I got this to make simple designs, for shirts, etc. I must say that it is extremely complicated. It’s way too picky about what you can do and how you can do it. Not user-friendly at all. I’ve gotten a basic understanding of it over the past several months, but generally, it’s just way too much. Too complicated. It did come with several other programs, such as a photo program, an animation program, etc. but all in all, I wish I had Photoshop.

I’ve used the Corel Draw suites since v7 for all my various print and web projects. I’ve never had to use any other product to achieve completion to my projects – in fact, I consistantly have to fix graphics at work that other people/apps can’t handle with AI or FH. For its price, it’s the best bang for the buck: a vector editor, bitmap editor, tons of fonts and clipart, font manager, bitmap-to-vector editor, etc. You’re not going to get this much product at a better price. I know some have said their PCs crash with the product, yet I’ve never had a problem with any well-kept PC (and I use three different PCs). This means a relatively stable OS (Win2K or XP), an adequate amount of RAM (756MB min, but I never use a system with less than 1GB personally), good video card with current drivers, good printer with current drivers, and proper setup/maint of your hard drives, etc.

I am new in vector drawing. I’ve tried Adobe illustrator first, I cannot quite understand why I have to go through so much trouble to do simple things like draw a line. I decided to give coreldraw a try. Now I am hooked. Coreldraw shows that you can get into vector drawing and still keep your common sense. Coreldraw is so easy to use! After a few months, I can do very sophisticated drawing now.By buying CorelPainter 8 and CorelDraw 12 Upgrade, I’ve spend only a fraction of the cost of any Adobe product to get EVERYTHING I need for computer graphics at professional level. Adobe products maybe powerful, but compare to what I got from corel, they cannot justify their unreasonable price tags. Also I think Adobe illustrator and photoshop have unnecessarily complicated and cumbersome interfaces, whoever designed them should be fired!

If you’re a die hard PhotoShop fan like I was, you need this program. NEEEEEEEED it. It does all the things that Photoshop does, plus some, and guess what guys? It runs FASTER than Photoshop ever did. Trust me, I’m a digital artist, not some grandma fooling around with the contrast levels on her grandaughter’s baby pictures- and I tell you that this is the program you need if you’re serious about your art. You can do line drawings, vector graphics, 3-d design, photo editing, image animation and movie editing, and it’s got one hell of a painting set up very similar to PhotoShop but the effects are faster, there are no lags, and they are even more tweakable than PS was. And guess what guys? If you’ve got years worth of old PhotoShop files that you’re worried about losing? You can buy this product and be saved, because Corel Draw Graphics Suite will open PSD files (among many many others) so you won’t lose your images OR layers. You can keep right on working with your art without losing anything. It’s also got an “in program” pressure sensitive draw pad configuration- so you don’t have to argue with Photoshop and go outside of the program to readjust your draw pad every few days. I can’t tell you guys enough, save the $700 you’d spend on PhotoShop and buy this and a Waacom draw pad instead- not only will you be glad you’ve got $400 bucks left in your pocket, you’ll fall in love with the ease of creating your art all over again, just like back in the day when all it took was crayons and some construction paper. That’s just how good Corel Draw Graphics Suite 12 is.

I downloaded a version of Corel Graphics Suite 12 to check it out before I bought it. I’ve been using Corel since 7 and have a copy of Draw 11 but did’nt get the Graphics Suite and was really looking to upgrade my Photo Paint to 12. I took some screen captures and when I created as new image in Photo Paint 12 they were all dim and blurry. I thought maybe this was my capture (alt + printscreen) that was the problem so I used the Corel Capture in the Suite and it was the same. Nothing I did seemed to aleviate the dimness and slight blur to the image. I tried opening the images in Windows Paint and they looked fine, so I requested help on the Corel site to see if the service pack fixed this problem with the Screen captures. They said there is no fix for this in the patch. So I started checking more and saved the picture in Windows paint as a .jpg and opened it in Corel Paint and it was blurry. I took a different screen shot and opened it in paint and saved it as a .jpg and then opened it in Windows Paint and it was fine. When I updated my problem ticket with the new information the guy just re-iterated that there was no change in screen captures in the patch. I would have waited for them to fix it to buy it but with irritating tech support that’s obviously not reading the whole help ticket I will be avoiding Corel from now on.

