CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 [Old Version]

by Corel

Product Features

• CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 offers everything you need for professional graphics illustration, layout, tracing, photo editing, Web graphics
• And animation in one complete suite of integrated applications that is easy to learn and use.
• Start smoothly and learn quickly with built-in learning tools, valuable video tutorials
• Design insights from experts and a visually rich guidebook--be inspired to do more than you thought possible.
• Enrich your designs with over 1,000 professional fonts and take advantage of high-value digital content,
• Dozens of supported file formats, including PDF, JPG, PNG, EPS, AI, TIFF, PSD, DOCX and many more, let you import and export files quickly & easily.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0039XZ3PW
• Item model number: CDGSX5ENHBBAZ
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 24, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (130 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)

Product Description

Amazon.com

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 is a versatile graphic design software suite that helps you creatively and professionally express ideas for any media. Illustrate, lay out, trace, design Web graphics and photo-edit with this complete solution for visual communication. Easily import and export content with leading file compatibility. Get going faster than ever with new, professionally designed templates and compelling learning materials. Create with confidence, everything from distinctive logos and signs, to striking marketing materials, Web graphics and animations, billboards, car wraps and more! Offering increased speed, more accurate color control, and new and enhanced design tools, this must-have version helps you create extraordinary designs faster.

Professional vector illustration, page layout, photo-editing and bitmap tracing tools.

Do more than you thought possible.

All-in-one professional graphics suite
Find everything you need for professional graphics illustration, layout, tracing, photo editing, Web graphics and animation in one complete suite of integrated applications that is easy to learn and use.

Easy to learn and use
Start smoothly and learn quickly with built-in learning tools, valuable video tutorials, design insights from experts and a visually rich, online guidebook. (A hard cover, full-color, printed guidebook is included with the box version.)

High-value digital content
Enrich your designs with over 1,000 professional fonts, including Helvetica, Garamond and Frutiger fonts for the first time ever. Plus, take advantage of high-value digital content, such as premium clipart, royalty-free photos and vehicle templates.

Precise control and easy sharing
Output to a broad variety of media, from distinctive logos and signs, to striking marketing materials, Web graphics, billboards and car wraps. Export options let you compare file formats before export, so you can optimize your settings to achieve the highest file quality.

Market-leading file compatibility
Re-purpose and share your creations anywhere with market-leading file compatibility. Import and export files quickly and easily with dozens of supported file formats, including PDF, JPG, PNG, EPS, AI, TIFF, PSD and DOCX.

What's New

This is the upgrade you've been waiting for! CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 makes everyday tasks faster and easier, delivering new time-savers that help you create with confidence. Check out the 10 most compelling reasons to upgrade your graphics software today.

New--Built-in Content Organizer
Speed up your workflow with Corel CONNECT, a built-in content organizer that helps you find graphics, templates, fonts and images instantly on your computer. Your selected content is stored in the tray that is synchronized between CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT, giving you instant access to your content.

New & Enhanced--Web Graphics and Animation Tools
Create Web graphics and animations more efficiently than ever with new features, such as a Pixels mode that shows exactly how your content will display online, and a new Web animation tool. Plus, a new Export Dialog box now lets you compare file formats before export, so you can optimize your settings to achieve the highest file quality.

Easily and efficiently adjust photos with all options with the Image Adjustment Lab. Click to enlarge.

Design multi-colored filled objects that display more fluid color transitions, etc. with the enhanced Mesh Fill tool. Click to enlarge.

Convert bitmaps to vector artwork with Corel's PowerTRACE conversion tool. Click to enlarge.

Enhanced--Corel PowerTRACE
Convert your bitmap images into high-quality vector objects with even more precision and smoothness, thanks to the greatly enhanced Corel PowerTRACE. This version of PowerTRACE provides the best tracing results yet.

Enhanced--Optimal Speed and Performance
Complete your tasks faster with powerful performance enhancements that leverage multi-core processing to maximize your computer's power. This latest edition is optimized for Windows 7 and offers new touch-screen support, as well as support for Windows Vista and Windows XP.

New--Completely Re-designed Color Management Engine
Control color consistency across different media and generate a distinct color palette for each document. A new color management engine introduces greater color accuracy, plus support for new color profiles from PANTONE. Minimize your ecological footprint and reduce costly reprints by knowing that your colors are accurate before you print.

New & Enhanced--Visual Communication Tools
Create compelling print and online materials with a powerful set of new and enhanced drawing, bitmap-to-vector tracing, diagramming, artistic media and text tools. It's all the graphics software you need for effective visual communication.

Enhanced--Market-leading File Compatibility
Re-purpose and share your creations anywhere with broad file compatibility. Dozens of supported file formats, including PDF, JPG, PNG, EPS, AI, TIFF, PSD and DOCX, let you import and export files with other graphics software efficiently.

