Customer Reviews

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you are still running Vista, this release is WAY too slow out of the box, so buy a previous version. It's perfectly speedy on Windows 7.

I'm a professional freelance graphic designer with an illustration background. Having used both Illustrator and CorelDraw for well over 15 (close to 20?) years, here's my position:

- Professional graphic designers must own Adobe's Creative Suite. Anyone who tells you that CorelDraw's suite is a substitute for CS doesn't know what they are talking about. You're already not using a Mac, the industry standard hardware... don't isolate yourself further by not using the industry standard software.

- For non-professionals or office workers who need to create basic reproducible design work, this suite is easier to use than CS. Anything you create you can publish to PDF for printing, and any issues related to effects, etc. can be resolved by converting to 300dpi bitmaps as needed. Anyone who tells you that this is not the case ALSO doesn't know what they are talking about. Any printer who can print a photo can also print anything CorelDraw can generate, period.

- I need and use CorelDraw for this reason: it's simply a better, faster, easier, more natural and more convenient vector drawing tool than Illustrator. Hands down. With plugins installed, Illustrator improves, but it's still a giant pain compared to CorelDraw. Illustrator has a few features I like. When I need them, I just export the result to EPS and bring it over to Draw.

Two cents, spent. Hope it's helpful.

A lot of people use Adobe Illustrator, but there is another very fine drawing program out there and this is it. Like with Illustrator you can design and create logos, ads, illustrations for websites and so much more. The program ships with a gang of royalty free software, 10,000 clip art images which you can use in your projects, 1,000 first class photos which you can also use. And 1,000 fonts, which is good for all of us who cannot afford the very expensive Adobe Font Library.

The interface is clean, intuitive and the program is easy to use, though I did watch the videos which came with it and they helped a lot. Also, this is a full fledged vector based program, just like Adobe Illustrator, but you can do page design with it as well, like you would in Quark Express or Adobe InDesign. However, sadly I don't think Photo-Paint in the suite measures up to Adobe Photoshop, but still, it's a useful part of the program.

All in all, I'd say you'll get your money's worth with this program You can use it instead of Illustrator or Quark and InDesign and that's saying a lot, it really is.

I am fluent with desktop publishing and graphics editing, but am not a professional per say. While I understand the general principles and can usually create the effects I want, I generally don't have to do anything particularly complicated. Since I come from an Adobe background and have never tried Corel, I used CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 for a few months and integrated it into my normal workflow. Before writing this review, I collaborated with a professional graphics designer and created several things that went to print, including a newspaper ad, marketing flyers, and a webpage.

While CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 is touted as being "intuitive", I had a wretched time getting used to the user interface and presentation. Corel generally doesn't lack the tools found in its Adobe counterparts, but it might use a different name, put it in a different place, and the tool might behave differently. Honestly, I had such a rough time that I wanted to quit and forget about it...but I stuck it through. Corel makes it pretty easy for users to learn their product by including several video tutorials and several guides, which were genuinely useful if a tad boring. Generally speaking, the hardest part for me was unlearning my Adobe habits so I could effectively use the tools.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is reasonably feature-complete, and I usually had what I needed to get the job done. Besides using PhotoPaint and Draw, which are the main components of the suite, I had no use for the third-party Flash tool but I got a lot of mileage out of the screen capture utility and the trace wizard built-into Draw. Also, the bundled professional fonts (Futura) are a real treat if you don't have them already. While much of the bundled clipart, stock photos, fronts, and patterns are useless to me, I found a few gems. Some of the other bundled features are fun, like the barcode wizard, but I don't really have a way to try it out.

One major problem that turned up pretty quickly was that Adobe compatibility is iffy at best. While I as able to open and make edits to some Illustrator CS4 documents, I found that I was pretty much unable to save my finished work back into the AI format! Since I was collaborating with somebody who used Illustrator, this created a plethora of problems. I later tried exporting my Corel project into the EPS format but still had issues with the outputted file not rendering properly. In Corel's defense, I suspect Adobe's compatibility with Corel file formats isn't perfect either (I found that saving as CorelDRAW version 10 worked well enough), but the general lack of interoperability caused great headaches.

