The suite includes 10 graphics tools, ranging from drawing and painting applications to font- and media-management utilities. The disparate tools are comprehensive, but could be better integrated. As always, the program supplies templates and clip art galore for business and home users, and it has the depth to satisfy desktop publishing pros.
The new animation program, Corel R.A.V.E. (Real Animated Vector Effects), has a surprisingly simple timeline interface that even novices can use to animate text and graphics. You can control object properties (such as position, size, transparency, and blending) over time and save the resulting animations in several formats, including Flash for the Web. R.A.V.E. is also great for creating Web buttons.
Many existing features of Corel-DRAW have been extended or im-proved. Version 10 can support multiple languages in text boxes, exchange information with industry-leading CAD and vector illustration programs, produce improved PDF and PNG output files, and use plug-ins from the popular graphics utility Kai's Power Tools. The user interface also improves flexibility with features such as Visual Basic scripting, customisable controls and the ability to track and undo changes.
My favourite feature in the beta version of CorelDRAW 10 that I looked at is the new Image Optimizer, which helps you reduce Web file sizes with visual previews of various compression schemes.
If you own an earlier edition of CorelDRAW and need the new Web-production features, by all means upgrade to version 10. Print-oriented people should look a little more closely to see if the slightly steep $665.95 upgrade cost is justified.
CorelDRAW 10
Price: $1370.95, upgrade $665.95
Supplier: Corel Corporation
Phone: 1800 658 850
URL: www.corel.com/draw10
