CorelDRAW

CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation of Ottawa, Canada. It is also the name of Corel's Graphics Suite. Its latest version, named X5 (actually version 15), was released in February 2010.

* 1 History
o 1.1 Features by version
o 1.2 Read/write support
* 2 Features
o 2.1 Supported platforms
o 2.2 Characteristic features
* 3 CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
* 4 CDR file format
o 4.1 Support in other applications
* 5 See also
* 6 Notes and references
* 7 External links

History

In 1987, Corel hired software engineers Michel Bouillon and Pat Beirne to develop a vector-based illustration program to bundle with their desktop publishing systems. That program, CorelDRAW, was initially released in 1989. CorelDRAW 1.x and 2.x runs under Windows 2.x and 3.0. CorelDRAW 3.0 came into its own with Microsoft's release of Windows 3.1. The inclusion of TrueType in Windows 3.1 transformed CorelDRAW into a serious illustration program capable of using system-installed outline fonts without requiring third-party software such as Adobe Type Manager; paired with a photo editing program (PhotoPaint), a font manager and several other pieces of software, it was also part of the first all-in-one graphics suite.

The first book devoted to CorelDRAW was Mastering CorelDRAW by Chris Dickman, published by Peachpit Press in 1990, with a contribution by Rick Altman. Dickman also founded and published the independent Mastering CorelDRAW Journal publication, and created and ran the first site dedicated to CorelDRAW, CorelNET.com, from 1995 to 1997.
[edit] Features by version

* Ver. 2 (1991): Envelope tool (for distorting text or objects using a primary shape), Blend (for morphing shapes), Extrusion (for simulating perspective and volume in objects) and Perspective (to distort objects along X and Y axes).

* Ver. 3 (1992): Included Corel PHOTO-PAINT* (for bitmap editing), CorelSHOW (for creating on-screen presentations), CorelCHART (for graphic charts), Mosaic and CorelTRACE (for vectorizing bitmaps). The inclusion of this software was the precedent for the actual graphic suites.[1]

* Ver. 4 (1993): Included Corel PHOTO-PAINT* (for bitmap editing), CorelSHOW (for creating on-screen presentations), CorelCHART (for graphic charts), CorelMOVE for animation, Mosaic and CorelTRACE (for vectorizing bitmaps). Multi-page capabilities, Powerlines, support for graphic tablets, Clone tool, elastic node editing, Envelope tool.

* Ver. 5 (1994): This is the last version which was made for, and works on Windows 3.x. Corel Ventura was included in the suite (and then sold as a separate program). It was a desktop publishing application akin to PageMaker, Quark Express, or InDesign.

* Ver. 6 (1995): This is the first version which was made exclusively for 32-bit Windows. New features were customizable interface, Polygon, Spiral, Knife and Eraser tools. Corel Memo, Corel Presents, Corel Motion 3D, Corel Depth, Corel Multimedia Manager, Corel Font Master and Corel DREAM (for 3D modelling) were included in the suite.

* Ver. 7 (1997): Context-sensitive Property bar, Print Preview with Zoom and Pan options, Scrapbook (for viewing a drag-and-dropping graphic objects), Publish to HTML option, Draft and Enhanced display options, Interactive Fill and Blend tools, Transparency tools, Natural Pen tool, Find & Replace wizard, Convert Vector to Bitmap option (inside Draw), Spell checker, Thesaurus and Grammar checker. The suite included Corel Scan and Corel Barista (a Java-based document exchange format).

* Ver. 8 (1998): Digger selection, Docker windows, Interactive Distortion, 3D, Envelope and tools, Realistic Dropshadow tool, interactive color mixing, color palette editor, guidelines as objects, custom-sized pages, duotone support. Corel Versions was included in the suite.

* Ver. 9 (1999): Mesh fill tool (for complex color filling), Artistic Media tool, Publish to PDF features, embedded ICC color profiles, Multiple On-screen Color Palettes and Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications 6 support. The suite included Canto Cumulus LE, a piece of software for media management.

