Let me begin by saying, if you are a fan of X3, by all means treat this as a rant and pay it no heed. Hey, if it works for you -- enjoy. I am a professional graphic artist. I have been working in advertising/marketing as a designer for about 25 years. Currently I am the Chief Creative Director at such a firm. I predate computer design. I started when things were still done by hand on drawing boards and light tables. The first graphic design software I ever used was CorelDraw! It's been so long ago, that I don't even remember the version number, but I think it was either 2 or 3.
As computer graphics caught on and professional standards began to be established, certain names such as Adobe Illustrator and Quark Xpress took the lead among printers and designers. Over the years I have remained a staunch Corel user. I have consistantly held that it is superior to Illustrator in many ways. However, in more recent years, it has become harder and harder for me to defend this position. CorelDRAW really hit its stride around version 7. Either 7 or 8 is by far the best version of CorelDRAW ever marketed. After that the software designers started changing things that did not need changing, tweaking things that needed no tweaks, and fixing stuff that was not broken -- all the while ignoring some of the more egregious design flaws and technical issues.
To this day, I still use version 8 whenever I can get away with it. The problem with 8 is that it has some fatal bugs when running on XP or Vista. Because of these flaws, I have been forced to purchase upgrades in the hopes that the problems had been corrected. Trouble is, the newer versions screwed with the interface, tools, shortcuts, everything! I am now using X3 on my current workstation and it just flat out SUX! I have never used a less intuitive, more infuriating piece of software in my entire life! The only reason I am using it at all is because my version 8 is unstable on this particular XP platform.
I am just thankful that by some miracle 8 works without a hitch on my laptap, also running XP. Sadly, I must also get some work done on the studio workstations where I am forced to endure X3. The horror of it all is that I have long considered myself to be an enlightened opponent of the pathetic herd of Illustrator designers who had no clue about the wonders of CorelDRAW! Now, because of X3, I have actually been driven to using Illustrator more and more, just to maintain my sanity. I'm actually beginning to... (gag).. appreciate... (cringe)... Illustrator. It is a sad day for me because I think my days as an avid CorelDRAW designer may finally be coming to an end.
Sorry to be a hater... but this needed to be said. If you don't agree, I'm happy for you. But for me, 13 just blows.
The interface has not changed much for a very long time. What are you trying to do that you are having issues with?
Look, I'm really not trying to start a debate here about the virtues of X3 or lack thereof. I've got almost 15 years of user experience with CorelDRAW -- have designed award-winning pieces with it. I can't vouch for versions 11 and 12, because I upgraded from 10 to 13. But for me, X3 has changed some of the most intuitive and basic functions of the software, such as the way the color-tool works; the way certain tools and palettes function and interact; the ability to order your workspace; some of the keyboard shortcuts. Version 8 was so much cleaner and far less clumsy. Frankly, the latest CorelDRAW makes Illustrator look rather appealing and easy-to-learn by comparison.
Hey Rolf,
Can we see a sample of your work? Award winning would be great... Or maybe a comparison of what you've pulled off Illy vs. DRAW. I'm not doubting your graphic design credibility, it would just be interesting to see. I could never go back to using version 8 after using 12 and X3. I know that in latter versions of DRAW, some objects would have a hard time refreshing when working anything higher than a thousand layers/shapes. How do you get around that?
Let's see, Rolf, how is it going building books in Illustrator? I do a lot of newsletters, and they are multipage. Do you use the layers palette? How much fun it is in Illustrator to center anything on the page or to move guidelines.
I do like some of the brushes of Illustrator. Using Illustrator to me is like using training wheels.
You haven't been specific about anything which really bugs you. 12 is a great version for people who don't need the extra tools which X3 has. Perhaps you should have gotten 12.
Symbols are now a place to store your own reuseable objects, if you want to insert a character, it is a different docker. One visit to the help file fixes it. You could turn on the highlights of all the things new since version 9.0 in the help menu too, might help you learn what is new more easily.
Perhaps you like Illustrator as it has been slowly over the years incorporating CorelDRAW's features. Maybe next year and another $600-$700 dollars later, they might discover how to make conical gradients or transparency. Masks are such an intuitive waste of time, no interactivity. Illustrator is expensive and lacks many of the features I use all the time.
I could understand wanting to use Xara which has some features CorelDRAW lacks, but even that has multipage capability. Spot color isn't right yet, and they are far ahead of Illustrator in speed. Even can use plugins on vector shapes. It is cool. But I use spot color all the time and Xara isn't up to speed there.
Sometimes you need to add some well-thought out tutorials to your arsenal like Foster Coburn's ebook on CorelDRAW X3. Meanwhile you lingered on in version 8 when everyone else was up to speed. And it seems you've been left behind. While you are so determined that DRAW is so lame, take a look at advancedartist.com, he has some great free tutorials and some delicious looking ones to buy. DRAW 8 runs fine on Windows 2000 NT, you can buy that for cheap. Making .pdf is part of everyone's workflow now. And X3 makes perfect .pdfs, much better than 12's. Making .pdf with DRAW is easier than with Adobe. The easiest thing with Adobe is to spend a ton of money. How well do you like that? $350 for Acrobat, $600 for Illustrator and Photoshop runs about the same, then there is InDesign if you buy them separately, buy them in a suite, you save, can get it for $1200 or so. I'll stay a crazy DRAW user, because with the money I saved I bought a new computer and a professional camera and and a Wacom tablet, an Intuos. That's called "crazy like a fox". There are other things that run you more too, InDesign doesn't come with InBooklet, yikes, it's expensive to buy on its own, or you could get the plugin for Acrobat Professional to build books, and it costs as much. DRAW can do impositions easily.
Ask help for specific things.
Oh man! I lost may sanity years ago, guess I'll just have to suffer and be crazy.
Hey igorstshirts:
Almost all of my work is synergy of CorelDRAW, Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator (sometimes other software), so in the finished product it is often difficult to discern which was used for which bits. When I have minute, I'll see about uploading a few samples. Thanks for your interest.
Rolf
igorstshirts said: Hey Rolf, Can we see a sample of your work? Award winning would be great... Or maybe a comparison of what you've pulled off Illy vs. DRAW. I'm not doubting your graphic design credibility, it would just be interesting to see. I could never go back to using version 8 after using 12 and X3. I know that in latter versions of DRAW, some objects would have a hard time refreshing when working anything higher than a thousand layers/shapes. How do you get around that?
Hi Rolf !
Dear as per my thinking, when a software company upgrades their product, they have follow atleast one objective i.e. 'user friendly' and they try to serve more-n-more about this feature. I am also using corel draw since ver 1.0 and now x-3, and no doubt ver 5 is first exiting ver. and 8/9 is also a nice work effecnt ver. But the corel X-3 is excellent, it as like smooth as mature grain liqure. Yes it's my feeling. But all about your problem, some command are change, options are change, so you can manage it very easily like sortcuts, menus and all about, you can manage your interface also. so i think it is not a matter to worry. if you are very use to for ver 8 than x-3 takes maximum 1 week (2 or 3 hours daily) to make you fluent for it. So stay with x-3, feel it's freedom, and take advantage of it's features and keep ahead.
In future you have any problem, we all will be here to support you!
thanks