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Software companies like Corel or Microsoft spend millions of dollars improving their software and releasing new versions. Software companies are always striving to produce innovative new features that help their customers to be more productive. When you buy a software program, you are only renting it until the next version is released. Shortsighted consumers will stay within their comfort level and not upgrade. The loss of productivity and inefficiencies associated with using older technology is typically much more expensive than upgrading to a new version. A wise business owner will buy an upgraded version because they want to improve their workflow, reduce the time spent in the software, and increase productivity.
There is not a world-wide conspiracy by software companies to force upgrades on consumers. Consumers buy upgrades because they want the latest technology. Software companies can not produce new and improved products if they do not charge for this improved technology. It is no different than buying a car. You buy a new car, drive it for 3 or 4 years, and a new model comes out that is much better than the old one. You don't have to buy it, but chances are you have worn out the old one and at some point you will need a new car. The difference is that a new car will cost you tens of thousand of dollars. It most cases, software upgrades are a few hundred dollars.
Smart Designer X3 is a really big deal for our customers. With the release of CorelDRAW X3, Corel Corporation has produced it's first version that really addresses the needs of the imprinting industries. This new version has enabled us to create new features and capabilities that were never possible in earlier versions. As a result 65% of Smart Designer X3 is brand new. The software has been rewritten from the ground up. This results not only in faster performance, but the software now uses fewer systems resources resulting in more stability on slower systems. Smart Designer X3 ads 110 new menu items to CorelDRAW 12 and X3. Nearly 50 of these new menu items are brand new features. 28 of these menu items are for features that have been significantly improved. This is not a minor update, this is a completely new software that has been written from the ground up. As a customer that owns an earlier version, you can purchase this new version at a reduced price.
Smart Designer X3 requires a Pentium 4 or equivalent processor with a minimum 512 MB RAM. If you are running Windows XP Home or Pro Edition and are using CorelDRAW 12 or X3, you are a perfect candidate for Smart Designer X3. We strongly recommend upgrading to CorelDRAW X3 with Smart Designer X3 as you will be able to take advantage of an upgraded feature set in both programs. A CorelDRAW X3 Upgrade can be added to your Smart Designer X3 Upgrade Package.
Microsoft will be releasing their new operating System, Windows Vista, this Summer or Fall. Smart Designer X3 has been designed to be fully compatible with both the 32 Bit and 64 Bit versions of Windows Vista. No additional software will be required to insure compatibility with this new version of Windows. Because of the system requirements of Windows Vista, most folks will not be upgrading their existing systems to Windows Vista. Instead this new version will be shipping as the default operating system on new computers.
Ready Art Volume 1 is the new companion art volume for Smart Designer. It replaces Smart Templates Volume 1. This volume is a collection of production-ready clip art and templates that is geared towards custom graphics, fund-raising programs, events and gift programs. It has many new categories including Cats and Dogs, Hunting, Fishing and Military that have been frequently requested by our customers. In addition, it also has a compilation of our best sports and mascots images that have been modified and re-colored to be used in vinyl cutting and embroidery. Each clip art image is available in three variations, simple black and white, complex black and white and spot color. The list price of the volume is $399 and it is sold separately from Smart Designer X3. As a Smart Designer owner, you will receive a $150 discount on this product if you purchase it with the Smart Designer X3 Upgrade.
Smart Designer X3 can be installed on top of Smart Designer 12. This will allow both programs to work after the installation process. Owners of Smart Designer 10 or lower will be required to uninstall the old version and perform a new installation of Smart Designer X3. Smart Designer 12 users will not be required to reinstall any templates after the installation process.
No, each Smart Designer X3 version will include a voucher code. This code will enable you to go online and receive your own activation code. If the computer that you are activating is not online, you can go on another computer and obtain a code. You will no longer need to call in or fax Digital Art Solutions to receive a code with this new version. Online codes will be limited to three unique activations per year, starting from your upgrade invoice date. After three codes are issued during the year, additional codes may be purchased for $199 each. On the anniversary of your invoice date, the codes system will be reset to three codes. Codes can not be banked or accumulated. This is the same activation code policy that is currently in place for all Smart Designer versions.
Absolutely. Smart Designer X3 is fully compatible with all templates and clip art volumes in the Smart Designs Art System with the exception of Smart Templates Volume 1 version 1. Owners of Smart Templates Volume 1, must purchase an upgrade to Smart Templates Volume 1 version 2.0, in order to work with Smart Designer X3. Smart Templates Volume 1 version 2.0 was included with all full and upgrade versions of Smart Designer 12.