I have noticed favorable reviews here, with the reviewer asserting intimate knowledge and experience with this suite, its forerunners, or several other programs. I cannot address how someone with a decade of experience might react to this tangled mess, only how someone with slight familiarity with a paint program or similar might react. First, opening the box and installing the programs is a chore. Unlike the dozens of other programs I have on my system, rather than taking half an hour, or so, installing these programs took the better part of two afternoons…it was if the developers consciously decided to find another way, rather than standards users are familiar with, to do everthing. Particularly annoying this the spyware, in the guise of searching for updates, which is at least difficult to remove, if not impossible. The tool which Corel, alone among software developers, seems to have been forced to put in their help files on their inadequate site, doesn’t work, at least the way the instructions read. Hopefully, with several manhours more effort this spyware can be removed from my system. Worse than this though is the tutorial, presumably for first time users to familiarize themselves and get started with this product. First lesson “Using the toolbar to start a drawing” On the toolbar click “New” button to start a new drawing…so far, so good. This desirable state of events quickly ends, however, for the second instruction begins” “From the Zoom levels list box”…and nothing more. No hint where this box may be found, nothing in the totally inadequate help file nothing….the “tutorial” is then over for the new user. Sit and stare at the graphic representation in the middle of your computer screen while you contemplate exactly how much a program which displays a picture of a piece of paper, plus took a manday or so to install spyware on your system, is worth.

I have been using CorelDraw since version 3 quite a few years ago. Although I have used Photoshop and Illustrator, I find myself using CorelDraw for word processing right up to anything I can think of for productivity and publishing. I got a new computer with XP on it and decided that it was time to look into an upgrade for CorelDraw since I did not upgrade for several versions. After reading the reviews here on Amazon.com, I was excited to try this program once again. I was FURIOUS when I received my upgrade with NO MANUAL!!!! I opened up the box and found a note that if you want the manual with the clipart, font, etc information, you had to call the company AND PAY AN ADDITIONAL $32 FOR IT!!!! WHY DIDN’T ANYONE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS???? The price for CorelDraw 12 upgrade would be okay if the manuals came with it, but unfortunately, if you want the clipart guides and lists you have to shell out another $32. I have found CorelDraw to be a decent improvement over my older versions, but quite frankly, nothing has thrilled me too much about it that I am raving about the upgrade. The only manual that came with the upgrade is rather dry and sparse. All in all, I am disappointe in this product, although it does not move along as slowly as I expected it to, being an XP program and loaded with so many supposed extras. Of all of the CorelDraw versions I have tried, I still like version 7 the best for the interface, but the Photopaint back then was lacking. If the manuals had all come with this upgrade, I might have better things to say about it, but without them, the program is substandard and low class for the money. The clipart manual is spiral bound, by the way, which is an improvement over previous versions. The company maintains that most people have CorelDraw 11 so they do not need a clipart manual. Whatever that means. Quite stupid considering that the upgrade requirements do not even require that you have a previous version of CorelDraw, but you can upgrade from other brands like Adobe.

“Enhanced snapping”, “dynamic guides”? Who’s Corel trying to kid? These are not substantial upgrades and are certainly not worth what Corel is charging for them. And “PDF enhancement”? I think Corel writes that on every package now. I bet if Corel made a breakfast cereal, they would put “PDF enhancement” on the box. Actually, Corel should start thinking about making a breakfast cereal, as their products have been totally eclipsed by superior products from Adobe and Macromedia. So, the upshot is if you’re looking for a good vector illustration or photo-editing package, stay away from Corel and buy something from proven and reliable companies like Adobe or Macromedia. At least their new product releases are actually NEW product releases.

Awesome product! So user friendly, and a must have for all graphic designers and desktop publishers!!

