Unofficial Corel survery

[NeilRoss]

Alan: I’m still using v12 as I honestly haven’t found a reason to upgrade. Having said that I probably need to upgrade sometime soon before I get too far behind – the norm for me!

I would like a function that would allow me to shear a character/word/sentence, left or right. Simply done using the standard editing arrows (rotate/shear) but not after you have rotated the text. For example type the character H. Next, rotate it (say 45 deg clockwise) . Now shear it to the left (which is actually 45 deg top/left direction) and expect the top and base lines to remain in their existing alignment. It just won’t work this way as the rotate/shear ‘handles’ do not realign at 45 deg – they remain 0/90 deg. I spent ages messing about with this and still haven’t found a way to do it – other than manual node editing which is pretty much a non starter.

There may be some way of doing this already but I couldn’t find it. If anybody knows I’d be interested to learn.

Neil

[John Hughes]

I think coreldraw is great, so versatile and been using it for last 12 years.
Upgraded form 5 to 6 boxed version a few weeks ago but constantly crashing and loosing work !!
Reading thro coreldraw forums, I’m not the only one experiencing problems.

John

[Denise Goodfellow]

TBH I don`t use corel. So forgive me if this is a feature. ( its not in signlab)

The ability to ungroup text, Then when you group them together again you are still able to just double click to allow you to alter the font. Instead of doing it 1 letter at a time or 1 line at a time.

Does that make sense ( hey its Saturday and the wines open LOL.)

oops, just seen this thread https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … 351#424351

[George Zerbino]

I’ve got mine, but because many of the macros I use don’t work on X6, I have to use X5…bit of a shame but shouldn’t take too long

[David Rowland]

Denise, Control Click will allow you to edit individual lines then change to shape tool for kerning.

Anyway, way too early to give judgement. I have been playing with the demo and my home computer (being 64bit win7) certainly is doing the software justice, installing the 32bit version to me seems a bit pointless without an upgrade.

So far I not experienced anything too major with it, I am keeping my eye close to forums to see what bugs there is but I plan to have everyone upgraded to CDR6 very soon indeed, but needs new hardware/more memory to cope with the demands.

[Martin Pearson]

I’m not a corel user but that may well be down to the fact that I didn’t start with it & at my age learning new software takes a lot longer than it use to :lol1:

If the software I use didn’t do what I wanted it to then yes I would look at buying other software to do the job.

As for upgrades of any software I am not the quickest to upgrade in general. Some people feel the need to continually upgrade as soon as a new version is released, don’t have a problem with that, it’s up to them but I tend to stick with what I have if it does everything I want it to & only look at upgrading or different software if what I am using doesn’t do what I need it to.

[Hugh Potter]

Niel Ross,
I think you’d be pleasantly surprised at the huge improvements X5 has over 12, text editing one of them, text to curve, trace, and more, so much better.

Alan,
I’ve not upgraded yet but will do.

Not sure what I’d improve yet, perhaps a decent text effects toolbox, bevels etc. Without the need for 3rd party plug ins and macros.

[NeilRoss]

Hugh – I’d like to be pleasantly surprised so I’ll take a look at the advances in these functions. v12 already does all you mention there but I’m guessing X5 does more.

Like Martin I don’t upgrade software unless I can see a distinct advantage over what I’m already using so I’m very often a good few versions behind. And upgrades are not always better IMO. I’ve often upgraded software only to find that they have changed the method of using it beyond obvious intuition – often wrecking it in the process – and of course upgrades almost always come with a (un)healthy increase in overhead. So I see myself as a dinosaur in that respect but again as Martin says, everything I use does what I want.

EXCEPT at present – the issue above regarding shearing rotated text/objects – anybody found how to do this in X5?

[Alan Drury]

Denise, as Dave said you can edit inside a group very easily and have been able to for some while. Neil I’m not sure I fully understand what you are after but dynamic guides may help with your editing. You will notice a significant difference with X6 over V12 and an upgrade would be worth while with the caveat that more computer power will be needed to run it and preferably Win 7 to take advantage of the new features.