No. Smart Designer X3 includes a new feature that will enable you to install the clip art directly to your hard drive and access the images as a Virtual CD. This would be like having a separate CD drive for each art volume. Because the artwork is loaded on your hard drive, importing is much faster and you will be able to directly import an image using the Artwork Database without having to insert a CD in the drive.
In addition to a brand new manual and training guide, there are several hours of new tutorials on general art production, trouble-shooting and using Smart Designer and CorelDRAW X3. Smart Designer X3 now has the capability to access new tutorials on the web and download them directly to your hard drive. In addition, Smart Designer X3 has context sensitive pop-up help. This means that you will get a helpful hint when you access certain features. Smart Designer X3 is a web-enabled program which will allow you to directly access the user forums and support database on the Digital Art Solutions support web site, programsupport.net. This browsing capability is built directly into the software.
The new cost of Smart Designer X3 is $699 and does not include an art volume. As an existing Smart Designer owner you have two options for purchasing the new version.
$349 - Electronic Download: This is a download only version that does not contain a printed manual, installation CD or any video tutorials. This version is designed for Power Users that do not require training tutorials or a printed manual.
$399 - CD-ROM Version with Printed Manual and Video Tutorials: This is the traditional version of the software that includes a printed manual and hours of new step by step video tutorials. This is the version that we recommend for most users. Owners of this version, may also download the software so they do not have to wait for the CD-ROM or manuals to arrive.
Yes, you can bundle the CD-ROM Version of Smart Designer X3 with both the CorelDRAW X3 Upgrade and Ready Art Volume 1.
Because Smart Designer X3 will significantly reduce your production and design time, you will see a very rapid return on investment. The following chart will help you to understand the importance of upgrading to Smart Designer X3.
As you can see, investing in art production software is one of the single most important purchasing decisions you can make in your business. If you spend less time designing and producing art, you can spend more time proactively prospecting new business. The savings in art production time will be amplified many times over by the new business you can bring in by producing sales sheets and virtual samples to prospect new accounts. Add on the savings and productivity increases resulting from upgrading to CorelDRAW X3 plus increased sales from adding Ready Art Volume 1, and you will really see an even more rapid return on investment.
Regardless of your production processes, Smart Designer X3 has very important new features that help streamline and simplify your design and production workflow. We strongly recommend that you review the Feature List as you will get a good overview of the true power of Smart Designer X3. Many of the new features are designed to help you pre-flight your graphics before you go to production. Here are some examples:
Problem: You have numerous colors in your design and you want to reduce the colors to a specific number.
Solution: The Reduce Colors feature will scan your design and reduce the colors to a specified number. It will also consolidate like colors into a single color, for instance one blue, one red, etc…
Problem: You have multiple blacks in a design and this results in more than one black in your color separations, embroidery threads or vinyl layers.
Solution: The Consolidate Blacks feature will scan your design and consolidate your blacks into a single spot color black of your choosing.
Problem: You go to output your design and find out that you have process colors that will not work with your production process.
Solution: The Convert to Spot Color feature will scan your design and recolor your entire design to a spot color palette of your choosing.
Problem: You need to convert the colors in your design to a specific color palette for your direct to garment printing, sublimation or screen printing process.
Solution: The Convert to Palette Color feature will scan your design and convert the entire design to color palette of your choosing. Color palettes for popular screen print inks are included with the software.
Problem: You are attempting to print color separations with white in your design and the white separation does not show up.
Solution: The Make Whites Printable feature will scan your design and convert every white object in your design to a spot color white that can be output as color separations.
Problem: You are attempting to create halftones in CorelDRAW and you are completely lost.
Solution: The Haltone Wizard will guide you through the process of creating a halftone. Halftone dot type, frequencies and angles can be applied to individual objects or a group of objects or colors. The halftone dot size can be set globally for the entire document using the Set Document Halftone Size function.
Problem: You need to make changes to specific objects in your design and you have to tediously select each object manually.
Solution: The new selection features will allow you to select All Text, All Rectangles, All Ellipses, All Bitmaps or invert your selection. This makes selecting and changing objects a breeze.
Problem: You have traced a bitmap or imported a vector image and need to clean up the objects in the design.
Solution: The Object Clean Up feature will automatically convert selected objects to perfect squares, rectangles, ellipses, stars, polygons or triangles. You can select a cleaned up object and they automatically swap it with other objects in your design.
Problem: You have traced a bitmap or imported a vector image and need to replace the text in the design with an actual font.
Solution: The Object Clean Up feature will automatically replace the characters in a selected object with a real font. This is an amazing tool for type setting vector graphics from bitmaps or poor quality vector images.
All information and images copyright Digital Art Solutions unless otherwise noted, all rights reserved. Corel, CorelDRAW, and the Corel logo are trademarks of the Corel Corporation.
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