I have been a CorelDraw user since version 3, and have owned every version except 6, and even beta tested a couple. Draw12 is terrific. I use it on a daily basis for everything from technical illustration, to 4-color advertising, to landscape design, and beyond. This version is very stable. The snapping options alone are worth the price of admission. I output prepress PDF files with no problem. PhotoPaint is also a major player. Somebody complained that an object rotation of less than 90 degrees caused major blurring of the object. I found some blurring to occur, but running the unsharp mask clears it up nicely. All in all, terrific bang for the buck.

Corel offers a lot of functionality and advanced features for the price. Where it slips up is in the import/export arena. It has a number of quirks with Word tables, and export to Illustrator and other Adobe formats just doesn’t seem to work consistently. Service bureaus rarely support Corel so this is important. It could also use some more tutorials and more detailed walk throughs on how to do more advanced applications. With this it feels like trying to use Linux in a Microsoft world. With software, trying to save a few bucks or go against the mainstream comes with a cost.

I am very impressed with the improvements in CorelDraw 12. I couldn’t be happier. I have always used CorelDraw for great black & white diagrams, but this version seems best of any. I was very impressed that I can ungroup, move around points and lines in the individual sections, and they will all remain selected while being moved, then go back to the original pick tool and regroup them again. So much easier! I’m still learning and finding improvements, but it looks cleaner and easier to use than ever before. If you can get your hands on a copy of this program, jump at the chance. The tendency to crash of version 11 is gone! It’s going to be really fun.

I’ve been using CorelDRAW and PPT since version 4, and I must say that the latest version, whether it be because of the patch or not, is widly unstable. For instance, 5 minutes ago I threw together a texture for a 3D model I’d been working on and as soon as I switched to the “Brush” swatch, crashed. The App Recovery Wizard doesn’t even work correctly. It hangs and says the same thing each time. This crash happens often, reguardless of the operation you are doing and only seems to target certain machine setups. Tech support used to be good, however, they suck now and the sarcasm I’ve gotten from some of them made me want to punch glass objects. Please Corel, patch 12 so it works! AR

Great software. I saw a very good price at Buy dot com. Just search for CGS12ENGPC.

And I know it’s hard for Illustrator die hards to hear, but the new Corel is still easier/faster to use. The new linked symbols has been a real bonus too. After experiancing frustrating problems with Adobe Illustrater version 9 interfacing with other programs (even within it’s own suite) we have are now back to Corel 12. The simple ability see selected text in different fonts in a flyout makes it worth it’s weight against Illustrator, never mind the ability to have multiple pages in one file. As for Photopaint versus Photoshop, we switch between the 2 for different effects so price is the only consideration for us on comparing those two. Can’t comment on Rave, haven’t played with it yet.

I have a 5MP DSC camera and use Photo-Paint 10 for all my digital photo work. I am continually irritated by the inability to set default values for the ruler. To edit EVERY photo using pixels, the process is Tools : Options : Units : Pixels ; OK – FIVE clicks for EVERY photo. I thought this would have been fixed in Photo-Paint 12 since the issue is continually brought up in Support. I downloaded the trial version of CorelDraw 12 from corel.com and alas it has not been fixed. I would pay the upgrade price for this feature alone.

I upgraded from v10 hoping to see a lot of new features. CorelDraw in itself is a very valuable program – I have used it for years. However v12 does crash and it does crash often, and for this reason alone it is extremely dissapointing. I don’t think it was worth the upgrade, there just aren’t enough new useful features to offset the frequent crashing / memory leak problems. Basically what you get is some spiffy modernized graphics and icons, no significant improvement to the UI. The word on the street has it that there are some new features however I haven’t explored enough to find them. I suppose the masking is a bit better. They still haven’t added a curve smoothing option to the path tool in photopaint, this was a feature I was hoping I would see in v12.

