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CorelDRAW

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CorelDRAW
DeveloperCorel
Initial releaseJan 1989
Stable release
X6 / 20 March 2012; 13 years ago (2012-03-20)
Written inC++, Objective C
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows
TypeVector graphics editor
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.corel.com

CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation of Ottawa, Canada. It is also the name of Corel's Graphics Suite, which bundles CorelDraw with a bitmap image editor, Corel PhotoPaint, and other graphics-related programs (see below). The latest version is designated X6 (equivalent to version 16), and was released in March 2012.

History

In 1987, Corel hired software engineers Michel Bouillon and Pat Beirne to develop a vector-based illustration program to bundle with their desktop publishing systems. That program, CorelDRAW, was initially released in 1989. CorelDRAW 1.x and 2.x runs under Windows 2.x and 3.0. CorelDRAW 3.0 came into its own with Microsoft's release of Windows 3.1. The inclusion of TrueType in Windows 3.1 transformed CorelDRAW into a serious illustration program capable of using system-installed outline fonts without requiring third-party software such as Adobe Type Manager; paired with a photo editing program (PhotoPaint), a font manager and several other pieces of software, it was also part of the first all-in-one graphics suite.

The first book devoted to CorelDRAW was Mastering CorelDRAW by Chris Dickman, published by Peachpit Press in 1990, with a contribution by Rick Altman. Dickman also founded and published the independent Mastering CorelDRAW Journal publication, and created and ran the first site dedicated to CorelDRAW, CorelNET.com, from 1995 to 1997.

Features by version

CorelDraw Version support Windows
Compatibility 		New Features
Release date Version Reading files Writing files
Jan 1989[1] 1 1 1 2.1 First version
Mar 1989[2] 1.01 1 1 2.1 Introduces backups on save, and draw rectangles from their centre
Apr 1989[2] 1.02 1 1 2.1 IBM PIF file format support
Jul 1989[2] 1.10 1 1 2.1 102 new fonts
Feb 1990[2] 1.11 1 1 2.1 AutoCAD DXF import/export support
Sep 1991[1] 2 1, 2 1, 2 3.0 Envelope tool (for distorting text or objects using a primary shape), Blend (for morphing shapes), Extrusion (for simulating perspective and volume in objects) and Perspective (to distort objects along X and Y axes). CorelDraw for Unix also became available.[3][4]
15 May 1992[5] 3 1, 2, 3 2, 3 3.0, 3.1 (preferred) Included Corel PHOTO-PAINT (for bitmap editing), CorelSHOW (for creating on-screen presentations), CorelCHART (for graphic charts), Mosaic and CorelTRACE (for vectorizing bitmaps). The inclusion of this software was the precedent for the actual graphic suites.[6] CorelDraw for Unix also became available.[7][8]
20 May 1993[9] 4 1, 2, 3, 4 3, 4 3.1 PHOTO-PAINT (for bitmap editing), CorelSHOW (for creating on-screen presentations), CorelCHART (for graphic charts), CorelMOVE for animation, Mosaic and CorelTRACE (for vectorizing bitmaps). Multi-page capabilities, Powerlines, support for graphic tablets, Clone tool, elastic node editing, Envelope tool.
27 May 1994[10] 5 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 3, 4, 5 3.1 This is the last version which was made for, and works on Windows 3.x. Corel Ventura was included in the suite (and then sold as a separate program). It was a desktop publishing application akin to PageMaker, Quark Express, or InDesign.
24 Aug 1995[11] 6 3, 4, 5, 6 5, 6 95 This is the first version which was made exclusively for 32-bit Windows. New features were customizable interface, Polygon, Spiral, Knife and Eraser tools. Corel Memo, Corel Presents, Corel Motion 3D, Corel Depth, Corel Multimedia Manager, Corel Font Master and Corel DREAM (for 3D modelling) were included in the suite.
8 Oct 1996[12] 7 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 5, 6, 7 95, NT 4 Context-sensitive Property bar, Print Preview with Zoom and Pan options, Scrapbook (for viewing a drag-and-dropping graphic objects), Publish to HTML option, Draft and Enhanced display options, Interactive Fill and Blend tools, Transparency tools, Natural Pen tool, Find & Replace wizard, Convert Vector to Bitmap option (inside Draw), Spell checker, Thesaurus and Grammar checker. The suite included Corel Scan and Corel Barista (a Java-based document exchange format).
27 Oct 1997[13] 8 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 6, 7, 8 95, NT 4 Digger selection, Docker windows, Interactive Distortion, 3D, Envelope and tools, Realistic Dropshadow tool, interactive color mixing, color palette editor, guidelines as objects, custom-sized pages, duotone support. Corel Versions was included in the suite.
31 Aug 1999[14] 9 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 95, 98, NT 4 Mesh fill tool (for complex color filling), Artistic Media tool, Publish to PDF features, embedded ICC color profiles, Multiple On-screen Color Palettes and Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications 6 support. The suite included Canto Cumulus LE, a piece of software for media management.
13 Nov 2000[15] 10 10 † 10 ‡ 98, Me, NT 4, 2000 CorelR.A.V.E. (for vector animation), Perfect Shapes, Web graphics tools (for creating interactive elements such as buttons), Page sorter, multilingual document support, navigator window. Open, save, import and export in SVG format.[16]
  1 Aug 2002[17] 11 11 † 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 98, Me, NT 4, 2000, XP Symbols library, image slicing (for web design), pressure-sensitive vector brushes, 3-point drawing tools.
10 Feb 2004[18] 12 12 † 12 ‡ 2000, XP Dynamic guides, Smart Drawing tools, Export to MS Office or Word option, Virtual Segment Delete tool, Unicode text support.
17 Jan 2006[19] X3 (13) X3 † 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, X3 2000, 2003, XP (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit only) Double click Crop tool (the first vector software able to crop groups of vectors and bitmap images at the same time), Smart fill tool, Chamfer/Fillet/Scallop/Emboss tool, Image Adjustment Lab. Trace became integrated inside Draw under the name PowerTRACE.
22 Jan 2008[20] X4 (14) 7 to X4 † 7 to X4 XP, Vista, 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) Whatthefont font identification service linked inside CorelDraw, ConceptShare, Table tool, independent page layers, live text formatting, support for RAW camera files.[21]
23 Feb 2010[22] X5 (15) 7 to X5 7 to X5 XP, Vista, 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) Built-in content organizer (CorelCONNECT), cd, web graphics and animation tools, multi-core performance improvement, digital content (professional fonts, clip arts, and photos), object hinting, pixel view, enhanced Mesh tool with transparency options, added touch support, and new supported file formats.[23] It has developed Transformation, which makes multiple copies of a single object.

