CorelDraw version

The past few versions of CorelDRAW have not been able to open or import any CDR files made prior to version 6. IMHO, that is incredibly stupid.

Fundamentally, a current version of CorelDRAW should be able to open CDR files from ANY prior version. Any policy different from that penalizes long time customers.

Just a quick reminder: Adobe Illustrator is able to open files made in ANY prior version. An Illustrator AI or EPS file created in the first version of Adobe Illustrator (1987) can be opened in the current version (27.3.1). Plus Illustrator will let users save down to any old Creative Suite version as well as versions 10, 9, 8 and 3. Those relatively ancient version options are there to maximize export compatibility with other applications, some of which only have basic AI import capability. The farthest back you can save CorelDRAW CDR files is version X5. I imagine Corel will move that "bar" upward with subsequent releases.

From the mid 1990's up until a few years ago CorelDRAW would open or import CDR files made in version 3 or later. I don't know why they chose to cut off support for CDR files made in versions 1 and 2 back then. Likewise, I do not understand why they decided a few years ago to entirely cut off support for CDR files made prior to version 6. What's next? Cut off support to all CDR files made before version 9? It's not very practical to expect long time customers to just go back and re-save hundreds or even thousands of archived CDR files in a later version.

The first couple versions of CorelDRAW were very primitive; the version 3 release was very popular. I still have a retail box of it sitting on a book shelf in my work place. Some long time users (like me) have old CDR files made in versions 3, 4 and 5. Now those files can only be opened in an older copy of CorelDRAW. Inkscape is the only other application I know of that has a CorelDRAW CDR import filter. But its import results are not very good.

CDR import capability does not exist in most other rival graphics applications. With the people at Corel apparently arbitrarily deciding to cut off file open/import for later and later versions of CorelDRAW that makes the CDR format an extremely poor choice for any kind of long term file storage. If the deciders at Corel keep up this nonsense I'll be forced to save a lot of artwork in rival formats, like AI, EPS or PDF. I probably should have been doing that already.