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© 2002 by Rick Altman. All Rights Reserved.
Corel Corp. has developed two distinct reputations over the years, both earned. The first is for producing killer software, with features that are often years ahead of its competition. Few applications leave the gates packed with more new features than those from Corel, and software reviewers and new users are often dizzy just from reading them.
The second reputation is for producing killer bugs. Corel has been too ambitious with its new versions and has often not allowed for sufficient development time before releasing the product. Some versions produced mild irritation and required that a quick fix be distributed soon after release. Some versions were practically DOA, requiring emergency surgery.
This summer, the mother ship from Ottawa has set sail on an entirely different course, with new releases of its two most prominent graphics and publishing packages. We asked those involved in pre-release testing of either Ventura Publisher 10 or CorelDRAW 11 for their opinion of the most prominent change in either application, and the answer was the same virtually across the board.
Solid as a rock.
You might think you’ve entered a parallel universe or something. New Corel software without new bugs? A new version that focuses on fixing the old bugs instead of loading up on new features?? If you ponder this amazing notion too long, you might crash your own cerebral operating system and require a reboot.
This is not to say that CorelDRAW 11 has no new features, and we will get to them, I promise. But again, the most significant news is how stable this product has been through its entire cycle of pre-release testing. One “beta tester” was almost complaining about it:
“I installed Beta 4 (i.e. the fourth version that Corel distributed to its testing team) and I couldn’t find any bugs at all!” said one. “I’m required to report three bugs and I can’t find any. I’ve never had this problem before…I mean, I’ve never had this non-problem before. I mean…I don’t know what I mean.”
Ventura 10 beta testers were similarly reduced to idle babble when faced with a version that just wouldn’t crash. At the three-day Ventura Summit in July, we ran Ventura 10 through an especially arduous torture test, including all of the well-known procedures that bring Ventura 8 to its knees: search-and-replace routine through a 500-page document, running the script that finds unused tags, performing a Save As and using the same filename, creating a 250-row table…you get the idea.
And with CorelDRAW 11, we tried to make it crash with a 999-step blend between objects with 999 fountain steps, contours of grotesque proportions, and feeding it a truly perverted workspace. No luck.
At the risk of hyperbole, this could represent a sea change for Corel. In a period where the current versions of QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign are not exactly leaving users breathless, a stable version of CorelDRAW just might warrant a fresh look.
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Beyond stability, topping the list of news items is Corel’s promise to distribute CorelDRAW 11 as a hybrid release on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms-one CD with versions for both Windows and Mac. In the past, Corel’s Windows roots have shown with its Mac releases, but first impressions of 11 indicate that Corel did its homework and dedicated time and resources to learning how a proper Mac application functions and what a Mac user wants and expects.
One of the most interesting new additions is a significant upgrade to the Symbol Library. In past versions, you could open the Symbols docker and see a list of all the little doo-dads and squiggles that were part of whatever symbol typefaces you had installed. It was a one-way transaction. But with the new Symbols Library, you can create your own symbols, store them, distribute them globally, and update them all at once.
In the Wow department are two new brushes for vector-based objects, called Roughen and Smudge. Second cousins to the ill-fated Distortion tool, which was used mostly to destroy perfectly good curves, these tools can actually help with complex curve creation. And after two years of seemingly non-stop new bitmap effects, it’s nice to see new tools for working with vectors.
The big news for engravers, sign-makers, and CAD users-those who need to work with closed curves-is the new Create Closed Path command that is hiding out under the Arrange menu. It has always been too easy to create an open path that looks like a closed one, resulting in certain frustration with the Shape tool to close it after the fact. There are other handy new shaping tools, such as Simplify and the curiously named Front Minus Back and Back Minus Front tools. All in all, some nice, if modest, speed gains to your curve-creating experiences.
Changes to text? You can now convert Paragraph text to curves. This addresses one of the long-standing annoyances of sending a CorelDRAW file to someone else who might not have the same typefaces you do. You have always been able to convert Artistic text to curves, thus preserving the look of the typeface, but never Paragraph text. Please be careful-performing this on a 5,000-word catalog could make your printer barf.
More notable, you can now import text from word processors and insist that all font and formatting attributes be stripped out. Being able to import formatted text has been nice when you have wanted it but been like torture when you haven’t wanted it. No more torture…
Corel’s premier image-edting program (included in the CorelDRAW Suite), also enjoys a modest amount of new features and a whole lot of increases in stability. New PAINT features start with a new cutout masking tool that will save many users the effort of heading to KnockOut for their more demanding mask needs. While not as sophisticated as KO, it makes simple and semi-complex masking much easier, thanks to a more refined tool: You just draw around an object and you might be done.
Also near the top of the charts is the new Image Stitching feature. With it, you can piece together individual images into a whole. This really finds its high-water mark when you consider the task of creating a panorama from several digital photos-instead of about 15 steps, you can do it in three or four. You can do it not only faster, but better too, thanks to intelligence built into the tool that compensates for the jiggling and angle displacement inherent in panning a scene over several snapshots.
Red-eye removal is now its own automatic tool, instead of a script that you have to implement or a series of steps you need to follow by rote.
If you laughed at Corel’s new Real Animated Vector Effecs (RAVE) application a year ago, you’ll probably still laugh at it. Compared to Macromedia Flash, RAVE is a babe in the woods. That’s why many in the user community laugh at it, and that is precisely why I like it so much. Few programs make me feel as stupid as Flash does, owed in large part to my propensity to be made to feel stupid, but also to the fact that my animation needs are quite modest. RAVE is the perfect tool for me when I want to create simple montages of rotating images, fades between two photos, and the like. I never used to create Flash animations as the learning curve wasn’t worth it; now with RAVE I do.
