Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself CorelDRAW 8 in 24 Hours

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just finished this book and I would have been lost in Corel draw without it, I am a beginner to Corel products and needed a good book as an introduction. At the end of each chapter I really felt like I had good knowledge of each tool we worked with. The author is honest in admitting the program cant be covered completely in 24 hours but you can get really familiar with the program by using this book. Plus the price is excellent, compared to some of the other corel books its a great buy. I would recommend this book to anyone needing an introduction to Corel Draw 8

What an excellent choice to make if you want to learn a graphic software in a short period of time! I am an avid reader of self teaching books, since we have not many classes on the computer graphics subject here in Alaska. This one is one of the best ones ever. If you follow the chapters one by one, practicing one hour a day, after 24 days you are quite the capable user of CorelDRAW, which - by the way - is a lot of fun. The way David Karlins describes the different tools and how to use them makes it very easy even for the novice to follow. I also loved the tips and notes and sense of humor. It is also an excellent update for seasoned CorelDRAW users. I highly recommend it!

If you want to learn CorelDRAW 8 quickly, you need this book. There are 24 chapters and, presumably, each chapter can be completed in one hour. How much can be learned in one hour with a book like this? Plenty. The book is easy to read, the illustrations are very good, and the workshops are excellent. Each chapter has a self test at the end which reinforces what you've learned in that chapter. By the time I reached chapter 19 "From CorelDRAW to the World Wide Web" I felt comfortable creating a Web page using CorelDRAW, and was quite pleased with the results. The next three chapters introduce Photo-Paint 8 and the final two chapters provide an introduction to Corel Dream 3D. The Photopaint and Dream 3D chapters will get you started with those packages. Overall, I enjoyed the book and gained a good understanding of CorelDRAW 8 in the process. The book should be completed in one hour (or greater) segments, a chapter at a time, in order to get the full benefit of the workshops. The book is reasonably priced and, in my opinion, an excellent buy.

I enjoyed reading "Sam's Teach Yourself CorelDRAW 8 in 24 hours" by Dave Karlins. The information is presented in easy to understand examples and workshops. The original art work by Paul Mikulecky is creative and useful in that all of the examples are easy to convert into projects that are relevant to the real world work environment. Being a fan of Reference books, I found the detailed Table of Contents and 20 page Index, to be icing on the cake. My favorite line in the book, is in Hour 8 (Draw and Edit Freehand Curves), where it reads, "To be honest, nobody draws great-looking shapes with a mouse or even a more sophisticated computer drawing device." This alone provided a great deal of encouragement for me as I worked my way through the examples and workshops in the book. With the information in Hour 15 (Designing with Paragraph Text), I even composed this review using CorelDRAW 8. This is a fun book to read and use, and a really great way to learn the full power ! ! of CorelDRAW 8. If you have CorelDRAW 8, you need this book!

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to use, and have fun with "CorelDraw". Very nicely put together.

Sorry, I can't agree with the other reviewers. Maybe since they are new to Corel they didn't realize the fact that information on some very important tools is completely missing. Although shown in a toolbar description, the interactive drop shadow, blend, and distortion tools are forgotten. I'm also new to Corel, and I stumbled on this fact while experimenting. It does provide a good basis for a robust piece of software, but I can't give it 5 stars.

Definitely the book to learn CorelDraw 8. CorelDraw can be overwhelming in its number of features and options. This book successfully divides the learning process into logical steps, gradually introducing features as your familiarity with the program grows. Forget the Secrets and Mastering books, they conceal their lack of content beneath their heft. My suggestion would be to begin with Teach Yourself for the functions, and then buy Shane Hunt's excellent CorelDraw 8 f/x for an introduction to the artistic applications.