New & Enhanced--Responsive Drawing Tools
In response to user feedback, we've introduced the option to lock toolbars in place, expanded your printing options, and made improvements to the Eyedropper, Mesh Fill and other popular drawing tools.

New & Enhanced--Expert Insights and Engaging Learning Materials
Get more design insights with new and updated video tutorials, engaging learning materials and a visually rich, online guidebook that contains new articles from experts. (A hard cover, full-color, printed guidebook is available with the box version.) Be inspired to do more than you thought possible!

New & Enhanced--High-value Digital Content
Enrich your designs with over 1,000 professional fonts, including Helvetica, Garamond and Frutiger fonts for the first time ever. Plus, take advantage of high-value digital content, such as premium clipart, royalty-free photos and vehicle templates. Give your work a professional finish without spending extra time and money— you'll find all the graphics software and resources you need right here!

What's Included

CorelDRAW X5
Intuitive vector illustration and page layout software

Corel PHOTO-PAINT X5
Professional image-editing application specifically designed for use in a graphics workflow

Corel PowerTRACE X5
Bitmap-to-vector file conversion tool

Corel CAPTURE X5
One-click screen capture utility

Corel CONNECT
Full-screen browser that lets you search digital content from the suite, your PC or your local network

Supporting applications
Barcode wizard, Duplexing wizard, Bitstream Font Navigator, SWiSH miniMax 2*, PhotoZoom Pro 2*

Content
10,000 high-quality clipart and digital images, 2,000 vehicle templates, 1,000 high-resolution digital photos, 1,000 OpenType fonts, including 75 Windows Glyph List 4 (WGL4) fonts and 10 engraving fonts, 350 professionally designed templates

Documentation
Online guidebook (hard cover, full-color, printed Guidebook available with the box version), Quick-reference card, Help files

Training
2 hours of training videos on DVD

Connect to your content

From fonts, clipart and photos to previously created designs or customer files, content is a central piece of any creative design. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 lets you quickly find and re-purpose content to speed your design process. Gather your design assets from every source and swiftly prepare yourself to begin your next project.

New--Built-in Content Organizer (Corel CONNECT)
Quickly find the perfect content for any design with Corel CONNECT, a full-screen browser that gives you instant access to graphics, templates, fonts and images anywhere on your computer.

Enhanced--Market-Leading File Compatibility
Open, edit and save as more than 100 industry-standard formats, including AI, PSD, DOCX, ODF, EPS (with enhanced support for PostScript 3) and DXF files.

Enhanced--Color Profiles
Maintain color profiles when importing files from external applications for a smoother design process. The default setting matches colors on import automatically, while advanced users can explore more options within the default settings.

New & Enhanced--High-Value Digital Content
Enrich your graphic designs with more than 1,000 professional fonts, including Helvetica, Garamond and Frutiger fonts for the first time ever. Plus, take advantage of over 2,000 vehicle templates and 10,000 premium clipart images, bitmap and full-color fills, royalty-free photos, vehicle templates, new artistic media presets, and new brush nibs of different shapes and sizes for more versatility when painting.

Enhanced--Support for Adobe Products
Import and export PSD files using the latest Photoshop CS 4 file format. CorelDRAW X5 will preserve the appearance of adjustment layers and Masks palette effects, while Corel PHOTO-PAINT X5 will preserve editable Vibrance, Grayscale and camera filter lenses.

Full-screen CONNECT browser lets you search digital content from the suite, your PC or your local network Click to enlarge.

The new Pixels mode shows exactly how your content will display online. Click to enlarge.

Draw and design intuitively with enhanced artistic media and drawing tools that respond to the pressure, tilt and bearing of your pen on drawing tablet. Click to enlarge.

Get going quickly

Whether you're a first-time user or an experienced pro, CorelDRAW makes it easy from the moment you begin. You'll find all the learning tools you need to start smoothly and learn quickly, including built-in learning tools, valuable video tutorials, design insights from the experts and a visually rich, online guidebook.

Enhanced--Templates & Tutorials
Get high-quality results quickly with 350 professionally designed templates. Ready-made layouts and designs help you find the right look for any job. You'll also enjoy access to new graphic design tools, industry-specific design tips and step-by-step project creation in newly updated tutorials for CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

New--Video Tutorials
Learn from new video tutorials that demonstrate how to successfully complete popular design tasks.

Welcome Screen
Begin with the Welcome Screen, a great starting point for finding your content, starting projects, accessing recently used documents, getting instructional information and viewing inspiring designs from other users around the world.

New--Guidebook
Learn from other users and experts, and get inspired by visually rich overviews of each application workspace. A hard cover, full color, printed guidebook is available with the box version.