With all due respect to the person who says that there’s nothing new in CorelDRAW 12 over even version 9, what the heck are you using and what features?Just looking at my version 9 and my new version 12, there are a bunch of things that make the difference for me:* Windows XP support* Symbols support* Enhanced snapping* CutOut tool for masking in Photopaint* Dynamic guides* Smart drawing tools* PDF enhancements* Export for Office* Preflighting engine* Color Management interface* Web image optimization* Faster Photopaint* RAVE animation* Image slicingMaybe you don’t think there’s much of a reason to upgrade, but I *LOVE* this new release

I am an expert in designing., the major software I use is CorelDraw for magazine desinging. I use photoshop for image retouching. My system configuration is Pentium 4 2.7 GHz, 1 GB RAM with 266 MHZ speed and 120 GB HDD. Win XP Professional We had recently brought CorelDraw12 to replace its version 11. Though there are some cool features added to the new version, I am greatly disappointed because 1. Corel draw 12 of bitmap handling is worser than ver 11. 2. ver 12 CRM deadly error : recovery manager pops up so frequently, an imprudent and irritating error. It happens when we open/save files or manipulate some graphics/bitmap 3. The clipboard handing is damn poor. A copy paste of a small graphic takes a hell of out time… 4. While saving is faster, opening big files takes so much of time. 5. Some bitmaps get tampered while re-opening. 6. File copy error: the file wouldnt save if it is of big size. This is certainly grinding my adrenals. 7. Drop shadows and opacity for bitmaps is very sluggish 8. Smart draw tool is a cool feature but rarely or never of use 9. The colour management goes off while printing the files There are so many other annoying errors in this software which I never encountered in ver 11. Speaking about the merits, The text display is very soft and clear than ver11 Dynamic guides feature is good Enhancements in snapping saves time. There is no patch or upgrade to solve these issues. Which is another disappointment. I suggest buy 11 and then upgrade if possible.

In Photo-paint when rotating 1-bit objects at increments other than multiples of 90 degrees anti-aliasing fails and the object edges become jagged and random artifacts appear in the object background. Version 9 of the software did not have this problem. This is a major problem for those working with black and white images. After much stonewalling the customer service admitted that they were aware of the problem but had no plan for a fix. I wrote (not email) to president of Corel complaining that they should provide a fix. I received no response. Version 12 is no great improvement over version 9, and in my case it is worse. The company no longer seems concerned with customer service and a quality product.

Hey, I’ve been a hard core user of CorelDraw since it’s inception, and people I have nothing but praise for this product, alas, Version 12 although with some terrific features it is the most bugged software I have ever used, I have found so many bugs that I have reported to Corel that I may as well be a QA tester for their future BETA’s. I’ve been a proponent of Corel and their products for the last 14 years, now I’m (finally) moving to Illustrator, considering that it has caught up with features and the usability of Corel. Hey If you want to whip off rinki-dink design, simple signs or basic illustration this tool is for you, but if you do anything complex, expect crash, after crash. I have a log of over 1300 application failures in 1.5 years on 3 different systems, that Corel Tech’s couldn’t figure out. Maybe it was with the Transfer of power at the company, who knows. I foresee the Draw product defunct within 3 years. Unless they truly tighten up the software issues that plague the product.

I’ve used Corel Draw and PhotoPaint since Version 2, on both the Mac and Windows systems. Corel has decided that they are after bigger bucks by sliding over to Microsoft and abandoning Mac users, who I have found to be the creative ones in the art world. Stay with Version 11 if you are a Mac user, and can’t afford to move upward to Adobe, otherwise using Adobe products will make you smile, and you’ll also get fewer computer “FreezeUps”.

