Graphics Unleashed

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2010-03-15T10:50:00.001-07:00

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Sancho Text Docker for X5

2010-03-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

I still wonder what Corel was thinking when they removed the Format Text dialog box in CorelDRAW X3 and replaced it with not one but two Dockers. Whenever I need to do some text formatting, I always have to make changes in both Dockers. This is an incredibly inefficient workflow.

The good news is that the custom Docker technology allows third parties to rectify things like this since it could be years before Corel sees the err of their ways. The Sancho Text Docker for X5 does everything you can do in the two separate Dockers that Corel provides and more. Best of all, you can add them to your copy of CorelDRAW for free!

Basketball Artwork

2010-03-14T01:00:00.002-07:00

Anyone that has read my books or followed this blog for any length of time probably knows that I am a huge fan of college basketball, specifically my Kansas Jayhawks. Later today, the field of the 2010 NCAA Tournament will be announced and the Jayhawks will be one of the favorites to win it all.

I thought that I should find some clip art with a basketball theme so that you make your brackets look great for those inter-office pools. You'll even find a few other sports are represented in some of the artwork.

Alternative Choices for Font Management

2010-03-13T01:00:00.001-07:00

Last week I told you my choice for font management software was FontExpert 2009. Several loyal readers have commented that they liked other products. I have not tested any of the other products suggested, but I thought I'd pass along links to these products so that you can check them out if you don't feel FontExpert is the right tool for you.

Each of these products has its pros and cons. Personally, none of them measure up to FontExpert 2009 and that's why I featured it last week. If there are other products not listed here, pass along information on your favorite as a comment.

Talvez Assim

2010-03-12T01:00:00.009-07:00

Today's continues the theme of grunge fonts that I started last week. Talvez Assim not only has an interesting name, but a variety of textures within the characters of the font. From a distance, some of the characters seem to have a bit of a brick wall in them. Others have big dots or even small dots. Check out the font for yourself and tell me what you see in the characters.

Double Outlines With Contour

2010-03-11T01:00:00.002-07:00

CorelDRAW only allows a single outline to be applied to an object. Yet there is a way to get more than one outline quite easily using the contour effect. Let's say that you want a double outline on some text with the middle of the two outlines being white. Basically you want a gap between the text and the outline. Apply a two-step contour to the outside of the object. Select Arrange | Break Apart (Ctrl + K) so separate the contour group from the original object. Ctrl + click on the inside object in the contour and change its color to white. Then Ctrl + click on the outside object and change it to the outline color you want. Voila, you're done!

Asus Eee PC Seashell 1005PE

2010-03-10T01:00:00.013-07:00

I've made sure to have both a good laptop and desktop for the past fifteen years. The laptop is the computer I use when teaching CorelDRAW Unleashed Training Boot Camps and other remote training projects. In the office, I always use my desktop. While I have yet to take the leap and get a netbook, it is something I'm seriously considering in the near future.

Why a netbook? There are trips when I'd like to be able to check my e-mail and surf the Web. Yet I don't want to have to carry around the full weight of my laptop. If I would need to use CorelDRAW, I'd need the laptop.

I decided to start doing a little research on the subject so that I can make the right choice when I'm ready to buy. After a little research, the Asus Eee PC Seashell 1005PE was the one that moved to the top of my list. Is it perfect? Of course not. All netbooks come with tradeoffs. Yet those tradeoffs are necessary in order for the netbook to be so small.

Do you have a netbook that you prefer? Leave a comment and let me know which one you would choose.

Resources Docker for CorelDRAW X4 and X5

2010-03-09T01:00:00.024-07:00

Many times there are projects going on behind the scenes at Graphics Unleashed. One such project began life nearly six months ago during an e-mail exchange. Thanks to the ability of CorelDRAW X4 and X5 to have custom Dockers and the programming skills of Shelby Moore, I'm proud to announce the availability of the Resources Docker. First, I'll make it clear that it is completely free and it works in both CorelDRAW X4 and X5.