Enhanced--Corel PowerTRACE: Bitmap-to-Vector Conversion
Convert your bitmap images into high-quality vector objects with even more precision and smoothness, thanks to the greatly enhanced Corel PowerTRACE. This version of PowerTRACE provides the best tracing results yet.

Hints Docker
View interactive hints that get you started quickly and provide step-by-step help on the suite's powerful tools.

New--Customizable Workspace
Customize the application's command bars and button arrangements to suit your workflow, or use preset workspaces similar to Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office.

Create with confidence

When it comes to graphic design, confidence in your software is paramount. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 provides new and enhanced graphic design tools to help you achieve the quality you need in the shortest amount of time. With a legacy in design innovation, this trusted graphics suite offers all the support you need to create with confidence.

Enhanced--Drawing Tools
Draw and design intuitively with enhanced artistic media and drawing tools that respond to the pressure, tilt and bearing of your pen on drawing tablet.

Enhanced--Corel PHOTO-PAINT: Powerful Photo Editing
Experiment with exciting new photo effects, such as Vibrance, Grayscale and Photo Filter. These filters are preserved when you import and export PSD files using the Adobe Photoshop CS 4 file format. Corel PHOTO-PAINT X5 also supports RAW format for over 300 types of cameras, giving you greater artistic control and flexibility.

New & Enhanced--Web Graphics and Animation
Create Web graphics and animations more efficiently than ever. Optimized filters produce consistent, high-quality Web formats with proper transparency, cropping and browser compatibility. Create your designs in CorelDRAW, then open in new SWiSH miniMax 2 to animate your images. Control motion, draw shapes, edit text and more. The new Pixels mode shows exactly how your content will display online. Plus, a new Export Dialog box now lets you compare file formats before export, so you can optimize your settings to achieve the highest file quality.

Interactive Table Tool
Create and import tables to provide structured layouts for text and graphics.

CorelDRAW ConceptShare
Get quality feedback on design projects without costly meetings! ConceptShare lets you quickly and easily collaborate online with colleagues and clients in a secure environment. It's packed with tools that let you share, mark up and review designs with others, on your own time.

Live Text Formatting
Preview text formatting changes in real time before applying them to the document.

Smart Fill
Apply fills to any enclosed object area, such as the loops of a freehand line that crosses over itself.

Image Slicing
Slice an image into several smaller files for Web page optimization.

Output to any media

Today, you need the export flexibility to output designs to any media: Web banners, Web sites, print ads, brochures, even multiple types of media, such as T-shirts, billboards and digital signs. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 provides extensive file support so you can send your work anywhere.

New--Completely Redesigned Color Management Engine
Control color consistency across different media and generate a distinct color palette for each document. A new color management engine introduces greater color accuracy, plus support for new color profiles from PANTONE.

Enhanced--File Compatibility and PDF Support
Re-purpose and share your creations anywhere with support for more than 60 file formats, including PDF, JPG, PNG, EPS, AI, TIFF, PSD, DOCX and PPT. Password-protect your PDF files to control security and user access when they are viewed, edited and printed by third-parties.

New--Collect for Output
Gather fonts, color profiles and other file information with this new output option that makes it easier to share your work with a print service provider.

Print Merge
Combine text from a data source with a drawing to quickly create personalized invitations, labels and other personalized projects.

Work faster and more efficiently

Complete your tasks faster with powerful performance enhancements that maximize your computer's power. Plus, enjoy more options for recording macros and automating time-consuming tasks.

New--Multi-core Support
Work faster with multi-core processing that maximizes the power available in your computer to process your commands more quickly.

Enhanced--Optimized for Latest Windows Platforms
Work with ease, whatever your PC operating system. This latest version is optimized for Windows 7 and offers new touch-screen support, as well as support for Windows Vista and Windows XP. Take advantage of the touch technology of Windows 7 to pan, zoom and scroll with your fingertips for a more intuitive design experience.

New--Automation Technology
Enjoy more options for recording macros and automating time-consuming tasks. Microsoft's Visual Studio for Applications (VSTA) technology lets you record macros and create third-party add-in solutions to enhance the existing functionality of CorelDRAW.

Product Description

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 is a versatile graphic design software suite that helps you creatively express ideas for any media. Illustrate, lay out, trace, design Web graphics and animations, and photo-edit with this complete solution for visual communications.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 86 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great value, but this release is way too slow on Vista. August 20, 2010

By M.Worrell

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.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Clean and Intuitive Interface and Easy to Use May 19, 2010

By Ronald Hammond VINE™ VOICE

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.

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Competent, Accessible, and Powerful Graphics Suite...Hampered by Limited Industry Support August 19, 2010

By T. Shih VINE™ VOICE

Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

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.