For the first time, OpenType versions of Helvetica, Frutiger, Futura and Garamond #3 font families (32 fonts total) from Linotype foundry are included instead of the Bitstream counterparts. All but Garamond are in OpenType Pro format.[24]

20 Mar 2012[25] X6 (16) 7 to X6 7 to X6 XP, Vista, 7 (32-bit, 64-bit) Key new features and enhancements: (a) Advanced OpenType Support (b) New Custom-built Colour Harmonies (c) New Native 64-bit and Enhanced Multi-Core Support (d) New Creative Vector Shaping tools (e) New Styles Engine and Docker (f) New Corel Website Creator X6 application (g) New Smart Carver (h) Improved Page Layout Capabilities (i) Redesigned Object Properties Docker

† CorelDraw 10 to X4 can open files of version 3 and later, but certain features may not be supported.
‡ The list of file formats that Corel draw 10 to X4 can write may not be complete in this table.

Features

Supported platforms

CorelDRAW was originally developed for Microsoft Windows 3 and currently runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.[26] The current version, X6, was released on 20 March 2012.

Versions for Mac OS and Mac OS X were at one time available, but due to poor sales these were discontinued. The last port for Linux was version 9 (released in 2000, it didn't run natively; instead, it used a modified version of Wine to run) and the last version for OS X was version 11 (released in 2001). Also, up until version 5, CorelDRAW was developed for Windows 3.1x, CTOS and OS/2.

Problems installing or running older versions of Corel Draw under Windows 7 may be overcome by using Microsoft's "Troubleshoot Compatibility" — right-click on the setup.exe file on the installation disk to select this facility (tested on version 12 with Windows 7, where previous attempts without Microsoft "Troubleshoot Compatibility" failed).

Characteristic features

Several innovations to vector-based illustration originated with CorelDRAW: a node-edit tool that operates differently on different objects, fit text-to-path, stroke-before-fill, quick fill/stroke color selection palettes, perspective projections, mesh fills and complex gradient fills.[citation needed]

CorelDRAW differentiates itself from its competitors in a number of ways:

The first is its positioning as a graphics suite, rather than just a vector graphics program. A full range of editing tools allow the user to adjust contrast, color balance, change the format from RGB to CMYK, add special effects such as vignettes and special borders to bitmaps. Bitmaps can also be edited more extensively using Corel PhotoPaint, opening the bitmap directly from CorelDRAW and returning to the program after saving. It also allows a laser to cut out any drawings.

