of harmful conflicts. So that's great for a lot of technical drawing tasks. If I'm hand drawing clean paths over placed pixel-based artwork I'm going to use Illustrator for that because the Bezier tool in Corel stinks compared to Illustrator's Pen tool. In Illustrator the keyboard shortcuts for zooming in/out, hand-panning the view of artwork and adjusting anchor points while drawing them works far better than the clumsy implementation in CorelDRAW. Plus I use Astute Graphics' outstanding suite of Illustrator plugins; their InkScribe tool is one hell of an alternative to Illustrator's stock Pen tool.
Anyway, I'm no all-in fanboy of one single vector graphics app. I also have a copy of Affinity Designer I tinker with from time to time. I recommend it to amateurs and hobbyists wanting to make vector graphics on a limited budget. But it still pales in comparison to CorelDRAW and Illustrator.
I have a copy of Inkscape installed in my computer too. Running that feels like jumping back to the 1990's.