The second major issue I had was that several print shops don't fully support Corel. On one occasion, I brought my freshly created CorelDRAW project to a local print shop, and got rejected. The print shop basically said that they only had an older version of Corel and it could not open the new files. In that case, I had to go back and save my project in an older format. On another occasion, a different print shop completely botched my Corel document but printed the Adobe ones just fine. When I say botched, the colors were totally off (despite saving in CMYK) and the font/text formatting was garbled as well. I must note that none of these issues are directly related to Corel, but their impact on the end-user experience is profound, nonetheless.

It's worth noting that while CorelDRAW Graphics Suite x5 will work with Windows xp/vista/7 32-bit and 64-bit, the application itself is only 32-bit. I tested the program using a Windows XP Home Edition 32-bit Laptop with a Pentium Dual Core @ 2.1GHz and 4GB of RAM, and tried it out on a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit desktop with an AMD Quad core @ 3.2GHz and 4GB of RAM. The suite worked well enough and scaled quite nicely between the dual core and quad core processors. Unfortunately, even after installing the SP1 update, the suite was not immune to sporadic catastrophic crashes that resulted in lost work. Also, certain operations are not multi-threaded such as exporting to different file formats, and some conversions tool several minutes while the program appeared to hang.

I believe that with Corel, the enlightened user can create just about anything their Adobe counterpart can, though they will trade blows when it comes to ease of implementation and polish. Corel is marketed as an inexpensive alternative to Adobe, and isn't quite aimed at demanding professionals. This is not to say you cannot produce professional output, but there are many areas that need improvement. Generally speaking, if I didn't need to get my jobs professionally printed or didn't have to collaborate with somebody using Illustrator, I would have had a better experience with CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. As a stand-alone product, it's a very capable collection that can satisfy most users while offering tremendous value. Unfortunately, for professional use, due to limited industry support, the initial cost savings over Adobe software might not be enough to cover the additional troubles that might pop up down the road.

I have been using CorelDRAW for almost 20 years (since version 3). My review is more for graphics/photo editing using PHOTO-PAINT since that is more of what I use these days. Photo-Paint is the parallel to Adobe Photoshop. I really don't use much of the CorelDRAW vector drawing program (one of the two main programs) which is the parallel of Adobe Illustrator. I am not a graphics professional, but do use CorelDRAW professionally. Along the way, I have used most every other graphics program including Paint Shop Pro (formerly Jasc shareware, now owned by Corel) which I find vastly irritating compared to Photo-Paint. Don't get the two confused: Corel Photo-Paint has nothing to do with Corel Paint Shop Pro.

For most of its life prior to version X5 (=15), Photo-Paint was largely neglected IMO. In fact, I was still using versions 8 and 9 since there was little reason to upgrade. Historically, Photo-Paint was ahead of Photoshop in many areas, including things such as supporting layers and having quick/easy masking tools. During the time that it was neglected, however, Photoshop caught up (functionally) and moved ahead of Photo-Paint. Finally, with X5, I have a solid reason to upgrade because it finally has good support for transparency. Yes, before X5 you couldn't even do something which I consider a basic necessity as exporting to a PNG graphic with alpha (transparency) channel.

Because I am not a graphics designer, I vastly prefer Photo-Paint to Photoshop. Although, I don't know Photoshop as well as I do Photo-Paint, to me, Photo-Paint is my bread-and-butter program. It is way less resource intensive than Adobe's products. Also, it just takes so many fewer clicks to get anything done. What I love about Corel's products is that I can go in and do some quick edits and be done in a fraction of the time compared to Adobe's. The dialog boxes, previews, etc., are easier/faster, and they remember the last setting you applied. This allows you to do repetitive work very quickly. For example, if you need to apply the same sharpening or the same color correction to a couple of photos, you can do it in a few clicks. Photoshop is very tedious to use for me. I'm sure if all I did was edit photos for magazine covers, I'd love it. I'm sure there are many who are familiar with Photoshop that would say that Corel is difficult to use, but to me, Corel's products work like most Windows products. You can pretty much figure it out yourself. With Photoshop, you really have to take a class or read a book.

