Creating Templates

You can use the "Save as Template" option found under the "File Menu". (File [ALT+F] > Save as Template [M])

But I normally save the file as normal and give my staff that. You just have to keep in mind to use common fonts because if someone else doesn't have that particular font it will be substituted. All other items such as Text you don't want them to edit I normally Convert to Curves (CTRL+Q).

As for compatibility with other programs such as Illustrator you can actually save the file in that format (AI) or save it as an EPS file or even a Adobe PDF File.

I see that you are new to CorelDRAW  so I recommend that you spend some time reading some of the Wikis found on the site.

Cheers, Good Luck.

I've made a few templates and they usually require some tweaking before they work like I want them to.

When I want to be able to "fill in text" I create a text box and set it for a font that should be on every machine - Ariel seems to work about the best for this. I also make sure I don't have any objects locked because I often cut and paste the template into projects I'm currently working on. If objects are lost they will get "left behind" in the copy/paste procedure.

As far as being able to use the template in other programs I think you'll find that it's next to impossible. Creating an editable PDF may be an option but you're likely to run into the odd pothole heading down that road. What you would ultimately like to do would require some serious programming that would likely run into a lot of money.

There are a lot of "Web to Print" companies that allow you to edit forms, pick from a limited selection of fonts and clipart and then submit that for business cards and the like. Websites like this usually use a database back-end along with the PHP scripting language to create "on-the-fly" web pages tailored to the client's input then the information is selectively extracted from the page to create a pre-press PDF ready for printing. Even the address labels are created from the clients input for shipping purposes. I would suspect you would require a minimum of a few thousand dollars to set up something like this.

The templates I created for my own purposes allow me to create a proof and quote that have the same look and feel. After I have the file complete I "Publish to PDF" ( File > Publish to PDF... ) and e-mail that off for customer approval. If any changes are required the customer can use the "Post-It Note feature" in Acrobat Reader to indicate the changes necessary. For what I do it's the perfect solution. If they don't bother using the "Post-It Note" feature then they tell me what they want for revisions in an e-mail reply.

Here's a shot of what my page looks as soon as I start a new file using my "Proof" template:

Each of the white boxes is a "text box" so all I have to do is click in the white box with the "Text Tool" and essentially fill in the blanks. I add the design in the large white box above the rest of the form, File > Publish to PDF... and save it to the same folder as the CorelDraw file I've just created.

My templates are a real time saver and allow me to have a common look and feel to my proofs, quotes and invoices.

Hope that helps.

Dan