CorelDraw 12 is the best bargain in graphics today. It is reliable and very easy to use. You don’t have to pay the hefty ransom Adobe demands for Photoshop and Illustrator because CorelDraw can do most of the things that Adobe does with far more flexible and easier-to-master interfaces. This is powerful, first-class software. For about 1/2 the price of either Photoshop OR Illustrator, you get get top notch bitmap AND vector editing. You also get a slew of good fonts, in both Type 1 and True Type formats, from a variety font vendors including Adobe, Agfa, and Bitstream. These fonts alone are worth the cost of the program. About the only area where you would need Illustrator instead of CorelDraw is in prepress production, where the Illustrator’s ability to open and modify almost any Postscript file is unsurpassed. However, this is also Illustrator’s main weakness in that it is so tightly coupled to the Postscript language that the drawing metaphors are very complex and hard to use for creating new art. With Coreldraw, you can create complex graphics with powerful, wonderfully interactive drawing tools, and a clean, easy-to-master interface. Photopaint is no poor stepchild to CorelDraw, especially since version 8. It fully supports Adobe Photoshop layers, but Photopaint also supports a much more friendly object-oriented metaphor, where bitmaps can be stacked, aligned and rotated on each other just like vector objects in CorelDraw. Various filters and transparencies can be applied interactively to each object. This makes it much easier to experiment and often results in fewer trips to menus compared to photoshop. The import/export filters are just fine thank you. CorelDraw writes and reads a vast number of formats including Illustrator, Photoshop (.psd), postcript, pdf, and CAD files with good accuracy. I don’t know what is wrong with .pdf support because CorelDraw makes excellent PDFs with plenty of control, over font embedding, converting font outlines to curves, bitmap downsampling options, and color conversion. As a programmer, I love the VBA macro languages used by both Photopaint and CorelDraw. I have used them to automate the creation of web interface elements. The commercial sign industry uses CorelDraw almost exclusively. If it was as terrible as the Mac/Adobe bigots would have you believe, you would think these vendors would have found some other program by now. It isn’t, try the demo and see for yourself.

For all those great years of superb engineering and illustrative graphics from Micrografx and Igrafx only to see them absorbed into Corel…..one must pause to try to understand why Corel has not caught up or surpassed the quality and ease of use of the Micrografx programs. During all those years when Micrografx Designer ruled the engineering graphics world, Corel languished as a primitive, stubborn, uninspired drawing (I can’t bring myself to call those versions “graphics”) program, one step above PowerPoint. Now with the Micrografx expertise in their back pocket, Corel now enters the big leagues of professional illustration, with seemingly no competion. Version 12 seems like a step in the right direction as it radically changed the GUI and allowed the adoption of Illustrator concepts. Let’s hope Corel gets the message and continues the improvements. I must admit that V12 at least makes a good attempt to revive the efficacy of Designer V8. For the most part, the filter export and import translators work reasonably well. Corel FINALLY decided to give us a 3-point parabolic stretch tool in V12. Not having it in V10 was embarrassing for this high priced “graphics” program. Like it or not, with the demise of Igrafx, the Corel illustration program is just about all we have out there for professional graphics under $2K. So hang in there………..Designer 8 is very tough to find, and guess who is now “supporting” it…yep, you guessed it……..Corel.

I have used Coreldraw for almost 6 years everyday in my job from version 9 thru 12. I was so comfortable with Coreldraw 9 and it was very easy to learn. It was an amazing program for screenprint and embroidery purposes. I upgraded to 11 and they changed all the icons on the toolbars, alienating all the Corel 9 users, but the basics of the program where still there. This is a minor point as its still a great program. Luckily Corel 12 has the same toolbar look as 11 so I’m now used to it. Corel 12 is a much more stable program than 11 and I have yet had a problem with it crashing. Corel have added some nice features, including the smart drawing tool. You can draw a rough shape and the program will convert it a clean square or circle. This can save alot of time if you want to lay things out quickly. You can also take a clean straight line object and easily give it a jagged edge with the move of the mouse. The Corel program in general is easier to use than Illustrator as its more down to earth, and alot more direct to achieve the same effects. The options to customise the program are mindblowing, as you can set all your own shortcuts, add and remove certain tools and even re-design the look of the icons if you wish. There is also a setting to make Corel look like the Illustrator workspace so that anyone stepping over from Adobe will not feel out of place. Corel have always had easier print options than Adobe. The seperation and prepress tabs are easy to follow and change. Luckily this hasn’t changed since previous versions. It also has a wide range of file supports, including EPS, JPEG, Adobe Illustrator and DXF. The other programs that come in the suite easily compete with the Adobe CS suite. Especially Corel Trace, which does an excellent job of tracing bitmap images to Vector. Unfortunately I have come to realise that Corel 12 has lost certain small features that all the previous version have kept. When you use a program everyday you get used to shortcuts and methods of designing. But now Corel 12 makes you go the long way round. Small things like not being able to edit an object if its grouped to others, and not being able to make simple changes to nodes without accessing it with the shape tool. These are all minor things that otherwise make for a great design program for the fraction of the price of Adobe CS. I highly recommend it.