We tried to make it so that the Graphics Unleashed resources that you find most important are all available. You'll find the latest blog posts from the Graphics Unleashed Blog and Jeff Harrison's Daily Diversion. You'll also find links to the bestsellers on Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace as well as a random selection of other products. Lastly, you'll find links to the most recent topics in the Graphics Unleashed Discussion Forums where you can post questions and get answers. The Docker was designed so that it can be easily updated should other resources become available.

Check out the Resources Docker and download your free copy today!

The Damage Caused By Ad Blocking

2010-03-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

I came across a quote today that I wanted to share with you. I'll include some comments after the quote.

"There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers. Imagine running a restaurant where 40 percent of the people who came and ate didn't pay. In a way, that's what ad blocking is doing to us. Just like a restaurant, we have to pay to staff, we have to pay for resources, and we have to pay when people consume those resources. The difference, of course, is that our visitors don't pay us directly but indirectly by viewing advertising."

"My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content."

— Ken Fisher of Ars Technica says if you value the health of your favorite free sites, at least allow the ads to appear.

***

The Graphics Unleashed site is not nearly as large as Ars Technica, but all of the principles described in the quote certainly apply to us as well. Over the years I've found that the users who are most vocal about wanting us to do something on the site for free are also the users who will do everything possible to prevent us from earning revenue to keep the site alive and well. All I can ask is that you don't use ad-blocking technology and support our advertisers if they provide a product or service of interest to you.

***

When CorelDRAW X5 was released, I told you about a way to save 10% by using the coupon code UNLEASHEDFEB. I was told the coupon would expire at the end of February. Guess what? It still works, though I'm not sure when it will stop working. I also made it quite clear that we earn a commission if you buy CorelDRAW X5 using our links. In exchange, I offered a special DVD to anyone who bought through our links and provided an address. Of those who requested the DVD, 5% did not buy through our links. I don't think anyone was intentionally trying to avoid supporting us. I'm pretty sure that it was ad-blocking and cookie-blocking software that failed to give us credit for the sale. The reason I am telling you this is so you can see how the technology described in the quote can have a real effect. I will still send the disc to even the people who weren't shown to have used our links. I will also send them a note and let them know their ordered wasn't credited to us so that whatever is blocking it on their computer can be removed. If you did not already take advantage of the deal, I'll make it available for the rest of the month of March. Buy CorelDRAW X5 through our links and then e-mail me your order number and the address where we should send the disc. Go ahead and use the coupon and you'll save 10% on the order. For those awaiting the discs, I keep adding more and thus have not finalized the content. We plan to start sending the discs next week and we will send you an e-mail when it has shipped.

Thanks for reading this post. Supporting the sites that provide you with support is the only way that information can be brought to you for free. I definitely appreciate the support we've received over the years and look forward to having all our visitors do their small part to keep the site growing.

Brian Davies Layers for X4 and X5

2010-03-08T07:45:00.002-07:00

If you regularly use Layers in CorelDRAW X4 or X5, you'll want to get a copy of the free Brian Davies Layers for X4 and X5. Corel made numerous changes to how layers work from previous versions and some of the other tasks are harder to complete without this macro. Not only will you have those old abilities, you'll have other layer-related functionality.

A Servant's Heart

2010-03-07T01:00:00.009-07:00

A Servant's Heart is another great image from our friends at Rocket City Shirts. It is supplied as a CorelDRAW 9 file in both a pre-separated form for screen printing or a composite image for digital garment printing or other uses. Of course it is vector-based so you can resize or make other modifications as you see fit.

Textures Unleashed Volume 4: Terrain

2010-03-07T00:55:00.000-07:00

The fourth collection of seamless textures has just been completed. In Textures Unleashed Volume 4 you'll find 119 different seamless textures from four different types of terrain: civilization, desert and barren, lush and rocky. As with the previous collections, you can use these textures seamlessly in all of your favorite graphics software. Maybe you need something low resolution for the Web or maybe you want a high resolution copy for use on a vehicle wrap. No matter what resolution you need, you'll find it in this collection. If you want to check out the textures before you get the collection, a PDF file showing sample of each can be downloaded.

