Product Reviews

CorelDRAW has been the market-leading PC drawing and illustration package almost as long as there have been PCs - but that's not to say it's the only one worth choosing. The market is now awash with cheaper alternatives, and while they may not offer all the tools, versatility and general renown of CorelDRAW, they don't come with the same price tag either.

Serif's new Design Studio costs just £70, and Microsoft's innovative PhotoDraw 2000 is sold both on its own and as part of various Office 2000 bundles. For sheer value, it's hard to beat Sierra Publisher at £40. It includes Windows Draw 7, offering similar breadth for one-tenth the price.

Can CorelDRAW 9 shrug them off?

What Corel can do

CorelDRAW 9 is much more than a drawing program. True, its drawing tools are about the best, but CorelDRAW can also import and manipulate bitmap images, apply special effects, combine them with drawn objects and produce much more sophisticated designs than is possible with drawing tools alone. The bitmap image-editing tools in CorelDRAW are almost irrelevant, though, because included in the package is Corel Photo-Paint, a standalone image-editing application which some reckon to be the equal of Photoshop. Bizarrely, it's sold separately for almost the same price as the CorelDRAW bundle!

CorelDRAW can also handle rudimentary technical drawing, thanks to 'dimensioning' tools which can display the sizes of the objects in your blueprints. And it's especially effective as a page layout tool, since it supports both 'Artistic' text and 'Paragraph' text. Artistic text is used for fancy headings, while Paragraph text is displayed in frames which can be linked from one page to another, making it possible to produce not just multi-column layouts, but multi-page magazines.

You can even create 3D objects by extruding 2D shapes, rotating them, changing the extrusion depth, the bevel type and the lighting. However, Corel has decided, perhaps wisely, not to include its 3D program, CorelDream 3D, in the package, and to concentrate on the two main programs.

New features

Corel's packaging and presentation has been given an overhaul, replacing the previous cheap-'n'-cheerful image with an altogether classier look. Under the surface, though, the changes are comparatively minor - if plentiful. What they add up to is a leaner, tighter and better product that deserves to be taken very seriously indeed.

The interface has seen a raft of improvements. CorelDRAW uses 'docker' windows which can float as palettes over your documents, or 'dock' to the edge of the screen. When they dock, the document window is resized so that the windows don't actually obscure any of the document content - a very neat touch. You can add new 'dockers' (including an Internet Link Manager), or 'collapse' them to free up screen space.

The interface enhancements are only a small part of the story, though. You can now set up and use multiple palettes. CorelDRAW comes with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator palettes, which will be ideal for those designing web pages. (And while you're on the web, you might want to visit Corel's new designer.com site for news, offers, tips and discussion groups.)

Clearly, Corel isn't simply flogging the last few years of life out of an ageing product. CorelDRAW is now thoroughly integrated with Photo-Paint, and with the corresponding Macintosh versions - a wise move, as the Mac is still the dominant platform in the design industry. And CorelDRAW can now be programmed via Microsoft's Visual Basic

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for Applications language, the one used by Microsoft Office. This will appeal to the developer community and those building custom publishing solutions for larger companies.

The average user, though, will be much more interested in the changes to the everyday drawing tools. One of the most significant is the appearance of the 'mesh fill' tool, a device previously available only in the latest version of rival program Adobe Illustrator. A mesh fill lets you create far more realistic object shading than the usual linear, radial or square gradient fills. It takes a little work, but the results can be super-realistic.

Another feature to get a tweak is the Interactive Contour tool, which now offers 'live' control of contours (CorelDRAW can create concentric outlines of an object, like the contours on a map). In fact, interactive tools are a big feature in CorelDRAW, and most let you apply effects 'live'. This means you can see the result as you change a setting, rather than choosing options in a dialog, hitting 'OK' and having to undo them and try again if they're not quite right.

The interactive drop shadow tool is another example, offering draggable nodes and a slider to help you position shadows and change their intensity 'live'. You can also add perspective effects - for example, your shadow will appear to head into the distance behind your object.

There's a host of other improvements to everyday tools. You now have much more control over drawing rounded rectangles, adding a curvature to all of the corners or just some of them. The Connector Line tool has been improved (CorelDRAW can create organisational charts and flowcharts), and it's now easier to smooth shaky freehand drawings or shapes. You can create documents with preset guides, or you can create your own on the spot - including slanted guides.

More bitmap effects have been added, including 'Impressionist', 'Stained Glass' and 'Sketchpad'. These can be applied either to images imported into a CorelDRAW document, or to the image itself opened in Photo-Paint.

Printing and electronic publishing

The output side has been given plenty of attention too. As well as the existing print preview option, there's now a Mini Print Preview within the Print dialog itself. More importantly, there's a new Imposition Layout tool for handling offset printing 'signatures'. This organises your pages automatically for film output, so the bureau doesn't have to output them individually and assemble them on the printing plate by hand. There's ICC colour management for those who use it, and a 'Preflight check' for incorrect fonts, missing graphics and other potential problems for those just about to send their pages to a bureau.

CorelDRAW is very handy at electronic publishing too. You can create composite images in Photo-Paint made up of individual objects, each linked to a URL, then export it as an imagemap. Or you can design your document in CorelDRAW, again linking specific objects to URLs, then save it as a web page.

That's not the only electronic document format supported. Version 9 can also export Adobe Acrobat PDF files. This is becoming increasingly important in the publishing industry, as PDFs are useful not just for sending proofs to clients, but for delivering documents to bureaus.

Conclusion

If this sounds high-powered, it's because CorelDRAW is aimed squarely at professionals. You don't get the 'instant art' and hand-holding of cheaper programs, but you do get a clean interface, cutting-edge tools and immense precision and control. Indeed, nothing in the professional or amateur market, offers a wider, more flexible or more powerful range of tools than this (even though Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand may be more popular in the professional design community). To get two programs as powerful as these for the price of one of its rivals makes CorelDRAW a tremendous bargain.

For amateur illustrators, it's probably all too much. For more advanced users, though, or professional designers on a shoestring, CorelDRAW 9 offers a remarkable combination of power, efficiency and value for money.