In the end, I really only use Photoshop when I have to. That is to do some heavy lifting, usually with an Adobe source file since I would rate Corel's file format interoperability shaky at best. So where does that leave you? If you have to work with ad or print agencies and/or work with native Adobe files, stick with their products. If you do a lot of work on your own, then by all means if you can afford it, get it. It is the graphics program I turn to first. In fact, I still keep my old version 8 installed which actually works better under Vista than under XP. It is something like 12 years old, but on today's hardware, it launches like Notepad, and I can be done with something quick in literally a minute. X5 is somewhat slower, but allows me to handle transparency without having to go to GIMP or Photoshop. For me, that is a useful upgrade. I only give it 4 stars, because it does cost a good chunk of change and really doesn't work that well with Adobe files. I would give it 5 stars if it was unbundled and cheaper.

I haven't used CorelDRAW since the 1990s, so it's remarkable to see how the software has become fully-fledged professional package that ranks with Illustrator in terms of quality but offers a significantly simpler learning curve. I use Photoshop regularly and occasionally have to dabble in vector graphics, so every time I open Illustrator I feel like I know nothing about the product. Not so with CorelDRAW, which I had little trouble understanding straight out of the box. Clearly this is an extremely capable and well thought-out package, and I was able to convert logos to vectors instantly, and then manipulate these with no problems (even with my admittedly limited knowledge of bezier curves) and then export my work to Adobe InDesign seamlessly.

The manual and video training is definitely worth using in understanding the broader capabilities with the application. There's are also supplementary resources from clipart graphics to 1,000 fonts included, so if you need a creative kickstart these are a good place to get some ideas. As another reviewer commented, I really liked the fact that this acts like a Windows application, so if you're proficient with Windows shortcuts they're all supported here. This is not true of Illustrator, which simply ignores a wide range of standard commands and makes the application mouse-heavy.

I've been experimenting with the software for a few weeks now and would recommend it to anyone who fights with Illustrator and needs a vector graphics solution that doesn't have you hunting for the manual every few minutes. Unfortunately, I'm not a graphics pro so can't comment on the workflow and advanced elements of the suite, but at my level I can see this is an application I'll now be using regularly.

Like another reviewer, I built my computer from the ground up and built it for speed. Fast processor, plenty of ram, fast drives, etc. I'm also running Windows 7 64 bit, which I agree is about the best OS I've used yet, certainly from Redmond.

I'm coming from an Adobe background, so it took a while to get my head around some of the tools in X5, but once I did, I really liked it. There are many aspects that I prefer to those in Adobe (the export to web function, for example), and while I don't think the user interface is as polished, I wanted to make the move to using Corel as my primary graphics package because I like it better than Adobe's products overall.

Sadly though, I'm having the same issues with bugs and crashes that others have reported. Some are re-creatable: the straightening tool crashes every time I try to use it, for example. Some are not: random names being assigned when I'm trying to export a graphic - really. I'd type in a name, it would give it a completely different name, and in some cases save it in slices, which was very, very odd. A restart of the program resolved it (possible operator error on the slices issue - though I don't know what - but certainly not the naming issue).

There have been other odd and inconsistent behaviors as well, and quite a few of them, that required simply restarting the program. I frankly can't remember all of them, but they rarely recurred; they seemed like random bizarre behaviors that I never saw coming. Not good in a graphics package.

But most of those issues came up in Photo-Paint, and most of them came after I'd had the program up and running for a bit. Fresh start-ups provided a good look at just what it can do, and I'd always be quite happy for a while.

CorelDraw worked better for me, with fewer crashes and none of the bizarro-world issues I ran across in Photo-Paint. There were times I'd wish it were a bit quicker to perform actions, but overall I thought it was extremely useful and solid. I'm planning on completely dumping Illustrator except for dealing with legacy graphics created in that program. Bonus: CorelDraw works great as a page layout program

Other stuff? PowerTrace (a bitmap to vector conversion tool) is cool beyond words, CorelConnect works quite well, though it's a bit slow at times, the overall documentation is excellent, the library of digital images is amazing (they include 1,000 high res photos) as is the collection of clipart (10,000) fonts (1,000)and templates (350).

So in the end, what do we have? An excellent vector and page layout program, a ton of free content, and a very good photo editing program that needs some bug fixes. I have no problem recommending CorelDRAW at all, but Photo-Paint really needs those fixes.