FontExpert 2009 for Font Management

2010-03-06T01:00:00.062-07:00

CorelDRAW X5 has now been on the market for a week and a half. For the most part, the new features have been popular with users. Yet there is one area where a weakness has been discovered and I'm going to explore the best solution to this problem in today's post.

One of the utilities supplied with CorelDRAW for many versions now is Bitstream Font Navigator. When it was first added to CorelDRAW, it was the best font management tool available. Unfortunately it is of limited value to users on Windows 7 since the program has gotten minimal updates in the paste ten years. Let's explore the reason it has gotten stale. It is Bitstream's software, not Corel's. Corel simply licenses it from Bitstream. Many years ago Bitstream decided to stop all development of Font Navigator. A few minor changes have been made at Corel's bequest, but even these changes have left Font Navigator severely lacking in functionality. The biggest problem is that it cannot install any PostScript Type 1 fonts on Windows 7. I also had similar problems running Font Navigator on Windows Vista. That means the time has come for me to say: RIP Font Navigator.

Once users discover the flaws with Bitstream Font Navigator, they immediately ask if there is a good replacement. I've done some searching over the past few months and the best replacement I've found is FontExpert 2009. Rather than repeating information, I'm simply going to include a list of the key features supplied by the vendor.

***

View and Preview Fonts
FontExpert 2009 displays the list of all installed typefaces and lets you explore folders and preview uninstalled fonts located on your compact disks or DVDs, local disks, removable disks or network drives. You can preview the font as a paragraph of text or as a detailed character map. It is easy to choose the desired font size, font style or color.
Assign Keywords, Ratings and Categories to Fonts
Assign keywords, categories, ratings and captions in new Tags view.
Search in Database
Search for fonts in the database by keywords, ratings and categories in new DB Search view.
Search for Fonts on Local Discs and Network Drives
The program can search your local disks, CDs or DVDs, network drives for fonts, and put all fonts to a special list for your further work.
Search for Duplicates and Corrupted Fonts
FontExpert automatically detects corrupted and incomplete fonts, and allows you to search for and manage duplicate fonts.
Manage Fonts
It is easy to manage any typefaces that are shown in any view of the program. You can sort, filter, preview fonts, copy, move, delete font files, activate or deactivate fonts, add or link fonts to font groups (sets). The program can control fonts located in the Windows Fonts and Psfonts folder (used by Adobe Type Manager), so you do not need to remove fonts from standard folders as some font managers require.
Create Font Library
FontExpert imports fonts and creates font library. You can keep your fonts organized in groups (sets), and activate or deactivate font sets. A group may include either the font file, or a link to a file located in any folder on your computer or network drive. It is easy to add fonts or links by drag-and-dropping from the Windows Explorer to the Groups view.
Print Fonts
FontExpert 2009 can print selected fonts. It is easy to print character map, "water flow" or face name reports for selected fonts, either installed or uninstalled. You can customize and format page headers and footers as desired, for example, by adding the name of your company.
View Advanced Font Properties
The program displays detailed information about the selected font, including type foundry or copyright, TrueType tables, number of kerning pairs in a font, Panose attributes, Windows font metrics and more.
Examine your System for Font Errors
With the help of Detect Font Problems feature, it is easy to find errors in installed fonts and to optimize Windows by resolving typeface conflicts and by removing records about missing fonts.
Export Fonts to HTML Web Album
FontExpert can create HTML Web Album from selected fonts. You can create GIF, JPG, PNG, TIFF, and BMP images of selected font faces. See the sample of HTML page created by FontExpert.
Automatic Activation of Missing Fonts
FontExpert includes Missing Fonts Loader plug-in for Adobe InDesign CS2, CS3, and CS4.
Windows Shell Extensions
The program adds Open, Print and Install Font custom menu commands to Windows Explorer context menu, and adds custom property page that displays detailed attributes of selected .ttf or .otf file. FontExpert adds font management capabilities to the shell so it is easy to activate or print any font in a folder you browse in Windows Explorer.

