I'm a 20+ year CorelDraw user. I have always been a Win version user over the years. About 8-9 years back I dipped my toe in to Mac for my day to day stuff and got hooked in to it. Since there was no Mac version of CorelDraw at the time, I began using Parallels on my Macs to run CorelDraw. In Parellels "Coherence Mode", it felt so seamless that I have been using it for years with no issue. Recently I bought the Macbook Pro with an M1 chip and after having it in hand learned that Parallels can only run Win 11 ARM version on the Mac M1 AND that CorelDraw is not supported on Win 11 ARM. I have it sort of working.... but sort of doesn't cut it when clients are requesting work daily and you're spending 90% of your workday in CorelDraw. So I went ahead and decided my best option was to go ahead and try to see if I could use the Mac version of CorelDraw work for my workflow.
I've been using the 2022 Mac version here on the M1 for about a month now and feel like I'm just staring to settle in. I've definitely run in to some issues, but I think I've been able to customize a few of the shortcuts to my tastes and am beginning to remember where tools are since you can't customize the workspace in the Mac version. I'm also super bummed to be without the GDG ColorClick Extreme Macro (that was a game changer in the Win version for me, best time saver macro I've used). I have pushed it pretty hard just wrapping up some work on a pretty large 60 page booklet/catalog. It was pretty dense and would choke occasionally, mostly when trying to autosave, save or export the entire booklet/catalog. I've run in to some issues with fonts and the way some features don't feel like they work quite as easily as on the Win version, and I feel like it's a bit sluggish so hoping Corel can make the most of the M1 hardware soon. But overall I feel like I'm beginning to find the flow with it.
So with that, I was just curious if there was anyone else around here in the same or similar boat that has recently made the jump from the Win version over to the Mac version? Just sort of curious to see how things are going for others and where you're either hitting speed bumps or finding efficiency on the Mac side?
So for those of you making the jump over to the Mac version, how's it going for you?
I switched to Mac version and I'm still not convinced I made the right choice. I was in the same boat, using Corel on a PC until I needed to upgrade to a Mac. But there was no Mac version for Corel, so hello Parallels. It was great at first, the coherence was the best! I felt like I was getting the best of both worlds. Design life was good! Then as time went on and newer versions of everything came out it started to go downhill. Upgrade Parallels, upgrade corel, update operating system. With every update and new version, it was at least a whole day down fixing 'issues' all while my clients wait for me to send work. Now here I am, fully in the Mac version of Corel, paying a subscription (it was nice deleting Parallels and the virtual machine though), and hating my choice. Its one thing to learn new ways of doing repetitive tasks, but its another thing all together learning how to fix bugs or developing work arounds. Now my new problem is files that won't open. That is scary to say the least. I hate the idea of learning illustrator, but at this point, I'm not sure what else to do. I miss the cool days of Corel, when it worked and was better than Illustrator. Now I have to to go to Adobe and be like all the other designers yuck