| Having been purchased halfway through last year and now a private company owned by Vector Capital, it's been an eventful 18 months since the last version of Corel's popular suite was released. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 is one of the first major products released by the new Corel, and Vector have clearly pushed for a rationalization and expansion for the target direction of the suite. As well as new tools that will be great for all users, version 12 adds specific features for office users and drops support for the Mac and Windows 9x. A Suite Deal 
CorelTRACE, although not updated for this version of the suite, continues to
be an outstanding application for converting bitmaps to vector graphics.
Corel have always packed a lot into their Graphics Suite and version 12 continues this tradition. Along with the main DRAW app, you get PHOTO-PAINT for bitmap editing, R.A.V.E. for vector animation, TRACE for converting bitmap to vector graphics, CAPTURE for grabbing stills and videos from Windows, a new version of Bitstream Font Navigator for managing fonts, plus the usual fonts and clipart. A content manual is included for new installations but not in upgrade packages as there are few changes from the version 11 clipart collection. New to this version is a good quality lynda.com video-based training CD-ROM that clearly demonstrates a selection of the suite's key features. CorelDraw 12 
CorelDRAW's fully customizable workspace has new tools and tweaked
dockers that rollup properly and can even be collapsed while docked.
DRAW 12 also offers to import your v11 workspace!
By many users, CorelDraw is used for just about everything — from logos and illustrations to page layout and even converting graphics in weird formats for use in their other apps. Draw is designed primarily for vector illustration but easily handles shorter graphics-intensive page layouts. It also ships with dozens of import/export filters including a built-in PDF engine for easily outputting Draw documents for online distribution or professional printing. 
CorelDRAW's fully customizable interface has always been a big plus,
and a new MS Office preset will help office users feel right at home.
DRAW also provides one of the easiest learning curves of a professional vector graphics application. This is helped along by a fully customizable interface with presets that cause DRAW to look and feel like Adobe Illustrator or a Microsoft Office application. You can drag menu options and buttons around, and right-click to set keyboard shortcuts. For consistency, workspaces can also be transferred between computers via email or saved to disk for sharing over a network. 
Corel's famous interactive tools mean updates are live
and editable in the main drawing area
DRAW is famous for doing things onscreen in real time. Effects are added by clicking and dragging an object with one of DRAW's interactive tools. The effects remain editable and settings are made via a context-sensitive property bar or by sliders on the object itself. What's new? 
CorelDRAW 12's Export for Office makes it easy for newbies to get
graphics into PowerPoint and Word. Experienced users can get the same
result by exporting to WPG, PNG or BMP in any recent version of DRAW.
As suggested by the suite's title, CorelDRAW is the main application users buy the suite for. And these users will be pleased to hear that most of the development resources for the last 18 months have been spent on DRAW. In fact, it feels like users can expect to find more exciting new tools, features and tweaks than ever before. What's more, the numerous updates are likely to genuinely enhance your workflow. Office/corporate users will be pleased to find new compatibility features that make it easier to get projects in and out of DRAW. 
The eye-dropper tool in DRAW 12 has a new Object Attributes setting that can copy all properties from one object to another. In the above shot I have copied the transparency, fill and size from the square to the circle with one click.
The big new features of CorelDRAW 12 are Unicode support, dynamic guides and Grafigo's shape recognition via a new Smart Drawing Tool. Corel have also thrown in massive updates to symbol and snapping features, a new onscreen text rendering engine, an overhauled eye-dropper tool, and a multitude of updates to import/export features. 
Snapping is easy and powerful in Draw 12 — drag a source
snap point and it will snap to any destination snap point
on another object. Easy!
Users have asked Corel to fix object snapping for a long time and in response Corel have gone all out, bringing the power of Designer's Gravity Snap to Draw — but without the annoying keyword shortcuts. There are 9 different snap points including text baseline, edge and node, and to help users know what is snapping to what, there are optional popup hints. Simply move the mouse to the source snap point, and drag an object over a destination snap point. Draw's object snap is now fantastic, turning one of Draw's weaknesses into a major strength. 
Dynamic guides extend out of other objects' snap points allowing
users to align objects without reverting to the align and distribute
dialog or manually creating normal guidelines.
