CorelDRAW X4 Graphic Suit

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2008 Reviews

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Review Tim Carden

May, 2008

It’s getting increasingly hard to find competitors in the professional graphics arena.

Especially so now that Adobe has completely swallowed Macromedia in one surprisingly-quiet gulp. Fortunately Corel, with a renewed focus on the high-growth

digital imaging market, appears to be sticking around for the long haul.

To prove they are doing just that, we now have the brand new Graphics Suite X4—that’s 14 for those unfamiliar with Corel’s pseudo roman numeral versioning. The

problem for Corel is that the previous version, X3, was such a useful and feature-rich release that this new version X4 has quite a bit to live up to. But before we look at

what’s new and enhanced, here’s a quick overview for those unfamiliar with the suite.

What's included?

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 includes two main applications (DRAW and PHOTO-

PAINT) with supporting utilities (CAPTURE and PowerTRACE) and a plethora of bundled tutorials, guides, font, clipart and photo resources.

DRAW X4

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Page 1 of 7CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Review -

2/4/2011http://www.designertoday.com/Reviews/2008.Reviews/5192/CorelDRAW.Graphics.Suite.X...

All X4 applications are made to look best on Vista

DRAW is the suite’s main event and is positioned as both a vector illustration and page

layout tool. It does just about everything you would look for in a modern drawing application, and some things you wouldn’t, and that’s precisely why users love it. Corel

targets both graphics professionals and business users with the suite, so expect to find familiar office-style toolbars and a context-sensitive hints guide alongside overprints

preview and LAB color bitmap support. From powerful shape and node editing tools, to multi-page projects, to pulling apart the transparent layers in an layered PSD file,

DRAW is incredibly versatile.

DRAW allows users to pull and drag on-screen to apply most formatting and effects, and generally everything remains editable. Compared to many competitors, this is a

more intuitive and efficient approach.

Double-click to rotate a 3D extrude within the page (no cramped dialog boxes with tiny

previews) or right-click-and-drag an object into another to place it inside.

Over its 14 versions, DRAW has gradually also morphed into a powerful page layout

tool. A single document can have multiple pages, but not only that, each page can have different dimensions. There is support for text styles (defining a present font,

color and size) for consistent formatting across longer documents. Documents also have master pages and support for symbol libraries for easy updating of shared page

elements.

DRAW's page sorter view lets you easily jump between pages in a multi-page

document—and each page can have different orientation, layer and dimension settings

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DRAW also comes with dozens of import/export filters. Just about any and every text

and graphics type is supported with surprising depth. For example, there is built-in support for opening and creating PDFs (with password support), import of rich-

formatted text (with some formatting preserved), and an easy Export for Office to guide novice users through creating a PNG or WPG file for use with Word or

WordPerfect.

PHOTO-PAINT X4

PHOTO-PAINT is the bitmap editor that is but could have been so much more. Corel actually owns just about every non-Photoshop bitmap editor out there including Paint

Shop Pro, PhotoImpact, Picture Publisher and Painter. The trouble seems to be integrating and condensing the best of all into a reduced product range. Unfortunately

PHOTO-PAINT seems to be the most neglected of all their editors, and has been missing features for several versions now. That said it is still a unique and capable

professional-level editor.

PHOTO-PAINT uses dockers to provide access to object lists and channels

PHOTO-PAINT names floating elements objects . These are like Photoshop's layers , but work and feel more like vector objects in DRAW. Clicking an object brings up

transformation handles, like in DRAW, and objects can be easily repositioned, distorted, scaled etc. using these handles. Pasting vector objects from DRAW into a

text object in PHOTO-PAINT uses the full quality of the vectors when transforming. For users familiar with vector illustration applications, PHOTO-PAINT is very intuitive.

PHOTO-PAINT does a number of powerful things. It has support for 48-bit RGB

images/16-bit greyscale, can read and write the layers in PSD, has complex brush settings, and opens individual frames in a Quicktime movie.

Suite extras

As well as DRAW, the suite includes CAPTURE, PowerTRACE and enough fonts, clipart and photos to justify the suite’s price on their own. CAPTURE is an screen capture

utility with support for various region types and PowerTRACE is an integrated lab within DRAW that converts bitmap objects (made up of pixels) to editable vectors (made up

of curves). It does this by trying to recognize the shapes that the pixels make up and creating DRAW objects that represent them. PowerTRACE is very practical and has

some clever code when it comes to deciding what curves to smooth out and which corners to leave sharp.

