Corel Draw Essentials 2

[Sandy]

Has anyone tried this? Frankly, I'd be happier to use Draw 4, but too much of it is broken in XP. There are some old CDRs here that need exporting to raster images, and Essentials 2 looks like the be$t bet. I think the engine is Draw 11, so it shouldn't be as flaky as 10 appears to be.

[Sandy]

The bottom line is it all works. Draw 4 still works in XP, but it won't export. Draw 7 will open the version 4 CDRs and save them as versiion 7 files, but it also won't export properly. Essentials (Draw 11) will open the version 7 files and WILL export nicely to raster images.

Essentials has hijacked the CDR icons (all the file icons look odd in Windows Explorer) but doubleclicking a CDR opens it in Draw 4. Great results!

[terrie]

Sandy...glad you got it sorted out...all by yerself...'-}}

I was going to ask you whether Essentials is kindasorta like Photoshop Elements but I got sidetracked and didn't get back here for a couple of days...

While I use Photoshop almost exclusively, I do have CorelDraw5 and while it would be lovely to buy Draw12, I don't really want/need all of its bells and whistles...

Sooo...what's in Essentials???

Thanks...

Terrie

[Sandy]

Oh dear, I'm not sure what's in this package - which is a very good thing. I chose to install Draw (the vector drawing package) and nothing else pretty much. I do have Photoalbum and Photobook. Photobooks looks to be an touch-up app, and the album has icons for film and such. "Photo retouching, organizing, and editing tools."

Plus a huge vat of clip art and fonts, of course. The album is like Irfanview's Thumbnail view on steroids.

First impression? A REAL vector program, but not a real way to create photo-type images.

[Franca]

Wow - Draw 5? I don't remember being very happy with that version and went back to 4 until 7 came out. (I know, everyone else says version 4 was awful but it was the only other version I'd ever used and since I was hardly a power user it didn't cause me any problems.)

I would ignore versions 6 (a real dog) and 10 (not as good as 9, IMO) but think you'd be pretty pleased with any other version newer than 5 and could probably find one of them for less $ than 12. Just a thought. I was quite content with version 7 but there were a few things added to 8 that prompted me to upgrade ... same when version 9 came around. I love version 9 and am still using it, but am contemplating dusting off my copy of version 12 and installing it, on Brian's recommendation. It's been shelfware in my office for quite some time because I'm less and less enthused about installing new software these days....

[terrie]

>>sandy: I chose to install Draw (the vector drawing package) and nothing else pretty much. I do have Photoalbum and Photobook. Photobooks looks to be an touch-up app, and the album has icons for film and such. "Photo retouching, organizing, and editing tools."

Hmm...so it's got the full(-ish?) version of Draw which I never used much but does not have PhotoPaint...I guess Photobooks would be similar to Photoshop Elements as a limited/notalltheoptions version...

>>Plus a huge vat of clip art and fonts, of course. The album is like Irfanview's Thumbnail view on steroids.

The only thing I use at all from Draw5 is the album software and it was pretty flaky under W2K and I finally switched to ThumbsPlus...

>>First impression? A REAL vector program, but not a real way to create photo-type images.

LOL!! Indeed...

Thanks!

Terrie

[terrie]

>>franca: Wow - Draw 5?

Hey! It was a step up from Draw3! I got 5 and then shortly thereafter finally installed W95 and got Photoshop 4...

Terrie

[Sandy]

>>(I know, everyone else says version 4 was awful but it was the only other version I'd ever used and since I was hardly a power user it didn't cause me any problems.) <<

But 4 has the _good_ fit text to path. 3 hadn't enough control about which way it fit. 7 wouldn't unzoom with a right click - which drove me start raving bonkers. Essentials/11 does the right thing with a right click, and I think I like it a lot.

[Steve Rindsberg]

Funny how it strikes different folk. 5 was always one of my favorites, 7 was my mainstay for years and years, 9 never did much for me and 10 was ok. 11 with the service pack's been pretty solid too.