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 Photo-Paint, and other graphics-related programs.
The latest version is designated X7, and was released in March 2014.
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, a font manager and
several other pieces of software, it was also part of the first all-in-one graphics suite.
Features by version
Features Supported platforms
CorelDraw was originally developed for Microsoft Windows 3 and currently runs on Windows XP,
Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.
The current version, X7, was released on 27 March 2014.
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 and the last version for OS X was version 11.
Also, up until version 5, CorelDraw was developed for Windows 3.1x, CTOS and OS/2.
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.
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 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.
CorelDraw Graphics Suite
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, Photo-Paint, and Capture.
Below is a list of the applications and utilities included in the latest version of CorelDRAW
Graphics Suite: Applications
CorelDRAW X7, a vector-illustration and page-layout application
Corel PHOTO-PAINT X7, an image-editing application Corel PowerTRACE X7, a utility that is embedded
in CorelDRAW and allows you to trace bitmap images and convert them to editable vector
graphics Corel CONNECT X7, a full-screen browser that
allows you to browse and search for content that is available on the Content Exchange
or on the websites of online content providers Corel Website Creator, an application that
helps you create websites and design web pages Corel CAPTURE, a utility that allows you to
capture images from your computer screen Supporting applications
Barcode Wizard, a wizard that lets you generate bar codes
Duplexing Wizard, a wizard that helps you optimize your work for printing two-sided
documents Bitstream Font Navigator, a font manager that
helps you manage fonts PhotoZoom Pro 3, a plug-in that lets registered
users enlarge digital images and export them from Corel PHOTO-PAINT
WhatTheFont, an online font identification service that is integrated with CorelDRAW
ConceptShare, an online collaboration tool that lets you share your work with others
CDR file format In its first versions, the CDR file format
was a completely proprietary file format primarily used for vector graphic drawings and developed
by Corel Corporation, recognizable by the first two bytes of the file being "WL".
Starting with Corel Draw 3, the file format changed to a Resource Interchange File Format
envelope, recognizable by the first four bytes of the file being "RIFF", and a "CDR*vrsn"
in bytes 9 to 15, with the asterisk "*" being in early versions just a blank, and beginning
with Corel Draw 4, the version number of the writing program in hexadecimal.
The actual data chunk of the RIFF remains a Corel proprietary format.
There is no publicly available CDR file format specification.
Other CorelDraw file formats include CorelDraw Compressed, CorelDraw Template and Corel Presentation
Exchange.
In December 2006 the sK1 open source project team started to reverse-engineer the CDR format.
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.
Later on the team parsed the structure of other Corel formats with the help of the open
source CDR Explorer.
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 to other formats.
UniConvertor is also used in Inkscape and Scribus open source projects as an external
tool for CorelDraw files importing.
In 2007, Microsoft blocked CDR file format in Microsoft Office 2003 with the release
of Service Pack 3 for Office 2003.
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.
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.
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.
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, and thanks to public API
it can be freely used by other applications.
Support in other applications
CDR file format import is partially or fully supported in following applications:
Adobe Illustrator - CorelDraw 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Corel PaintShop Photo Pro Corel WordPerfect Office
Inkscape with UniConvertor installed; partial support
LibreOffice with libcdr installed - CorelDraw 1 to X6
Macromedia Freehand - CorelDraw 7, 8 Microsoft Visio 2002 - CorelDraw!
Drawing File versions 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0, Corel Clipart
sK1 - partial support Xara Designer Pro and Xara Photo & Graphic
Designer - early versions of CorelDraw CDR and CMX
See also Comparison of vector graphics editors
Comparison of raster to vector conversion software
Notes and references
External links CorelDraw X7 official site
Old CorelDraw 4 product announcement