I am trying ti figure out what the difference between CDX7 and Adobe Illustrator is before I make a purchase?
Any quick explanations?
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.
Mike Ver Duin said:Myron, You can't export just one shape in illustrator? Are serious? That has to be a joke.
KuttyJoe said:I've been reading that Illustrator can't export just a selection for many years. It's not true. Illustrator can absolutely select some specific objects from among others, and export just that selection. It's true that it doesn't have a little checkbox that says, "export selected object", but it still can do it. The way you do it, is you select the objects you want to export, then use a key command to "hide everything else". Then export your selection to jpeg, or png, or whatever. When done, use the key command to unhide the art.
This is a workaround, not a feature. Of course, nobody say it's not possible, but if you need to hide other objects it's just the same to copy/paste on other document.
KuttyJoe said: I believe CorelDraw recently gained the ability to hide an object but using a severely convoluted method
I can't imagine something more simple than select the object and choose "hide object". Maybe a shortcut will be useful, but you can add your own, such as "Ctrl+H"
KuttyJoe said:"This is a workaround, not a feature. Of course, nobody say it's not possible, but if you need to hide other objects it's just the same" Why in the world would you call it a workaround? Wow. It's of course a feature. Select the objects you want to export, hide the objects you do not want, and export. How's that a workaround? lol And this forum is full of people saying it can't be done. This very thread has people saying it can't be done.
The sample I mentioned before is something similar: to make a rectangle with two rounded corners and two straight angles, and then change the roundness of a single angle. In CorelDRAW is one second, while in illustrator you need to make two rectangles with right angle, two with rounded corners, weld, and then edit the nodes manually or creates a new rectangle. That doesn't means you can't do it with illustrator, and the printed result should be the same, the difference is how many steps you need for the same job or the effort that requires each task. Of course the difference on one task maybe is only a few seconds, but if you work several hours every day the difference is acumulative.