CorelDRAW is capable of handling multiple pages along with multiple master layers. Multipage documents are easy to create and edit and the Corel print engine allows for booklet and other imposition so even simple printers can be used for producing finished documents. One of the useful features for single and multi-page documents is the ability to create linked text boxes across documents that can be resized and moved while the text itself resets and flows through the boxes. Useful for creating and editing multi-article newsletters etc.

Smaller items, like business cards, invitations etc., can be designed to their final page size and imposed to the printer's sheet size for cost-effective printing. An additional print-merge feature (using a spreadsheet or text merge file) allows full personalization for many things like numbered raffle tickets, individual invitations, membership cards and more.

CorelDRAW's competitors include Adobe Illustrator and Xara Photo & Graphic Designer. Although all of these are vector-based illustration programs, the user experience differs greatly between them. While these programs will read their native file types and vice versa, the translation is rarely perfect. CorelDRAW can open Adobe PDF files: Adobe PageMaker, Microsoft Publisher and Word, and other programs can print documents to PDF using the Adobe PDFWriter printer driver, which CorelDRAW can then open and edit every aspect of the original layout and design. CorelDRAW can also open PowerPoint Presentations and other Microsoft Office formats with little or no problem.[27]

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite

File:CorelCapture.PNG
Corel Capture X4

Over time, additional components were developed or acquired and bundled with CorelDRAW. The list of bundled packages usually changes somewhat from one release to the next, though there are several mainstays that have remained in the package for many releases now, including PowerTRACE (a bitmap to vector graphic converter), PHOTO-PAINT (a bitmap graphic editor), and CAPTURE (a screen capture utility).

The current version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 (version 16), contains the following packages:

  • CorelDRAW X6, an intuitive vector-illustration and page-layout application
  • Corel PHOTO-PAINT X6, an image-editing application
  • Corel PowerTRACE X6, a utility to convert bitmaps into editable vector graphics
  • Corel CONNECT, a full-screen browser to search the suite’s digital content
  • Corel CAPTURE X6, a screen capture utility
  • Corel Website Creator X6, new website creation software

CDR file format

CorelDRAW file format
Filename extension
.cdr[28][29]
Developed byCorel Corporation
Type of formatVector graphics, raster graphics
Free format?no

CDR file format is a proprietary file format developed by Corel Corporation and primarily used for vector graphic drawings. There is no publicly available CDR file format specification.[30][31]

Other CorelDRAW file formats include CorelDRAW Compressed (CDX), CorelDRAW Template (CDT)[29] and Corel Presentation Exchange (CMX).[32]

In December 2006 the sK1 open source project team started to reverse-engineer the CDR format.[33] The results and the first working snapshot of the CDR importer were presented at the Libre Graphics Meeting 2007 conference taking place in May 2007 in Montreal (Canada).[34] Later on the team parsed the structure of other Corel formats with the help of the open source CDR Explorer.[35] As of 2008, the sK1 project claims to have the best import support for CorelDRAW file formats among open source software programs. The sK1 project developed also the UniConvertor, a command line open source tool which supports conversion from CorelDRAW ver.7-X4 formats (CDR/CDT/CCX/CDRX/CMX) to other formats. UniConvertor is also used in Inkscape and Scribus open source projects as an external tool for CorelDRAW files importing.[36][37][38]

In 2007, Microsoft blocked CDR file format in Microsoft Office 2003 with the release of Service Pack 3 for Office 2003.[39][40] Microsoft later apologized for inaccurately blaming the CDR file format and other formats for security problems in Microsoft Office and released some tools for solving this problem.[41]

In 2012 the joint LibreOffice/re-lab team implemented libcdr, a library for reading CDR files from v1 to the currently latest X6 version and CMX files.[42] The library has extensive support for shapes and their properties, including support for color management and spot colors, and has a basic support for text.[43] The library provides a built-in converter to SVG, and a converter to OpenDocument is provided by writerperfect package. The libcdr library is expected to be used in LibreOffice 3.6[44], and thanks to public API it can be freely used by other applications.

