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Review by Shevi
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7nIve been using CorelDraw for about 20 years now, maybe longer, and the thing thats always made it my digital graphics and photo editing software of choice is that it gives you the most bang for your buck. That hasn’t changed, and the software has only gotten better over the years. There are, however, a few things Im not exactly happy about when it comes to CorelDraw X7. Theyre not huge issues, and CorelDraw is still better than the competition even in these areas, but …
Lets start, though, with what makes this graphics suite the best buy.
Back when I was studying computer graphics, I would take the lessons I learned at college on their Macs running Adobe software and applied them at home on my PC in CorelDraw. While the interfaces looked different, the two were mostly the same. Some of the other layout artists at the newspaper where I worked had spent two thousand and up for their Apple computersplus an additional thousand for each piece of software. Not a suite of graphic-design programs, but each individual program. I spent under a thousand for my computer and only a few hundred dollars for one graphics suite that did the work of two of their thousand-dollar programsthe one for graphic design and the one for photo editing. A few years later I met the head of a design company who told me the designers who worked under her would work with Adobe software on their Macs, and she would edit their work with CorelDraw on her PC. Its always seemed to me that buying Adobe software is like buying jeans with a designer label. Youre paying so much more for the label, but is it worth it? I don’t think so. Id much rather buy the same pair of jeans at a third of the price without the fancy-schmancy label.
Over the years, the differences in value became even more obvious. CorelDraw, which remained significantly cheaper, came with a bunch of filters installed; and I was shocked to discover that my Adobe-loving friends were paying extrajust for filters! Even more recently, Adobe has switched to a subscription model that costs $600 a yeara yearfor Creative Cloud, which means the large majority of Adobes professional consumers don’t even get to own the software at that price! They only get to use it for a year, after which they have to pay another $600 if they want to continue using it for another year. That means they’re paying more just to rent Adobe software than they would be if they bought CorelDrawwhich they can keep and use forever.
That designer label is just getting more and more expensive.
When it comes to graphic design and photo editing, CorelDraw still keeps up pretty much neck-and-neck with Adobe. The one major advantage that Adobe has over CorelDraw (aside from the whole designer-label thing and the fact that most graphic-design courses are taught using Adobe software) is that Adobes suite includes Dreamweaver, which is the undisputed industry leader in web design. The CorelDraw Standard Membership that comes with CorelDraw X7 allows you do download Corel Website Creator, but Website Creator is nothing fancy (although it is easy enough to use). Its about as far from Dreamweaver as possible, and it feels like it was added just to answer the Adobe fans who might ask, But does CorelDraw let you design websites? Yeah, it does, but probably no nearly as well as youd like.
So what are these little things that are bothering me about CorelDraw X7, aside from that weak website design program?nnFirst off, it feels like a lot of the new interface was designed to appeal to new users, particularly users who are accustomed to Adobe, users who are used to paying for extras. As a long-time CorelDraw user, that bugs me.
The first thing I saw when a first opened CorelDraw X7 was a window telling me I had 0 days left on my premium membership. I thought that was weird. How can I have 0 days left on a membership related to a new piece of software I had just installed? It turns out that CorelDraw X7 comes with a standard membership. Whats the difference? Aside from $99 a year, Im not really sure. Premium membership includes free upgrades if CorelDraw gets upgraded during your year of premium service. It also comes with fonts and other graphics I haven’t been able to see to determine if they’re worth the price.
The suite also comes with free warranty service that doesnt last very long and comes with email reminders suggesting you consider their valuable Premium Training & Support Plan. Youll get exclusive access to our product experts with unlimited first-in-line phone support, personalized One-on-One Training on any topic of your choice [two sessions], unlimited access to product webinars and peace of mind with complete software back-up protection. This only costs $99 a year, which isn’t bad, but … it bugs me.
Corel Connect is a new program within this suite that lets you search for useable images and the like that you can download. It lets you search Flickr and CorelDraws new Content Exchange, but youll probably quickly find (like I did) that most free images and graphics aren’t that great. Corel Connect also lets you search Fotolia and iStock, which have great images but charge for them. Again, its not a lot of money (most small images can be purchased for a less than a dollar and a half if you buy enough credits), and it makes sense. It just … bugs me.
I used to be able to say that CorelDraw came with everything, that you don’t have to pay more for extras. And you still dont. But the program makes you feel like spending more is highly encouraged. Its not a big deal, but it bugs me.
There are other little things I found annoying, like the Gallery tab on the Welcome Screen that comes with lots of pretty pictures and no explanation whatsoever. And the fact that the Help menu isn’t searchable. And the fact that I seem to have run into the suggestion that I Go Premium without any real explanation as to why I would want to do that a lot. Seriously, if the additional premium content is so great, cant we at least have a look at it? Of course, its possible that we can but how just isn’t clear. And that bugs me.
As Ive already said, you don’t really need any of these extras; and even if you do decide to buy them, they do all seem reasonably priced, particularly in comparison to Adobes $600 a year just to rent their creative suite. And overall, CorelDraw X7 is a great graphics suite. I started using it after CorelDraw X6 kept crashing on me during a big project, and X7 didn’t crash at all. Even with the drawbacks, CorelDraw Graphics Suite is still the best bang for your buck, and thats the bottom line.