***

Look carefully at that list and you'll see that FontExpert 2009 is a pretty impressive program. In my opinion it does everything that Bitstream Font Navigator can do and much more. Well, except for one feature and it has been the reason that I've always used Font Navigator. If you open a CorelDRAW file that is missing fonts, Font Navigator will install those fonts if they exist on your system. By my definition, that is a killer feature and it is one that is currently missing front FontExpert 2009.

You'll notice that such a feature does exist for Adobe InDesign. So I asked the developers of FontExpert if something similar could be created for CorelDRAW. They are certainly interested in adding such a feature and I made sure they had contact information for the appropriate people at Corel. Don't read more into my statement beyond what I said. There is no promise that they will be able to do this, it is simply something they would like to add.

Due to Bitstream Font Navigator not being able to fully function on Windows 7, I've moved to FontExpert 2009 even though it can't automatically load missing fonts. My fingers are crossed that a solution can be developed for that all important feature. Even with the one missing feature, I think you'll find FontExpert 2009 to be a great utility for keeping your fonts in order.

Raw Street Wall

2010-03-05T01:00:00.009-07:00

I'm on a grunge kick and I don't know why. So for the next few weeks I'm going to hunt down grunge fonts for you. Today we'll start with Raw Street Wall. I guess the idea is that this is the kind of font you might see on a street wall. A wall is definitely not necessary for this one.

Get Good Artwork

2010-03-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

OK, this tip just seems so obvious to me. I hear from users all the time who are disappointed by tracing software. The problem isn't the software, it is that you are getting lousy artwork. When you put garbage in, you get garbage out. Somehow you need to get the message across to your clients that you need better artwork if you are expected to get a good trace. If they want to give you garbage, charge them more! If you keep waiting for the tracing software to improve, you'll never be satisfied.

Multifunction Printers

2010-03-03T01:00:00.000-07:00

I still have separate devices in our office for scanning, printing and faxing. Sure, the fax does have the ability to print. Yet it is only black and white. Most users want to simplify their office and merge all of those devices into one. Today I'll look at a couple of different all-in-one devices.

First, let's look at the Canon Pixma MX7600. This printer has good speed and a ton of features. When independent organizations reviewed the quality, it was rated as providing superior output. Now, look at the HP Photosmart Premium All-In-One. It's quality was rated as very good so it is just a step below the Canon model on quality. Yet it is a tad faster and has desirable features such as wi-fi support. It also costs a bit less. Either of these is very good printers so I'll let you research them both and decide which best your needs.

One area where users typically don't research enough is the total cost of ownership. We all know that replacement ink cartridges are much higher than we would like. Let's say that over the life of a printer that you'll print 10,000 pages (maybe more or less). How much will it cost to not only purchase the printer, but also the supplies to print that many pages. The printer with the lowest initial cost can often cost more over its lifespan. Of course the printer manufacturers like when you don't do your research. That's why they price the printer so low in the first place. Next time you are making this kind of a decision, do the math and see what is the best deal for you in the long term.

Creating a Painted Effect From a Photograph

2010-03-02T01:00:00.001-07:00

After finding the tutorial for today's discussion, I feel like I must have stepped into the Hot Tub Time Machine. OK, this tutorial doesn't go all the way back to 1986 as that was before CorelDRAW existed. This tutorial is from 1999 and the techniques can still be used in the current versions of PHOTO-PAINT. In fact, I'll suggest you try not only the techniques in Creating a Painted Effect from a Photograph, but also experiment with some other effects.

For example, try some of the things in the Effects | Art Strokes menu. After you've tried that, go to Effects | Custom | Alchemy and you'll find a seemingly endless supply of painterly effects. Corel also has even more ways to get the painted look in their Painter Essentials and Corel Painter applications. If that is the effect you need, it might be worth investing in one of those products.