New object snap makes positioning objects next to each other easy, but there are times when you want objects to be in line with another object, but not snapped directly to it. Dynamic guides provide this functionality, allowing users to draw temporary guides while positioning an object. As with object snap, a user drags an object by a snap point and drags it over another object's snap point to pull out a temporary guide. This is much simpler than it sounds and means you may never need to open the align dialogue box again. Further, dynamic guides can become temporary rulers — optionally including snap ticks along the length of the guide. 
Grafigo's Smart Drawing tool has been added to DRAW 12, but with a few
tricks of it's own. In the above sketch, DRAW 12 has straightened
my lines but also identified that I intended the graphic to be
symmetrical and adjusted accordingly. However, symmetry
doesn't work with curves which limits its use. Impressive none-the-less.
If you have seen Corel Grafigo in action you will love the way rough sketches are turned into workable objects as you sketch. Corel have pulled this tool into DRAW 12. Sketch out a rough shape using a tablet or mouse and Draw will guess the shape you intended. DRAW 12 recognizes straight lines, arrows, parallelograms, ellipses, triangles, rectangles and more — as you sketch. This tool is particularly useful for tablet users. A printed design can be digitized into an editable DRAW document much faster and more accurately than before — manually trace over the graphic with your tablet pen and the Smart Drawing tool will convert common shapes as you sketch. 
One of the items from wish list is granted with DRAW 12 —
The welcome screen lists the most recently opened files.
There are also tweaks from users' wish lists such as bug fixes to convert outline to object and a list of the most recently opened files appearing on the welcome screen. Corel have brought in Designer's Virtual Segment Delete tool which speeds up curve editing, and my personal favorite: DRAW 12 recognizes a text object's baseline when aligning and snapping which means text objects are far easier to position correctly. A Broken Trend? 
If you rely on the line connector tool to draw flowcharts,
wait until the service pack — the new snapping features
seem to have mangled the line connector tool.
Unfortunately, it's not all good news. For several versions Corel has had a tendency to break existing features with each new release. CorelDRAW 12 continues this trend with new problems of its own introduced to existing features. - The Interactive Connector tool, used to connect shapes in flowcharts, can no longer correctly connect rectangles together.
- Removing formatting from pasted text (a feature first introduced in CorelDRAW 11) has problems when the text is copied from a table, and in some situations pastes nothing at all.
- The CTRL constrain key no longer behaves as in old versions of Draw. In Draw 12 the position constrain angle is now locked to the rotate constrain angle. Customization of the position constrain angle is a good new option, but users cannot get Draw 12 to work as in previous versions. The effect of this problem is lessened by the new dynamic guides.
- In recent versions of Draw you can apply many of the Image | Adjust filters to vector objects. Corel have accidentally broken the Hue, Saturation and Lightness filter when applying to vector objects. Fortunately the Contrast, Lightness and Intensity filter still works.
Corel has promised to evaluate these and other issues for correction in a future service pack. If you never plan on using any of the features above get Draw 12 now however, if these issues do affect you, it might be worthwhile waiting for the service pack before upgrading — or at least keeping DRAW 11 installed at the same time. Corel PHOTO-PAINT 12 
PHOTO-PAINT inherits DRAW's new style of dockers and other
suite-wide updates, but offers little new features of its own.
Although sometimes treated as a "bonus" app, PHOTO-PAINT is about as powerful as an image editor needs to be, and can be compared to the likes of Photoshop (indeed many users prefer it to other images apps). As with DRAW, PHOTO-PAINT has exclusive features of it's own that you won't find in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. For example, in the above shot, the blue lace-like patterns have been drawn with PHOTO-PAINT's orbit features. With these turned on, dozens of brushes whiz around your current cursor point as you paint, creating all sorts of piping effects. PHOTO-PAINT also has built-in support for multi-frame images including QuickTime movies and animated GIFs, and like most apps in the suite has a fully customizable workspace. In version 12, you can now link macros to toolbar buttons, a great enhancement for power users. 
The touch-up brush works magically to remove small
blemishes from photos. For larger touch-up jobs the
brush becomes less useful, blurring detail from the photo.
