Difference between CDX7 and Adobe Illustrator

The basic functionality is actually the same really. Aligning objects is the same, clipping maks in AI is powerclip in CD, Pathfinder in AI is Shpaing in CD, interactive gradients are the same almost. For me it's small things that I prefer in CD, I prefer the selection method in CD, in CD only objects that are fully within the marquee are selected, in AI anything is selected, even if it was an accident. In AI if you want to flip an object, as in mirroring it, you have to use a tool, ridiculous, it's a single button in CD. In AI you can't right and left click swatches for outline and fill afaik, you can in CD. Rotating an object in CD is a single extra click, in AI you have to find the corner of the object or use a tool.

I don't like the Curvature tool in AI that much either, it's like the CD B-spline, but it doesn't work as nice.

THings that are incredibly simple to do in CD, always seem to take one extra step in AI for some reason. It's like AI tries really hard to lower your productivity and make simple things just a tad more cumbersome than they should be.

There are also other things that I find annoying in AI, if you make a shape with the pen tool, part of your path that is already there will have disappeared. In CD you can change the node with keyboard commands while making your path, in AI you have to do it with ALT while you make your path, it's less intuitive and less fast.

What I do prefer in AI is the way they handle symbols and their brush engine, it's just cleaner, also the spray feature in CD is something I'm not too fond of, it automatically resets size etc.

CD just overall seems more intuitive to me. But AI and CD are incredibly close in what they can do.

CorelDraw is slightly easier to pick up than AI like people said, but usually when people say that about programs, it's because one is less powerful, but in this case it's simply because CorelDraw is just as powerful but more intuitive to use.

What also complicates things is that AI has changed quite a few things, when they introduced compound shapes in AI, it was made the standard, but AI users got confused by it, so now it's changed back again to ALT-click for compound, but now all the guides from a few years ago are wrong, and people get confused by that kind of stuff, that didn't happen with CD.

TL,DR: Corel Draw is more intuitive to use.

Let me add to the AI "cons". You can't select one shape and "export it" or "save as". It will always grab everything on the page. Also the page size isn't visible by default you have to dig for it, then add it to the tool bar.

Myron, You can't export just one shape in illustrator? Are serious? That has to be a joke.

Hi Mike

It's true you can't export or save individual items that I know of.

Adobe some how have maintained the idea that you build all the elements of a job as separate files then assemble them in a page layout program. So in the adobe scheme - illustrator primarily for individual Vector pieces photoshop for raster and then InDesign to assemble it to a document. Takes some getting used to especially working scaled sizes as unlike Corel The maximom Illustrator page size or artboard is 227 inches so signs vehicle wraps etc are done at reduce sizes the scaled up when printed.

If Corel would just fix x7 and give us rudimentary perspective tools for 3 point and a 3d tool we would come back.
Ultimately Corel is still the most flexible product on the market we know of butned more advanced features that actually work. Document wide search and replace tool, mail merge with variable text and photos and a few dozen more.

Still using your fabulous bitmap tool when we use Corel for a job it's a good thing x6 is stable too bad we can't still buy it.


ross blair

Mike Ver Duin said:

Myron, You can't export just one shape in illustrator? Are serious? That has to be a joke.

Some time ago, an expert user of Illustrator challenged me, saying that he could do the same just as fast. I proposed to make a rectangle with two rounded corners and two straight, and then change the roundness of a single angle. In CorelDRAW was one second, while in illustrator had to make two rectangles with right angle, two with rounded corners, weld, and then edit the nodes manually.
Can yo create a simple barcode with illustrator? or a QR code? can you impose page when print? can you auto-numbering hundreds or thousands of tickets? for some jobs, you will need to use Illustrator+InDesign+Photoshop+Acrobat for a simple task that you can do with CorelDRAW only.