CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 review

During the 1990s CorelDRAW dominated the world of PC-based graphics and design, but the mantle has since passed to Adobe’s Creative Suite. There’s still a strong core of users that value Corel’s more streamlined and affordable approach to design, however, and it’s those people Corel is targeting with this latest release.

With that in mind, it isn’t surprising that there’s little that’s obviously different about the new version. There’s no big interface overhaul, no flash new splash screen and no spangly new look. But under the hood, there’s plenty going on.

The first sign of this is the File | New command, which has been completely overhauled. Instead of simply dumping you on a blank page, it now fires up a dialog in which you can set various parameters, including the document’s eventual destination. Leaving the destination at its print-oriented default gives you a choice of preset page sizes and, crucially, sets the new Primary Colour Mode parameter to CMYK.

Choose the alternative Web destination and CorelDRAW not only sets the Primary Colour Mode to RGB but also switches on its new Pixels preview mode. The big advantage of this is that it lets you see exactly how artwork will be anti-aliased on export, helping you produce crisper results. Another feature that helps you produce better online output is X5’s enhanced Export for Web command. This lets you compare different export settings and manage transparency and colour palettes from a single dialog.

Colour management

The Primary Colour Mode is all you need to think about when managing colour locally, but where accuracy and consistency is crucial throughout your workflow – when producing printed material for commercial use, for example – you need to take colour management seriously.

And with X5, Corel has finally bitten the bullet, offering industry-standard, Adobe-style colour management, instead of the idiosyncratic colour management system of previous versions.

As such, colour management in X5 is now profile-based, which has the important benefit of providing a good idea of what your final colours will look like as you work. This is handled with X5’s new Colour Proof Settings docker, where you can simulate colours onscreen, based on a chosen output profile, such as coated or uncoated print.

You can also export or print your document based on the current simulation so that your client or boss doesn’t expect colours that the final output medium simply can’t produce.

Format support

It’s not just in terms of colour management that Corel acknowledges Adobe’s dominance. CorelDRAW has always been able to work with a huge range of file formats, and has extended that again here to over 60, but the focus in X5 is on much deeper support for the main Adobe formats.

Alongside new level 3-based PostScript EPS import, CorelDRAW X5 now supports Photoshop CS4 PSD files complete with adjustment layers and masks, and Illustrator CS4 AI files complete with artboards and graduated transparency. The application’s PDF support has also been updated with support for the latest Acrobat 9 format, while the Collect for Output command now defaults to exporting a PDF as a digital master rather than sending the original CDR.

There’s a danger that this sort of high-end power adds complexity, which in turn could alienate CorelDRAW’s non-professional users. To counter this, Corel has worked on making the program more friendly all round, with improved descriptive help in dialog boxes and more explanatory tool tips. In addition, alongside its existing online help and Hints docker, Corel now supports X5 with a full printed guide and over two hours of video tutorials.

There are almost 30 docker windows to get to grips with, so you still couldn’t call CorelDRAW X5 intuitive, but the learning curve and whole working approach is certainly far easier than Adobe Illustrator’s.

Additions and improvements

Many of X5’s core tools have been enhanced. With the Rectangle tool you can now control rounding, scalloping and chamfering of corners direct from the Property bar, and also set whether these should be fixed or scaled when the rectangle is resized.

The two-point Line tool enables you to force the path perpendicular or tangential to an existing object, while the new B-Spline tool lets you add smooth curves via control points. For creative work, the Art Media tool now offers dozens of preset brush styles, while for absolute precision when drawing and positioning objects and nodes, you can use the new Object Co-Ordinates docker.

One of CorelDRAW’s most popular features – PowerTrace, which allows you automatically to convert a bitmap into an outlined or centre-lined drawing – has also been reworked for X5. With complete control over corner handling, colour merging and overlap removal, PowerTrace delivers smoother and more easily editable results then before. And for centreline tracings, the new Join Lines docker lets you quickly tidy up paths by automatically extending broken lines to bridge gaps between them.

Once you’ve drawn or traced the shapes that make up your drawing you need to control each object’s fill. CorelDRAW has built up plenty of formatting power over the years, including gradient, pattern and texture fills but, in expert hands, the most naturalistic shading is delivered by gradient meshes. This is especially true now that X5 has simplified its default mesh, enabled transparency as well as colour handling and added an option to smooth away hard edges automatically.

The simple flat colour fill has also seen improvements. The Colour Eyedropper tool now provides onscreen feedback of CMYK and RGB/Hex values as you hover your mouse over drawings or the desktop. Even better, when you click or drag, the Eyedropper now automatically switches modes ready to apply the sampled individual colour.

Meanwhile, for managing groups of colours, CorelDRAW X5 adds a handy new Document Palette, which automatically lists all the colours applied to the current drawing. This palette is saved in the file itself and makes it much easier to apply colours consistently throughout and across projects.

New tools

X5 has done a reasonable job of enhancing CorelDRAW’s existing functionality, but it’s desperately crying out for some brand new power to catch the eye. The new feature that Corel hopes will fill this role is Corel Connect. This acts both as a simple standalone application and as an integrated docker window, allowing you to browse or search through CorelDRAW’s large collection of clip-art drawings and photos, and then quickly incorporate them into your work.

At this point longstanding users may well be slightly bemused, remembering that CorelDRAW X3 used to provide a similar feature that was dropped in X4. The Scrapbook docker allowed you to browse Corel content held online, and was arguably a more modern solution. However, Connect scores with its ability to search local drives and networks for non-Corel content, its optional standalone operation and the Tray panel that lets you collect together potential options before deciding which ones to use.

Useful though Connect is for quickly knocking up eye-catching artwork, it is neither as new nor as powerful as Corel would like to make out, and it’s typical of this release as a whole. Rather than breaking new creative ground, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 focuses on developing and making the most of existing content and features.

It’s still a major advance on the disappointing X4 release and there’s no doubt many new users will be better off – both financially and productively – choosing Corel over Adobe. However, Corel’s existing users will quickly spot that CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 delivers few compelling reasons to upgrade.

Details
Software subcategory	Graphics/design software
Operating system support
Operating system Windows Vista supported?	yes
Operating system Windows XP supported?	yes
Operating system Linux supported?	no
Operating system Mac OS X supported?	no