Fans will find few new features in this release. PHOTO-PAINT 12 does benefit from a number of suite-wide features such as Unicode support when entering text, accurate rendering of text onscreen as you type, and enhanced dockers. Users will find a single new toolbox button — the touch-up brush. This applies the Dust and Scratch filter to an image as you paint. The brush effect works well when removing blemishes from areas of flat color, however applying to larger areas causes loss of detail. PHOTO-PAINT 12 continues to lack the correction ease of Photoshop's heal brush. If you are an existing user, expect to find a handful of bugs and frustrations continued from recent earlier versions. Anti-aliasing is still applied while transforming an object so PHOTO-PAINT slows when transforming and positioning high-res objects. There is still no way to accurately scale an object to an exact size while maintaining the object's current aspect ratio. Pressing the [ENTER] key still cancels the Edit | Fill dialog box instead of applying it. And the crop tool doesn't always crop as it should. That said, PHOTO-PAINT does remain a powerful and capable image editor and will be a pleasant surprise for most new users. It is well integrated with DRAW, loads layered Photoshop files with ease and for most work is zippy and functional. However, few existing users will find this new version a compelling reason to buy the v12 suite. Hopefully PHOTO-PAINT 13 will be as feature-packed an upgrade as version 11 was. Corel R.A.V.E. 3 
R.A.V.E. is based on DRAW and hence looks very much like DRAW.
The timeline at the base of the main window allows you to animate
objects in the document.
R.A.V.E. is Corel's vector animation package. Like Flash or Live Motion, frames consisting of vector objects can be animated easily to create a variety of projects. Additionally, R.A.V.E. includes tweening, a feature that allows the user to create keyframes and automatically generate the in-between frames. For example, by defining a square keyframe and a circle keyframe, R.A.V.E. will morph the square into the circle. The final animation can be published directly to Flash format (SWF) or exported to several other formats including animated GIF and QuickTime. R.A.V.E. is based on DRAW and therefore includes most of DRAW's tools and features, including the new Smart Drawing Tool and Dynamic Guides. R.A.V.E. is great for quickly creating slideshows and intros or navigation for websites. It includes around 10 simple interactive behaviors which allow navigation to web URLs, movement between frames in the movie and miscellaneous functions such as playing sounds. R.A.V.E. 3 inherits DRAW 12's new features. This is exciting because the enhancements made to symbols mean you can create libraries of symbols and share them between your various documents. In R.A.V.E. 3 symbols can be animated (sprites) so you could, for example, store an animated logo in a sprite and insert instances in every R.A.V.E. project you create. Also, new dynamic guides and object snap work with onion skinning features to help create frame-by-frame animations. Existing users should upgrade for the new symbols features alone. R.A.V.E. has problems with the final file size of Flash animations — Flash will generally perform faster and output a far smaller sized file. It may in fact be impossible for Corel to reduce their Flash file sizes as Macromedia design and create the Flash format secretly and only reveal certain details to the likes of Corel. R.A.V.E. is still a worthwhile app and can create some pretty darn cool effects. You can animate 3D extrusions, text along a path and interactive transparency far easier than generating similar effects in Flash. If you are a fan of the Corel way of doing things, and don't mind the hassle of importing R.A.V.E.'s SWF files into your copy of Flash to optimize file size, R.A.V.E. will be a great addition to your graphics toolbox. Conclusion This 12th release of the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite maintains Corel's power-packed tradition and from first looks is a solid release and ready for most production work. DRAW in particular adds one of the biggest haul of cutting-edge new tools and efficiency enhancing new features we have seen from Corel. Most users are going to love what Corel have added here and easily find a thing or two that will enhance up their workflow and justify the upgrade. That said, PHOTO-PAINT 12 isn't the upgrade users needed it to be. PHOTO-PAINT 11.2 might be a more accurate name. The touchup brush is useful for some touch-up tasks, and PHOTO-PAINT remains a powerful tool, but current users shouldn't look here for their upgrade justification. R.A.V.E. 3 grabs and adapts the new tools added to DRAW. Although it offers little new tools of it's own, features such as the sharing of symbols mean this is a great upgrade for current users. File size bloat remains an issue, but with this version Corel confirms they are committed to making R.A.V.E. a workable polished tool. Aside from a few broken tools that will inhibit some users, DRAW 12 makes this new version of the suite a must have. And with new cheaper pricing for both new installs and upgrades, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12 is far cheaper than a single Adobe application. More information including tours of the key new features and a trial version is available at Corel's website.
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