Support in other applications

Main article: Comparison of vector graphics editors

CDR file format import is partially or fully supported in following applications:

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b "A Short History of CorelDRAW", at corel.com, retrieved 11 Jan 2011. (PDF version)
  2. ^ a b c d Gerard Metrailler, "A little history of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite", Fri, Oct 26 2007 at coreldraw.com/blogs/
  3. ^ Lisa Picarille, "CorelDraw to be ported to Sun, Dec HP Unix, InfoWorld, 11 Mar 1991, page 27
  4. ^ "New Products: Unix", Computerworld, 21 Sep 1992, page 58
  5. ^ "Corel Announces 'CorelDraw 3.0'", May 15, 1992 /PRNewswire/ via www.highbeam.com
  6. ^ Heck, Mike (July 13, 1992). "CorelDraw 3 moves faster, integrates modules". InfoWorld. 14 (28). San Mateo, CA: InfoWorld Publishing: pp. 66–67. ISSN 0199-6649. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  7. ^ "Index of ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/CorelDRAW/DRAW_Unix/" at corel.com
  8. ^ "New Products", Computerworld, 30 Aug 1993, page 55
  9. ^ "CorelDraw 3 will remain on market as low-price option", InfoWorld, April 19, 1993. (Anticipated date)
  10. ^ "Testers praise CorelDraw 5", InfoWorld, April 18, 1995.
  11. ^ "Corel Corporation Begins Shipping CorelDRAW 6 Suite for Windows 95", August 24, 1995, at corel.com via archive.org
  12. ^ "Corel Corporation Announces the Launch of CorelDRAW 7", October 8, 1996, at corel.com via archive.org
  13. ^ "Corel Corporation Launches CorelDRAW 8", October 27, 1997, at corel.com via archive.org
  14. ^ "Corel Launches CorelDRAW 9 Premium Color Edition", August 31, 1999, at corel.com via archive.org
  15. ^ "CorelDRAW 10 Graphics Suite Available Now", Nov. 13, 2000, Corel Press Release via findarticles.com
  16. ^ Troidl, David (2007). "SVG – From CorelDRAW to Your Browser". Graphics Unleashed. Retrieved 2009-08-04.
  17. ^ "CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 11 Now Available", Aug 1, 2002, at corel.com via archive.org
  18. ^ "CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 Marks a New Era of Intelligent Graphics Software", Corel press release, via Archive.org
  19. ^ "Corel Introduces CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3", Jan 17-06, at corel.com. Full text at hexus.net
  20. ^ "CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Unveiled Today", January 22, 2008, at Corel.com
  21. ^ Arah, Tom (January 2008). "Product Reviews: CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4". PC Pro. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
  22. ^ "CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 Delivers More Versatility, Content and Color Tools for Graphics Professionals", February 23, 2010 at corel.com
  23. ^ "CorelDRAW X5 Whats New: CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5". Corel Corporation. February 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
  24. ^ Iconic Fonts from Monotype Imaging Part of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5
  25. ^ "Corel Releases CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6", March 20, 2012 at corel.com
  26. ^ System Requirements — CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5
  27. ^ recipester.org
  28. ^ "Supported file formats : CorelDRAW (CDR) - CorelDRAW (CDR) technical notes". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  29. ^ a b "CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3 Supported File Formats". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  30. ^ Corel Corporation. "Corel Draw file format". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  31. ^ ".CDR File Extension". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  32. ^ "Corel Presentation Exchange (CMX) Technical Notes". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  33. ^ a b "sK1 illustration program - The history of sK1". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  34. ^ "Libre Graphics Meeting 2007 - Friday May 4". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  35. ^ "CDR explorer". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  36. ^ a b "Can I open/import *.cdr (Corel Draw Vector drawing file) files in Inkscape?". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  37. ^ "UniConvertor at Sourceforge.net". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  38. ^ a b "sK1 - UniConvertor - universal vector graphics translator". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  39. ^ "Information about certain file types that are blocked after you install Office 2003 Service Pack 3". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  40. ^ "CorelDRAW .CDR file format and Microsoft Office 2003 SP3". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  41. ^ "Microsoft admits to 'mistakes' in Office format fracas". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  42. ^ "Support for Corel DRAW files in free software gets another chance". Libre Graphics World. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
  43. ^ "LibreOffice CorelDraw Import filter - text support hatches out". Fridrich Strba. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
  44. ^ "Libcdr resurrects Waldo, gets basic spot colors support". Libre Graphics World. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
  45. ^ "Supported file formats in Illustrator CS4 and CS5". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  46. ^ "Adobe Freehand MX 11.0 - Minimum System Requirements". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  47. ^ "Visio2000: File Formats That Can Be Imported into Visio". Retrieved 2010-12-01. You can import the following file formats into your Visio drawings: CorelDRAW! Drawing File versions 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0 (.cdr), Corel Clipart (.cmx)
  48. ^ "What you won't find in Microsoft Office Visio 2003". Retrieved 2010-12-01. The following file formats and converters are no longer supported:CorelDRAW! 3,0-7.0, Corel Clipart Format, CMX
  49. ^ "UniConvertor 1.1.5 review". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  50. ^ "Xara Designer - Import and Export". Retrieved 2010-12-01.
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