Product Reviews

Hot on the heels of CorelDraw 8 (reviewed issue 41, p194), the world's best-selling book on what is one of the world's most popular drawing packages has been updated and revamped. CorelDraw 8: The Official Guide still carries Corel's official endorsement and it's still 'The only Draw book complete and accurate enough to warrant Corel's official endorsement'. Not surprising considering the book is the result of a collaboration between Corel and the publisher.

There's no doubt that the guide is as comprehensive as claimed. It comes in at just under 1,000 pages divided into 41 chapters, which are in turn divided into five major sections covering basics, manipulation, effects, input/output and advanced features. The sheer volume of information means that it's difficult to think of topics that haven't been included, but some could certainly have been omitted. The detailed section on installation, for example, is likely to come too late for the reader, and the Barcode Wizard hardly deserves a whole chapter.

In a review of edition six of The Official Guide (reviewed issue 21, p160) I suggested that its encyclopaedic nature and uncritical party line meant that Corel was effectively charging separately for the manual that should have been included in the

There is more of a sense of independent thinking. This is particularly important, as Draw 8 now offers so much power and so many ways of accessing it that to even begin to get to grips with the program it's necessary to come at it from one consistent angle. While the Draw manual has to deal equally with each of the six ways of applying outlines, for example, the Guide is able to recommend that users 'keep their sanity' by concentrating on just the property bar and roll-up. It's also refreshing to see that the authors are willing to point out some of the program's potential pitfalls and even the occasional bug.

Having said this, the criticism of Corel is never made explicit, so there's no mention of Draw's tendency to crash, for example. More worrying still is the fact that much of what looks like independent criticism and hard-won advice turns out to be little more than hype. Learning that the Illustrator AI export filter 'has been poor in past versions', isn't much use to anyone now.

Of course, it would be unreasonable to expect Corel to help produce a book highlighting the areas of weakness in its own product, but that raises the question of who the book is intended to benefit. CorelDraw 8: The Official Guide is certainly packed with invaluable information for both beginner and advanced user, but it doesn't provide a particularly balanced view.