The resources bundled with the suite include:

2 hours of training videos from the enthusiastic Scott Georgeson of Click-N-Learn an all-new softcover CorelDRAW Handbook containing articles by experts 10,000 clipart images (40% new)

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What’s new

CorelDRAW X4 Graphics Suite has an unusual mix of changes. There is a command

called “highlight what’s new” that paints all new or enhanced menu and toolbar items with a peachy background shading. Turn it on in X4 and suddenly buttons everywhere

are colored. Unfortunately this is deceptively so—Corel has taken the liberty of coloring even simple interface tweaks as “new or enhanced”.

DRAW X4 introduces a powerful new table tool

“Highlight what’s new” aside, the big news for X4 generally is a two-star story: DRAW

has a built-in table tool and the suite as a whole is now very Vista-friendly. The table tool in particular is a welcome addition and is surprisingly mature for a first release.

Tables are built as a series of rectangles (for each cell) with paragraph text frames within each one. You can interact on a cell, row or column level and dynamically space

or adjust row and column spacing. By Ctrl+Clicking, you can individually select the linked components that make up the table. This lets you apply standard formatting—

for example changing a font or setting a custom fill—just as you would with any other shape or text box.

Tables rely on Corel’s right-click-drag technique to intuitively support placement of

graphics within cells. The dropped graphic elements transform with the table, and can be repositioned or transformed, or dropped into a different cell. Tables can be

converted to text and back again (from tabs, commas etc.) and tabbing repositions the cursor from cell-to-cell, and inserts a new row if you are at the last cell of the table.

On Vista, X4 provides support for large icons and built-in searching



For those on Vista, DRAW X4 generates full-size icons for the CDR format, adds search

features in file dialogs and supports file properties for storing meta data along with the file. Application icons have been simplified and the interface in general has been

streamlined to look great in Vista. Every toolbar icon has been refreshed with a glassy Vista feel, toolbars and menu styling in general has been tweaked, and dockers are

more elegant.

X4 re-introduces live preview of text changes. Hover over a font or size setting, and the formatting will be applied to the selected text object live on-screen. Transformation,

kerning or leading changes are also updated in as you apply them. Such a feature was first introduced many versions ago, however was taken out due to instability and

inconsistency. X4's version seems to work relatively well, however most of the handful of application crashes experienced during review have been while adjusting leading

with live preview enabled. In addition, live preview of text wrapping (i.e. while a text frame is resized) is not necessarily accurate—when you release the mouse to complete

the resize, the text re-wraps differently to what the live preview indicated.

Both PHOTO-PAINT and DRAW sport a a brand new tabbed welcome "book" that provides quick access to recent files (with thumbnail preview), tutorials, professional

gallery items, tips and updates. This makes both applications inviting for novice users and provides ongoing encouragement to utilize the new features and training materials

in X4.

The welcome book has tabs with quick access to recent files, new documents, galleries,

learning tools, updates and other features

DRAW has various other enhancements including:

re-introduction of centerline trace in PowerTRACE independent layers on pages built-in support for the RAW format straighten image effect histogram feedback in tone curve built-in support for 3rd party webservices ConceptShare and

WhatTheFont various updates to import/export filters updated templates and new-from-template dialogue box

PHOTO-PAINT benefits from the suite-wide updates above, and sports a shiny new

Vista-style interafce too. However X4 provides few unique updates to PHOTO-PAINT specifically. PHOTO-PAINT still has no support object folders, and X4 still can't render

layer effects like shadows or bevels. In fact the concept of editable effects in PHOTO-PAINT consists of drop shadows and nothing else. This is surprising particularly given

how much DRAW excels in this area. X4 is trumpeted as having compatibility with Adobe's CS3 products, however without support for layer effects or nested layers, in

practice, PSD support is limited. PHOTO-PAINT users will also be baffled as to why it is still so hard to accurately scale an object to specific dimensions.

Conclusion



With X4, Corel has delivered completely new features that many users will appreciate. In addition, a new interface, Vista integration, updated resources and general polish

throughout the suite makes this version feel genuinely refreshed. However some users may feel Corel invested too much in page layout features that aren't as important to

them—at the expense of better file compatibility, PHOTO-PAINT fixes and more graphics-oriented updates like a graphing tool or illustration tool enhancements.

However CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 remains one of the best value, versitile and enjoyable graphics products out there. And given the suite's incredibly low pricing, an

upgrade or purchase is easy to justify.

Pricing: Full - $429.00, Upgrade - $199.00

www.corel.com

Requirements: Windows

Windows® XP (with Service Pack 2 or later), or Windows Vista™ (32-bit or 64-bit

editions) 512 MB of RAM, 430 MB of hard disk space Pentium® III, 800MHz processor or AMD Athlon™ XP 1,024 × 768 or better monitor resolution DVD drive Mouse or tablet

Macintosh

No Macintosh version available

Copyright (c) 2008, Tim Carden, All Rights Reserved

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