Table Preset Docker

2010-03-01T01:00:00.001-07:00

One of the new features introduced in CorelDRAW X4 was the ability for developers to create custom Dockers. Hendrik Wagenaar wrote a blog post detailing the process of creating custom Dockers. If you are a developer, you'll love all the information presented. Regular users will be most interested in the Docker he uses as an example.

The Table Preset Docker makes it much easier to apply some pretty cool formatting to tables in CorelDRAW. You can either use one of the saved presets or you can define your own formatting. These Dockers are version specific so Hendrik just posted an updated blog post linking to an X5 version of the Table Preset Docker. Also note that instructions for where to place the files for the Docker are included in his posts. And yes, the Docker is free.

Vehicle Templates for CorelDRAW

2010-02-28T01:00:00.062-07:00

An industry that has absolutely exploded over the past decade is vehicle wraps. If you go our driving, you will see vehicles with either partial or full wraps. Did you realize that it is very easy to create the artwork for vehicle wraps in CorelDRAW? For those who truly want to do it themselves, you can get detailed measurements of each area of the vehicle and create your own template. The rest of you will want to use a template where someone has already done that hard work for you.

Vehicle templates were supplied with CorelDRAW X4 though their usefulness was very limited since keywords were not included in the files to indicate the make, model and year. Users who really wanted to search hard might be able to find the template they needed, but the search could be time consuming. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 has improved the situation dramatically. In Corel's promotional information, they advertise the inclusion of over 2000 vehicle templates. During Corel's Webinar (you can still attend one of the future Webinars), they said that the vehicle templates included with CorelDRAW X5 included keywords for both make and model. What surprised me a bit was that they said the year wasn't included.

I decided to do a little bit of research myself to see what I would find. I used the popular ROMCat utility to search the CorelDRAW X5 keyword catalog for what I felt were some of the vehicles most commonly wrapped. If I didn't search on the model you want to know about, you can certainly get your free copy of ROMCat and search for that model yourself.

The first search was for the Cadillac Escalade. Five templates were returned by the search. Two templates included 2002, one included 2003 and two included 2007 (one of them is shown at right). So my immediately reaction was surprise since some of them did indeed include years.

Then I searched for the Smart car. Four templates were returned. Of those, two included 2007 and two had no year. My next search was for the VW Beetle and three of them were found. Two of the templates had no year and one had 2005. The last search was for the Toyota Prius and it found two templates. One of them had 2000 as a keyword and one had no years included.

After these searches I came to the conclusion that for artists who are not in the vehicle wrap business, you might be able to find the template you need should the occasion arise. Those who are creating wraps on a regular basis will probably be frustrated that they can't find the exact year they need or even the vehicle.

For those who need more templates, there is a solution! Corel licensed the included templates from the folks at Digital Design Ware and their full collection includes more than 60,000 templates filling four DVDs! No, this collection isn't included with CorelDRAW, you'll have to buy it separately. Yet it is extremely valuable to those who need these templates on a regular basis. Want to know what is included? You'll find a link on the product page to download an 1106 page PDF file (yes, that number is right) showing each of the included templates. The collection also includes a year of downloadable updates. That way if a new template is completed, you can download it when needed. You'll also see that there are 3D templates available. These are really cool because you can design in 2D for output to your wide format printer in CorelDRAW. Before output, simply export the design to a JPG file and the included 3D software will create a 3D rendering of the finished vehicle that you can fully rotate. Or take a photo of the customer's building and place the 3D rendering right in their parking lot so they can picture it before you wrap it. Not only does this allow you to get it just right before printing the wraps, it also can be a great sales tool to close the deal!

Utilities Bundled with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5

2010-02-27T01:00:00.064-07:00

We all know about the main components of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5. So this post isn't about CorelDRAW, Corel PHOTO-PAINT, Corel PowerTRACE or Corel CONNECT. I'm going to talk about some of the "bundled" add-ons that come with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5.