Once the service pack is released, assuming it addresses the odd bugs in Photo-Paint, I think this package is a huge winner, especially considering the fact that the entire suite retails for less than either the stand-alone versions of Photoshop or Illustrator. As I said, I'm dropping Illustrator for CorelDRAW and I expect Photo-Paint to overthrow Photoshop as soon as I can be confident it won't get wacky on me. This would be a five star review were it not for the bugs in Photo-Paint (I'd give it 3.5, but you can't, so the library and PowerTrace push it to four).

Until then, I'll give it a cautious recommendation: half of it's great, and the other half needs a bit of work. But when it's working well, it shines.

Let me preface this by saying that I've used the Corel Draw suite in both a professional and personal capacity since this product was in version 3. I work as the graphics person for a trophy business and Corel is required software for our laser engravers. This is a GOOD release, but not their BEST (mostly in terms of stability). The wonderfully upgraded PowerTrace (bitmap-to-vector tracing application) that's built-in to the software is excellent, and very nearly worth the price of an upgrade to this version all by itself. The bitmap-editing module, PhotoPaint, is a very capable program in its own right, though since I come from a PhotoSHOP background it's not quite as intuitive to me as the Draw module. We also have Adobe Illustrator; take it from me, as a person battling a budding carpal tunnel problem - Draw takes FAR less clicks to do just about anything than Illy :) We use the Draw suite for just about everything in our store, from designing forms to creating plaque layouts for our sublimation printer to preparing files for laser engraving.

This program currently has two free downloadable service packs out - I HIGHLY recommend you get at least the first SP as it speeds up X5 (especially in print processing!!) noticeably. SP2 fixes a few other issues (such as a bug in the Imposition print window) but may also break output to certain laser engraver models - we run Epilogs at my job and both began experiencing dropouts in etching after SP2 was installed - the only means to solve the problem was to nuke the entire X5 installation and reinstall up to SP1.

Also, please be aware that this program is NOT TRUE 64-bit, though it WILL run easily on a 64-bit system. In terms of stability, this release does crash more than X4 and FAR more than the X3 release (which was rock-solid after its second service pack). I get the impression that this version of the program isn't 100% happy with Windows 7; Corel had similar problems once before when Windows 95 came out and they had just released version 6.

Overall: Kudos to Corel for greatly enhanced import/export file compatibility. High praise for the revamped Trace engine and a redesigned color management system. Heavy applause for a massive amount of digital content thrown in for the using (good clipart, an excellent font library, a decent set of pre-made templates to get one's brain kick-started). Two thumbs up for having THE MOST CUSTOMIZABLE program interface I've ever used - the ways one can rearrange this program's toolbars is incredible. There's a massive user base of add-in macros and plugins that extend functionality even further (and they're remarkably inexpensive, with many being free - check out [...]). This is STILL the best dollar-for-dollar value in heavy-duty graphics software out there and on a scale of 1 to 10 I'll give this release an 8, taking a couple of points away due to the stability issues; do yourself a favor if you're running this on Windows 7, as we are: the program allows you to set an automatic backup timer of anything you're working on. I have mine set to backup my current job every three minutes, I suggest you do the same :)

This is my first time using CorelDraw. I have used other drawing media in the past...mostly Design software, but this is so much easier to use. I downloaded the free trial version directly from Corel and once I tried it, I new I had to buy it...that and a Wacom tablet...of course you don't need a tablet to use CorelDraw, but it gives it a better feel if you are actually drawing or using the Corel Photo-Paint software that normally comes included with Corel Draw. I used both CorelDraw and Corel Photo-Paint to create my first two logos. I was amazed at the simplicity of the tools. They come with step by step tips on how to use the tools available and that is a great thing for people who tend to forget all what a given tool can do. My only complaint is that the disc I received from the vendor selling it here at Amazon, was scratched...I kind of got stuck with it because I am currently deployed and could not just go to the store and pick up another one. By the way, if you want to buy a Wacom Draw Tablet, I would suggest you buy it as a package that includes the software (Corel Draw, Photo Paint, Corel Capture and whatever else they offer as a package...you will save lots of money that way, trust me). Another thing is, if you want to use it only to draw and nothing else, then buy the Wacom Tablet included with Illustrator from Corel...another great product.

CorelDraw Graphics Suite X5 is an outstanding software package for professional graphic designers, illustrators, technical artists, web designers, etc...

