is changing from corel 12 to x3 worth it?

[Andy Gorman]

To be honest, there are a lot of bugs in X3. It is also incredibly slow to refresh the screen. I wouldn’t.

I’m sure there must be a trial version you can download to see for yourself.

[Glenn Sharp]

I hadn’t thought about a trial version

I’ve always been happy enough with version 12 & I probably only use about 25% of it

[George Kern]

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3/Downloads/Trials theres the link for the trials. I actually think that it works well, i haven’t encountered any bugs yet.

[Shane Drew]

I changed from 12 to X3 a few months ago. Wish I’d done it before frankly. Seen no bugs yet, and the new features like tracing a bitmap are eons better than 12.

I don’t use the fancier features yet, but I’d say the change is worth it.

[Andy Gorman]

George or Shaney, do me a favour: export a file to eps and then import it back in.

I get an error message every time. "File unreadable" or something like that. It would be handy to know if it’s just me.

Thanks

[Glenn Sharp]

Thanks for that George…I’ll give it a go

[Shane Drew]

quote Andy Gorman:

George or Shaney, do me a favour: export a file to eps and then import it back in.

I get an error message every time. “File unreadable” or something like that. It would be handy to know if it’s just me.

Thanks

na mate, just did it, works OK for me

[Andy Gorman]

Right I’ve just got it to work! It seems to be one file I have that will not export properly. Weird.

Do you find it painfully slow sometimes, Shane? Even creating a new blank page seems to take ages.

[George Kern]

hmmm i didn’t get an error, worked on my Vista test system as well.

[Nigel Fraser]

quote Andy Gorman:

Do you find it painfully slow sometimes, Shane? Even creating a new blank page seems to take ages.

Andy, I did the upgrade a few months ago and x3 does have some little glitches but most are sorted by the current service pack download from Corel. On the whole it’s pretty stable and certainly has some usefull features like radius corner tool and at last a contour tool that doesn’t create new shapes with tens of thousands of nodes!

If your finding it slow, have you got plenty of ram in the comp? I had that problem with my laptop and it was taking like 5 minutes to start the program – I stuck an extra 1gig memory in and it’s like a new machine. Just a thought anyway…

[Andy Gorman]

You’re probably right. This machine isn’t exactly state of the art. The radius tool is a godsend, as is a decent outline tool at last. I’ve had service pack 1. Is there a newer one?

[Nigel Fraser]

Nope, don’t think so mate. I noticed that there were some issues with the original version and importing/exporting AI/EPS files. For example if you tried to import multiple eps files in one go that it didn’t work. But it seems to work fine after that service pack installation. I know it’s pretty memory hungry so since ram is so cheap now you might well benefit from having a bit more. Good luck with it either way!

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite? … 1092456309

[Shane Drew]

I’m not the person to ask as far as speed goes Andy, I update my machine every 12 months, and my present PC is pretty quick.

[Alan Drury]

I have heard of people mentioning slow redraws etc but it is not my experience, X3 is equally as quick as V12 ever was. Draw does poll the printer at start up and a good tip is to have your default printer as a postscript one. I you do not have a postscript printer use a postscript driver and set it to file (I have full Acrobat and I use that).
Draw, as with most graphic programmes is memory hungry so loads of RAM can only help especially so if your video and system RAM is shared.
As far as improvements go, Trace – contour – boundary – fillet corners – filters – pdf support import/export are probably the ones that spring to mind for signmakers but if you do litho work loads more, some more in the backgroud.
If you have a registered copy of Draw check out Amazon or Unleash.com for great deal on upgrade.
Alan D