* Ver. 10 (2000): CorelR.A.V.E. (for vector animation), Perfect Shapes, Web graphics tools (for creating interactive elements such as buttons), Page sorter, multilingual document support, navigator window. Open, save, import and export in SVG format.[2]

* Ver. 11 (2002): Symbols library, image slicing (for web design), pressure-sensitive vector brushes, 3-point drawing tools.

* Ver. 12 (2003): Dynamic guides, Smart Drawing tools, Export to MS Office or Word option, Virtual Segment Delete tool, Unicode text support.

* Ver. X3 (2006): Double click Crop tool (the first vector software able to crop groups of vectors and bitmap images at the same time), Smart fill tool, Chamfer/Fillet/Scallop/Emboss tool, Image Adjustment Lab. Trace became integrated inside Draw under the name PowerTRACE.

* Ver. X4 (2008): Whatthefont font identification service linked inside CorelDraw, ConceptShare, Table tool, independent page layers, live text formatting, support for RAW camera files.[3]

* Ver. X5 (2010): Built-in content organizer (CorelCONNECT), new color management, web graphics and animation tools, multi-core performance improvement, digital content (professional fonts, clip arts, and photos), object hinting, pixel view, enhanced Mesh tool with transparency options, added touch support, and new supported file formats.[4] It has developed Transformation, which makes multiple copies of a single object.

[edit] Read/write support
CorelDRAW
version Supports reading files
from version Supports writing files
for version Designed for Windows version
1 1 1 2.1 (1.2 also for Win30)
2 1, 2 1, 2 3.0
3 1, 2, 3 2, 3 3.0, 3.1 (preferred)
4 1, 2, 3, 4 3, 4 3.1
5 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 3, 4, 5 3.1
6 3, 4, 5, 6 5, 6 95
7 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 5, 6, 7 95, NT 4
8 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 6, 7, 8 95, NT 4
9 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 95, 98, NT 4
10 10 † 10 ‡ 98, Me, NT 4, 2000
11 11 † 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 98, Me, NT 4, 2000, XP
12 12 † 12 ‡ 2000, XP
X3 (13) X3 † 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, X3 2000, 2003, XP (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit only)
X4 (14) 7 to X4 † 7 to X4 XP, Vista, 7 (32-bit, 64-bit)
X5 (15) 7 to X5 7 to X5 XP, Vista, 7 (32-bit, 64-bit)

† CorelDraw 10 to X4 can open files of version 3 and later, but certain features may not be supported.
‡ The list of file formats that CorelDraw 10 to X4 can write may not be complete in this table.
[edit] Features
[edit] Supported platforms

CorelDRAW was originally developed for Microsoft Windows and currently runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.[5] The current version, X5, was released on 23 February 2010.

Versions for Mac OS and Mac OS X were at one time available, but due to poor sales these were discontinued. The last port for Linux was version 9 (released in 2000, it didn't run natively, instead it used a modified version of Wine to run) and the last version for OS X was version 11 (released in 2001). Also, up until version 5, CorelDRAW was developed for Windows 3.1x, CTOS and OS/2.

Problems installing or running older versions of Corel Draw under Windows 7 may be overcome by using Microsoft's 'Troubleshoot Compatibility' - right click on the setup.exe file on the installation disk to select this facility (tested on version 12 with Win 7, where previous attempts without MS 'Troubleshoot Compatibility' failed).
[edit] Characteristic features

Several innovations to vector-based illustration originated with CorelDRAW: a node-edit tool that operates differently on different objects, fit text-to-path, stroke-before-fill, quick fill/stroke color selection palettes, perspective projections, mesh fills and complex gradient fills.[citation needed]

CorelDRAW differentiates itself from its competitors in a number of ways:

The first is its positioning as a graphics suite, rather than just a vector graphics program. A full range of editing tools allow the user to adjust contrast, color balance, change the format from RGB to CMYK, add special effects such as vignettes and special borders to bitmaps. Bitmaps can also be edited more extensively using Corel PhotoPaint, opening the bitmap directly from CorelDRAW and returning to the program after saving. It also allows a laser to cut out any drawings.