For around $250.00 (on Amazon, or around $460.00 on Corel.com) you can own Corel Draw X5 which is a professional grade vector editor the equivalent of Adobe Illustrator CS5. Plus, you get a professional grade full featured raster editor, Photo-Paint X5, at no additional cost! Now, I know I sound like a infomercial salesman, but the value per features you get is unbeatable. Does anyone care? Well you should, unless your filthy rich because your only other choice for top professional grade graphic design/Image manipulation software is Adobe Photoshop (standard edition) and/or Illustrator which cost about $600.00+ and $500.00+, respectively. Now, I love both Photoshop and Illustrator and I do think they are the best in the industry, but their prices are too much, especially if you want to stay current with the latest tech. For the same price as Illustrator, Draw can do everything Illustrator can do plus Photo-Paint can do most if not all the things Photoshop can, if you know how. That's two for the price of one!

Corel Connect comes with the Suite and it is like Adobe Bridge, its for organizing images or drawings and bringing them into either Draw or Photo-Paint. The Suite comes with thousands of images, clip art, fonts, and many templates - all free. Connect is a great feature and time saver for finding graphic assets for projects. You can also use Connect inside of Draw or Photo-Paint not like Bridge which is its own program.

The main program is Draw. Draw has an easy to use interface that's clean and well laid out. Draw is designed for graphic designers and has all the features for print like CMYK and Pantone colors. Also web designers will like web export features. Draw is so big and has so many features that there's something for everyone. Draw can create layouts, tables, and text editing that would normally be done by programs like InDesign. Now, Draw is not as powerful as InDesign but it can do layouts pretty well. If your worried about compatibility Draw can export to a ridiculously large amount of different file extensions including Illustrator.

The bonus program is Photo-Paint. Photo-Paint many not have as many features as Photoshop, but Photo-Paint does still have a lot of features and besides Photoshop is so bloated now that it tries to please every profession that it forgets its main purpose of image editing (a little exaggeration). Photo-Paint is not some watered down image editor. It's fully featured and it should be sold separately because its that good. Photo-Paint Cutout lab is great for removing backgrounds or unwanted objects in photos. Photo-Paint like Draw has so many features that it is worth it to get the Suite even if you only use Photo-Paint.

In conclusion, Draw and Photo-Paint are awesome software and for price they are unbeatable in value per features. If Photoshop and Illustrator are out of your price range, but you still want all the same power and features then CorelDraw Graphics Suite X5 is for you.

Also, all these reviews about CorelDraw Graphics Suite X5 being buggy or slow is just not true. The suite is fast and preforms very well. I think some people just don't know how computers work. When a company has tech requirements for their software and your computer only meets those requirements, of course the program is going to be slow! Your computer may be able to run the program, but that does not mean that it will include editing or starting fast because those things need more memory and processing power and are not factored into the usage. Always exceed the requirements and even the recommended specs for all software. Also, be smart always install new patches and back-up your work. Don't blame great software for human ignorance.

I've known Corel Software from way back, when it tried to bring graphics to the IBM PC. It was an unmitigated disaster in terms of usability and reliability. (I switched to other Graphics Software packages, in those day we had more choices). This year, I thought I would give Corel another try, based on the amazon.com reviews. I bought the Corel Suite 5. After using the software for several months, I found the Suite to be both a Relief, from what it used to be, and a Disappointment, that one of it's main components, is light weight.

The relief is that the different pieces of Software in the Corel Suite X5, are stable, and don't crash easily, and, for what I need to do, I found Corel Draw, the vector based software, to be an intuitive piece of software that can get the job done. If you don't like Adobe Illustrator, this is a competent replacement. My disappointment, was with Corel's bit map software, Corel Photo 5. It's just a basic piece of bit map Software. If you just need to enhance photos, take red eye out, and do simple masking, it's ok. But if you need to do complex paths and masks, and lots of layering, forget it. Adobe's photoshop is still indispensable for that. I would not have bought the entire Corel Suite 5, If I had known this before my purchase. I would have simply bought Corel Draw X5, and Adobe's Photoshop.

I hope this helps someone who needs a competent Victor based software package, but needs more capabilities in their bit map, or photo, software. Is there any advantage to buying the Suite, even if you must also have Adobe's Photoshop? Maybe. If you are just starting out, and need lots of fonts, art clip and photos (with and without dropped out backgrounds), the Corel Suite might be for you.