We'll start with BenVista PhotoZoom Pro 2. It is an export plug-in for enlarging bitmaps with minimal loss of quality. If you have a lousy photo as a starting point, the result will be a larger lousy photo. The old rule of garbage in, garbage out still applies. Start out with a good quality photo and you can easily upsample it to a much larger size and it will still look pretty darned good. If you have already purchased CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 or downloaded the trial, you can give it a try for yourself. Now if you've looked for this plug-in, you may have been perplexed because it doesn't show up in the Effects menu. Remember, it is an export plug-in. Go to File | File Format Plug-ins | Export and you should see PhotoZoom Pro 2 listed. The photo currently active in Corel PHOTO-PAINT will be transferred to PhotoZoom Pro where you can enlarge it using all types of different settings. After finishing in PhotoZoom, the enlarged photo will be returned to Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

Some of you may have noticed that Corel is supplying PhotoZoom Pro 2 and that PhotoZoom Pro 3 was released a few months ago. Let's talk about how bundling deals like this work. Corel agrees to pay the company, BenVista, for bundling their product in the suite for "free". Typically the payment is a very small percentage of what you or I would pay for the product by itself. Corel gets to add value to the suite and BenVista gets a nice payment. Just so you know, the full price if it wasn't bundled is $219! Sometimes it is a flat fee, sometimes it varies based on the number of copies sold. I'm certainly not privy to the details of this deal. One thing I know for sure is that BenVista is hoping that once you are exposed to their product, you'll like it and consider getting the newer version. Maybe they will make a special offer available to CorelDRAW X5 owners, maybe they won't. If I had to guess, I think they will. Just remember, that is only a guess. For those who want to know more about the newer version, I wrote about PhotoZoom Pro 3 in the blog last summer.

For those who have purchased the boxed version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5, you'll find Swish miniMax2 included on the disc as a separate install. Please read that carefully, it is not part of the download version. It is a tool for easily creating cool stuff in Flash format. I'd love to give you more details, but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. And just like PhotoZoom Pro, it is the previous version of the software. I'll also guess that the Swish folks will have some sort of upgrade offer available for CorelDRAW X5 owners. If you were to buy Swish miniMax separately, it would cost you over $100. Once again, a great deal to get it bundled.

There is actually one more goodie that will be supplied when you register. I don't know if this will only be available for a limited time or not. So if you are reading this long after I've written it, the offer could have been changed. Corel has not opened up registration yet. Soon the download versions will suggest that you register your copy. If you already have a Corel.com account, it takes all of about one minute. If you don't have a Corel.com account, you'll have to create one and it might take a couple extra minutes. The reward is that you'll be given a download link for the KPT Collection of plug-in filters. In total there are 23 filters included.

When you are making your decision on upgrading, don't forget to consider the value of these three included products.

Premium Fonts Supplied with CorelDRAW X5 Boxed Version

2010-02-26T01:00:00.026-07:00

CorelDRAW has always been known for supplying a large number of fonts and CorelDRAW X5 continues that tradition. A few days ago I posted the list of fonts included with CorelDRAW X5. What you won't find on that list are the "premium fonts" that are new to CorelDRAW X5. You will only get the premium fonts if you buy the boxed version and they are installed separately from all other fonts.

Let's back up and talk about these fonts first. Most of Corel's font collection comes from Bitstream, one of the top font foundries. The new premium fonts come from Linotype, yet another top foundry. There are a total of 32 fonts from four font families: Frutiger, Futura, Garamond and HelveticaNeue. Each of the families comes in a number of weights and styles and the character sets are larger than most fonts. The Garamond fonts also include small capitals and old style numerals. Unfortunately you will not be able to access all of those characters in CorelDRAW since full OpenType support is still lacking.

When you receive your CorelDRAW X5 DVD, you'll find the Premium Fonts as a separate item to be installed. These fonts will be automatically placed (and installed) inside your Windows/Fonts folder. It is very discouraging that Corel does not provide a way to store the fonts in your chosen location since not all users will want all of the fonts immediately installed. Once they have been installed, you can go into the Windows/Fonts folder and move them somewhere else so you can install them at a time of your choosing. That's exactly what I've done.

Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace Surpasses 1000 Products

2010-02-25T16:30:00.001-07:00

It was just over a year ago that the Graphics Unleashed Media Marketplace was launched. Now there are more than 1000 products available. Yes, many of them have a cost associated with them. Yet many of the products sell for $10 or less. There are also nearly 100 products that are completely free. If you haven't looked at Media Marketplace recently, give it a look again. Before this time next year we fully expect that we'll be well over 2000 products. I'd also like to remind you that anyone can author products for Media Marketplace. So if you have some content that you feel would be valued by others, consider adding it to Media Marketplace.

Updates on Purchasing CorelDRAW X5

2010-02-25T08:30:00.003-07:00

Many of you have taken advantage of the coupon code I've provided in previous posts and in the Graphics Unleashed Newsletter. I was informed this morning that the code to save 10% is only valid in the US and Canada store. Specifically, it will not work in the UK store. This is completely beyond my control so I'm sorry to those of you outside of North America. In fact it came as a surprise to the Corel folks who helped me coordinate the deal. While I can't offer a coupon code to users outside of North America, my offer of the extra DVD is available to anyone anywhere in the world who purchases CorelDRAW X5 through my links before the end of February 2010. Just use the link I provide above and send me your order number and your shipping address. We should start shipping these discs in another ten days or so.

Corel has also put out a Web page explaining many of the features added in CorelDRAW X5. Probably the highlight is the new ad campaign and the graphic novel that you can download. Definitely check out the Web page and the campaign Corel has put together. Even if you don't upgrade, you can appreciate it as a graphic artist.

Importing AI, EPS and PDF with CorelDRAW X5

2010-02-25T01:00:00.030-07:00

I feel that one of the biggest reasons to upgrade to each new version of CorelDRAW is to get the latest and greatest import and export filters. Today I'm going to focus on three import formats that users feel are extremely important and talk about some of the changes that have been made in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5.

AI Files: CorelDRAW X4 could import files from Adobe Illustrator CS3 and earlier. But it could not open files that were saved with compression. Unfortunately the compression is turned on by default in Illustrator so files had to be opened and resaved in Illustrator before they could be used in CorelDRAW. CorelDRAW X5 can import files from Adobe Illustrator CS4 (the most recent version) and earlier. More importantly, it can work with compressed files. This means you have a much better chance of being able to import Illustrator files than you did in the past. Just keep in mind that files with more complex types of objects and fills are less likely to be fully editable when imported.

EPS Files: CorelDRAW X4 could import EPS files saved in PostScript Level 1 or 2 format. But it couldn't work with files saved with PostScript Level 3 data. CorelDRAW X5 has included support for the Ghostscript engine which allows it to successfully import EPS files with PostScript Level 3 data.

PDF Files: CorelDRAW X4 could import unprotected PDF files saved through Acrobat 8. CorelDRAW X5 can import files saved in Acrobat 9 format (again the most current version).

Given the importance of all three of these formats, you should find that CorelDRAW X5 has made dramatic improvements when importing. Want to give it a try for yourself? Download the trial version and import a few files to see how it works for you. If you are ready to buy, remember you can use the coupon code UNLEASHEDFEB to save 10% if you buy before the end of February. Yes, that code is perfectly valid. If you copy and paste, make sure an extra space doesn't come with it and make sure you enter it in all caps. For those in the US, also use the coupon code COREL99 to get free shipping. Users in Canada can get free shipping with the code CORELC99. Since I earn a commission if you buy using my links, I'll even send you an extra DVD filled with Photoshop plugs-ins, clip art and more; e-mail me (link is on this page if you don't know my address) your order number and your shipping address.

Color Management: CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5

2010-02-24T14:15:00.011-07:00

One of the biggest changes Corel made to CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 was in the color management engine. David Milisock had compiled an ebook dedicated to the subject that is a must-read for anyone interested in getting the best color from CorelDRAW X5. Color Management: CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 is available for immediate purchase and download from David.