Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12

There is much more to graphic design than perfecting paths in Illustrator or pushing pixels in Photoshop. Although Corel may have been in Adobe’s shadow for some time, especially in the UK, there are alternatives – Painter IX and CorelDRAW, for example.

Corel DESIGNER is another. Sure, you can create precision artwork using Adobe software, but for more complex work, DESIGNER’s ability to create technically accurate designs that pull on the strengths of AutoCAD without losing the creativity of Illustrator are a key advantage. So what can Corel’s core users expect to see in version 12?

As the name suggests, the suite is a group of apps based around a central title. Previously, Corel TRACE – a bitmap-to-vector conversion package – was included, although the new version now boasts screen capture capabilities through Corel CAPTURE and powerful bitmap features through PHOTO-PAINT (which has been borrowed straight from CorelDRAW).

An inevitable raft of templates and industry-standard symbols are included, but technically confident users can draw on the inclusion of Microsoft Visual Basic to automate repetitive tasks or modify the environment of both the Designer and PHOTO-PAINT applications.

On a more practical level, a new B-Spline tool provides a simplified approach to creating more organic curved content. It’s complemented by enhancements to the gravitysnapping feature, which helps to position objects accurately against each other, and the dynamic guides, which provide visual clues as to the availability of object centres, nodes, quadrants and text baselines.

Applications of this nature aren’t employed for bitmap or texture fills, but with the addition of PHOTOPAINT such elements have certainly been improved. Traditional hatch fills have also been added, which use vector principals to reflect different types of materials.

Language packs provide dynamic language switching, enhanced Unicode support ensures copy is displayed correctly, regardless of the language or operating system in which it was created, and doublebyte formatting enables you to apply Asian fonts directly from the Property Bar.

Graphic support is extensive – all the leading industry standard vector and bitmap formats, including PDF, AI and PSD, in addition to the more common generic variants such as EPS and TIFF, are available. You can also work with AutoCAD DXF, DWG, SVG and CGM v4.

Corel DESIGNER isn’t going to tempt you away from your existing software, but it does a good job of creating accurate, technical illustrations that are reliable and usable within various industries. The suite’s powerful bitmap editing tools and functional screen capture options mean you’ll be hard pressed to find a more creative package that offers accurate results without compromising on creativity. 

Tell us what you think of this product on the forum: http://forum.computerarts.co.uk