RAVE 11 inherits DRAW’s Symbol Library, adds “sprites” to its toolset (animations that carry their own timelines, irrespective of the master timeline), and makes tweens more robust and easier to perform. Finally, a better Flash filter helps reduce filesize, which in version 1.0, would spin up and out of control all too easily. This is nothing that will make a Flash high-flier raise an eyebrow, but for us pedestrians at sea level, it is all welcome news.
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Is there a down side to CorelDRAW 11? Not really, but if you are a died-in-the-wool Windows 98 user, you’re looking at a bigger upgrade than you thought. While CorelDRAW 11 will run under Windows 98, we don’t recommend it. You really should be at Windows 2000 or XP. Ventura 10, in fact, won’t even install under Windows 98, ME, or NT, and its abandonment of older OSs is one of the chief reasons it is so stable. At the Ventura Summit in July, not only did I go four straight days without a crash, I went even longer in the same session of Windows, content to simply hibernate my notebook each night and then wake it up the next morning. Doing that with DRAW 10 and Windows 98? The thought of even trying it would cause another cerebral OS crash.
Mac users will need Mac OS 10.1, a Power Mac G3 or higher, and at least 128 MB of RAM. Windows users need to have at least 128MB of RAM. However, DRAW 11 would really like you to be at the Pentium III-500 level running Windows 2000 or XP and it will reward you greatly for 256MB of RAM.
Corel might never be the industry leader that it once was. Graphic professionals who rely upon Adobe products for their livelihood feel no compulsion to change without good cause. But a stable release of CorelDRAW can do wonders to improve the company’s standing in the community and attract new users. Helped by a good reception for Ventura Publisher, Corel could build an entirely new reputation this year. Couple that with a price-point well below Adobe’s, and CorelDRAW 11 and Ventura Publisher 10 could become the go-to products for a new generation of business graphics users.
See CorelDRAW 11 on display at CorelWORLD ’02, the first week of October...
Copyright 2002, All rights reserved. Have an opinion? Share it with the Corel community at the CorelWORLD Forum. There is already quite a bit of discussion about this story. Join in.
May 2007: As simple as possible, but not simpler... · April 2007: Killer Keystrokes · March 2007: Resolution Confusion · January 2007: Fearless Forecasts for 2007 · November 2006: Epiphanies at PowerPoint Live 2006 · August 2006: Escaping Death by PowerPoint · July 2006: Notes from the Floor of InfoComm · June 2006: Beyond PowerPoint--Making Movies for Business and Pleasure, Part II · May 2006: Beyond PowerPoint--From Photos to DVDs · April 2006: It’s Your Music!--Overcoming the oppressive restrictions of iTunes · March 2006: CorelDraw X3—A few must-haves and a few missed opportunities, all in all, a credible upgrade · February 2006: Making Windows Inhabitable · January 2006: Fearless Forecasts for 2006 · September 2005: Just What is a Background Anyway? · August 2005: Meet David Dobson, Corel's New CEO · July 2005: Community, Blind Dates. and Albert Einstein: An Interview with the PowerPoint Live Conference Host · June 2005: CorelWorld 2005: Image Editors, Executive Appearances, and Krispy Kremes · May 2005: As Adobe's Shadow Grows, Is Corel Better off or Worse? · March 2005: Delivering Your Presentation: How Close to the Source Can You Get? · February 2005: Digital Photography: The Killer App of this Generation Part II · January 2005: Digital Photography: The Killer App of this Generation · November 2004: A Killer Deal for Corel Or Another Distraction? · September 2004: The Scourge that is Kazaa and AOL Instant Messenger · August 2004: The Golden Triangle: Presenter, Audience, and Slides · July 2004: A Blast from the Past: How Fast is Fast Enough? · June 2004: Guilty Pleasures · May 2004: A Personal Wish List for PowerPoint 12 · April 2004: Eyedropping: Version 12 makes a good tool even better... · March 2004: Deadly Sins Of Modern PowerPoint Usage · February 2004: Is the even-numbered curse finally over? · January 2004: Another take on Achieving Absence of Ugliness · November 2003: What can we do it again??--Debut of PowerPoint Live Leaves Unquenchable Thirst with the Host · September 2003: Corel Corp. Has a New Custodian · July 2003: Candor and Contrition at CorelWORLD · June 2003: What a Long, Great Trip It’s Been! · May 2003: The Boat that Corel is Missing · April 2003: No Fooling...Is Corel Breaking Up? · March 2003: The Annual Design-a-Brochure Contest · February 2003: Symbolism is Everything · January 2003: Mania, Our Semi-Annual Pilgrimage to Holland · October 2002: On Creativity, Problem-Solving, and Paper Bags · July 2002: CorelDRAW 11: Surprise, Surprise... · May 2002: The Sound of Silence: What does it mean when a company plays its cards so close to its chest? · April 2002: The Art and Science of Presentation Graphics--Creating for the Screen Has its own Challenges · March 2002: CorelDRAW 11: What kind of personality and attitude should a software program have today? · February 2002: Oy, my aching fingers... · December 2001: Digital Photography · November 2001: Can we say goodbye to the Rolls Royce Mentality? · October 2001: An Unforgettable Week: The drama that unfolded around CorelWORLD · August-September 2001: The Art of Paragraphics: New-age ingredients for success with Corel VENTURA · July 2001: Your Very Own Interface: How to make Corel applications read your mind · June 2001: Fighting the Font Wars: How to stay sane with your sans · May 2001--Turning the Key at Nicholas-Applegate · April 2001--A Modest Proposal for Reviving VENTURA Publisher
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