CorelDRAW is capable of handling multiple pages along with multiple master layers. Multipage documents are easy to create and edit and the Corel print engine allows for booklet and other imposition so even simple printers can be used for producing finished documents. One of the useful features for single and multi-page documents is the ability to create linked text boxes across documents that can be resized and moved while the text itself resets and flows through the boxes. Useful for creating and editing multi-article newsletters etc.

Smaller items, like business cards, invitations etc., can be designed to their final page size and imposed to the printer's sheet size for cost-effective printing. An additional print-merge feature (using a spreadsheet or text merge file) allows full personalization for many things like numbered raffle tickets, individual invitations, membership cards and more.

CorelDRAW's competitors include Adobe Illustrator and Xara Xtreme. Although all of these are vector-based illustration programs, the user experience differs greatly between them. While these programs will read their native file types and vice versa, the translation is rarely perfect. CorelDRAW can open Adobe PDF files: Adobe PageMaker, Microsoft Publisher and Word, and other programs can print documents to PDF using the Adobe PDFWriter printer driver, which CorelDRAW can then open and edit every aspect of the original layout and design. CorelDRAW can also open PowerPoint Presentations and other Microsoft Office formats with little or no problem.[6]
[edit] CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Corel Capture X4

Over time, additional components were developed or acquired and bundled with CorelDRAW. The list of bundled packages usually changes somewhat from one release to the next, though there are several mainstays that have remained in the package for many releases now, including PowerTRACE (a bitmap to vector graphic converter), PHOTO-PAINT (a bitmap graphic editor), and CAPTURE (a screen capture utility).

The current version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 (version 15), contains the following packages:

* CorelDRAW: Vector graphics editing software
* Corel PHOTO-PAINT: Raster image creation and editing software
* Corel CONNECT: Content organizer
* Corel CAPTURE: Enables several methods of image-capture
* Corel PowerTRACE: Converts raster images to vector graphics (available inside the CorelDraw program).
* Bitstream Font Navigator
* SB Profiler

[edit] CDR file format
CorelDRAW file format Filename extension .cdr[7][8]
Developed by Corel Corporation
Type of format Vector graphics, raster graphics
Open format? no

CDR file format is a proprietary file format developed by Corel Corporation and primarily used for vector graphic drawings. There is no publicly available CDR file format specification.[9][10]

Other CorelDRAW file formats include CorelDRAW Compressed (CDX), CorelDRAW Template (CDT)[8] and Corel Presentation Exchange (CMX).[11]

In December 2006 the sK1 open source project team started to reverse-engineer the CDR format.[12] The results and the first working snapshot of the CDR importer were presented at the Libre Graphics Meeting 2007 conference taking place in May 2007 in Montreal (Canada).[13] Later on the team parsed the structure of other Corel formats with the help of the open source CDR Explorer.[14] As of 2008, the sK1 project claims to have the best import support for CorelDRAW file formats among open source software programs. The sK1 project developed also the UniConvertor, a command line open source tool which supports conversion from CorelDRAW ver.7-X3,X4 formats (CDR/CDT/CCX/CDRX/CMX) to other formats. UniConvertor is also used in Inkscape and Scribus open source projects as an external tool for CorelDraw files importing.[15][16][17]

In 2007, Microsoft blocked CDR file format in Microsoft Office 2003 with the release of Service Pack 3 for Office 2003.[18][19] Microsoft later apologized for inaccurately blaming the CDR file format and other formats for security problems in Microsoft Office and released some tools for solving this problem.[20]
[edit] Support in other applications
Main article: Comparison of vector graphics editors

CDR file format import is partially or fully supported in following applications:

* Adobe Illustrator - CorelDraw 5,6,7,8,9,10[21]
* Corel PaintShop Photo Pro
* Corel WordPerfect Office
* Inkscape with UniConvertor installed; partial support[15][17]
* Macromedia Freehand - CorelDraw 7, 8[22]
* Microsoft Visio 2002 - CorelDRAW! Drawing File versions 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0 (.cdr), Corel Clipart (.cmx)[23][24]
* sK1 - partial support[12][25]
* Xara Designer Pro and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer - early versions of CorelDRAW CDR and CMX[26