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What Sign making Vector software do you use and why?
I currently use Adobe Illustrator but I have had enough of the subscription-based idiocy and need to move. I have looked at Coral Draw and at £600 its a lot. Anyone had any experience of Affinity Designer? Because at £48 it appears to be a real bargain
Just concerned as there are no plugins, so would need to import the finished graphics into Graphtec Studio -eeeccck :puppyeyes:
I have a Versacamm VP 300 and a Graphtec FC8600
Cheers
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13 Replies
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Compared to the cost of buying illustrator outright, Corel is cheap!!
I moved over to the Coreldraw subscription last year, about £18 a month, no brainer really!
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Although we use illustrator I do also have Affinity. It’s a good program, pretty easy to use, but in certain circumstances it’s doesn’t interact well with other software. Whereas Ai files generally interact seamlessly many much other design and cutting programs, Affinity doesn’t. Not that it’s a huge problem as you can still import as a pdf but it’s irritating that you end up with different file formats.
We use Flexi as a cutting program and the set Affinity file does not import directly, whereas illustrator does. I think it’s mainly because illustrator is the general weapon of choice for designing in the industry, and affinity was developed primarily to rival it for Mac users. Not sure if they have a windows based option now without looking but it was on the horizon. All in all, it’s a good program, but it does have limitations
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We use Adobe Creative Suite on a subscription.
We use Signlab on a buy outright basis.for sign making, I swear by Signlab every time!
You can buy it in modules that you can bolt on extras as you require at one-off upgrade prices.the cheaper alternatives are normally much more limited or difficult to use or long-winded to do something you may do in a couple of clicks in the likes of signlab.
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Adobe illustrator TEN! Yes, Ten!
I got it way back when, paid in full, and I refuse to update.
It has everything I need, and all the updates since then are a waste of time. -
I own adobe creative suite, use illustrator CS5 daily. Cost me a few hundred quid but much better than this subscription nonsense.
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I thought if one saved as a .eps file it would be compatible with any vector graphics program?
As such with my trail of Affinity, I havent had any issues. All my files are saved in .eps format as I use Versaworks.
I suppose the only issue are when you get files online when they are already in .AI format, which means they need converting
Cheers
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2 Grand for signlab, ummmm – no I think I will give it a miss :shocked:
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quote Paul.Gadsdon:2 Grand for signlab, ummmm – no I think I will give it a miss :shocked:
Get a genuine older copy of illustrator off ebay.
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We use Omega, mainly because it came with our router (about 17 years ago!) and is not dissimilar to CorelDraw and is also designed to run vinyl plotters etc. Pretty easy to use too (or maybe that’s just years of use talking!)
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I use Signlab but prefer the older version 5, better icons and easier to use. Sadly it’s not compatible with anything newer than windows XP.
I’m sure you can pick up a new version for a few hundred rather than thousands, I suppose it depends what extras you want. I bought Signlab 9 cut pro about 3 years ago for just under £300 brand new, does all I need. -
quote Gordon Smithard:I use Signlab but prefer the older version 5, better icons and easier to use. Sadly it’s not compatible with anything newer than windows XP.
.Agreed Singlab 5 is very good and a breeze to use, although old now
I also use Signlab for Wersaworks which is great, I run coral along side these..
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Illustrator CS5 for me and going to fight tooth and nail against the subscription idea. FineCut plug in is great for plotter work (thanks Jamie) 😉
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Used Corel draw for years.
Never had a trial on signlab but I can’t imagine it can do anything more or less than Corel can.. and same with AI.Business partner uses AI. Corel exports in much smaller file sizes, but doesn’t seem to effect quality anyway. Maybe that’s a setting somewhere but I know I’d rather rip a 1,000kb file than a 250,000kb file anyway.
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