I use macros and most work ok but I’m sure vendors will upgrade theirs very soon. My pet beef is that some of the cutting utilities seem to take a while to update and I wish Corel would either write a utility of their own or at least liaise closely with a 3rd party so people can cut with the latest version when it is released. Summa users need not worry as Winplot can be easily made to work and I have been using it from early betas.

Personally I would like to see more vectors tools that cut, specifically extrude but when you use bespoke sign software (some of it anyway) you see the tools that are missing, that said Corel is my programme of choice for anything printed litho or digital and alot of origination for cutting is also dome in it – cutting is invariably done through Signlab with the exception of contour cutting and Winplot makes that very easy.

Alan D

[Ian Pople]

Hi,

I have just ordered it will let you know how I get on.

[NeilRoss]

quote Alan Drury:

Neil I’m not sure I fully understand what you are after but dynamic guides may help with your editing.

Hi Alan. I would need to investigate what dynamic guides would do and just haven’t got the time at present. The attached image illustrates what I am (was) looking for. I think it would be a very handy tool/function.

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Attachments:

[Martin Pearson]

Ah……… I can understand what you are trying to do now Neil :lol1: :lol1:

Wasn’t sure if I had it right with you written explanation but the pictures make it clear :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

Can I ask why you want something that will work that way as I can’t see a reason for it at the moment.

I am guessing it won’t make a lot of difference but would altering the point of rotation help??

[Alan Drury]

I’m with Martin, I can now see what you mean but not why you would want to do it. Slant before rotate is a solution I suppose.
If I were asking Corel to add features I can think of a few that I would put in front of this but I suppose we all use our software in different ways.

Just to expand on the original question:
What features in other software would you all like to see in Corel.

Alan D

[David Rowland]

well, rotate GLOBAL axis instead, so your VIEW changes to a new axis

(bit like 3D i guess but 2D)

edit: like this in Photoshop then put Guides that are horizontal/vertical to screen
http://vimeo.com/2218899

[NeilRoss]

Martin/Alan:
I was laying out a sundial face where the chapter ring was offset from the point where the hour lines radiated. This meant that although the numerals were arranged around the chapter ring – rotating radially as they went, they needed to be individually sheared left or right (some more than others if you can imagine it) in order to maintain alignment with the radiating hour lines. Difficult to explain and probably more difficult to perceive unless you’ve done it yourself. It’s a fairly common practice for sundial design.

Neil

[NeilRoss]

quote Dave Rowland:

well, rotate GLOBAL axis instead, so your VIEW changes to a new axis

Dave – Don’t think you can do that in Corel, can you? If so then that should probably do it.

[Stephen Morriss]

Not sure I’ll bother yet but I’d like to see a feature for projecting text onto a shape and the result can be cut and applied to the shape and still reads correctly.

So if you have some text and you want it read from one direction on a cylinder then corel stretches the text is such a way as it’ll still read normally rather than the ends disappearing.

and a similar one would be projecting to an angled curved surface such as the roof above the windscreen on a van.

Steve

[Russell Huffer]

I have just downloaded a trial version to evaluate after being a life long user of Illistrator, I struggle to see how adobe can justify there high price tag when both software looks very simelar.
The main problem I have with Corel is getting the print size correct, in Illistrator i go file print, select a postscript printer (mimaki JV33) then page size custom and it prints the file out the correct size ie the same size as the illistrator artboard to the millimeter. I try this in Corel but it seems it wants me to input the size and i am having to select various sizes a1 etc some times cropping bits off sometimes wasting media.
How do you print from Corel say open an eps/pdf file that you do not know the size of the print and get it to print it all.

Thanks

Russell.

[David Rowland]

i use the PDF route, but needs some fine tuning. I don’t use the Printer route at all.

[Alan Drury]

Publish to pdf will use the page size of the drawing and will also maintain transparencies more accurately. Printing will have the effect of flattening everything, fine for some jobs but anything under a transparency will convert to bitmap under the image, this applies to drop shadows. This is a postscript thing. You can make a custom page size and save it. Keep going with Corel it is a more than a viable alternative to Illustrator.
Alan D