Gérard on Graphics

As you know, Corel DESIGNER is a product specifically built for technical illustration, based on a common engine with CorelDRAW. One of the many features that sets Corel DESIGNER apart from CorelDRAW and other "creative illustration" packages is the Enhanced Line Styles that enable users to better document their graphics. While the user interface does not offer an option to customize the enhanced line styles, Claude who is part of the development team just posted a detailled article about this in the CorelDRAW Insider blog. If you use DESIGNER and/or need to customize your line styles, this is well worth a read:

http://coreldraw.com/blogs/insider/pages/how-to-create-custom-outline-enhanced-pattern-style.aspx

As a follow-up to my previous post regarding the CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book, the great book that Foster has recently released, I wanted to let you all know that the Premium edition is now available to purchase directly from Corel in North America. Here are the direct links to the USA eStore and the Canadian eStore. And you can always find out more about this book directly on the CorelDRAW Unleashed web site.

Gérard

A week ago, we passed another milestone for CorelDRAW.com: the 15,000 members mark flew by so quickly. It took almost a year to reach the first 10,000 members and we are on track to double that number in almost half the time.

But more importantly than that, it's the wealth of information and sharing that you all bring to the table that make it such a great place to go. The forums have been terrific for each of us to ask and answer questions, and I am truly amazed by the stunning work posted in the galleries. And the Corel employees who have been taking part in the forum discussions and the monthly real-time chat sessions have really enjoyed talking to you.

Looking back, we knew that the CorelDRAW family of products had passionate and active users around the world and we wanted you to have a tool to open-up the communication amongst yourselves and with Corel employees. User feedback is a critical part of our product development, but in the past, we only got feedback from some of you through on-site visits, phone interviews and surveys. We wanted to do more. So, to make this community a reality with a reasonable investment, we decided to get CorelDRAW.com running with an off-the-shelf solution, using Telligent's Community Server engine in the background. And it's been running since then. For the nostalgic ones, here is how the site looked like at launch:

Yes, I know, we've come a long way. Since then, we used the feedback you provided in the forums to drive the development of X4 and to prioritize the things to fix in Service Pack 1, we made a beta version of Corel DESIGNER X4 available to the members of the community, and we've been showcasing some of the amazing artwork you've posted in the gallery directly within the welcome screen of CorelDRAW, Corel DESIGNER and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.

Looking forward, we have been experimenting with a Wiki for the members of the community to capture information that is coming up on a regular basis. The current implementation isn't working as well as we want and have therefore decided to postpone it slightly. Good news is that Telligent announced that a Wiki is on the roadmap for their next version of the engine, which means we will be able to roll that out with the next major update of the community (just don't ask when right now).

In light of all this, I have to say thanks. We couldn't have built this great site without you.

We're pretty proud of what we've all done here and have decided to submit CorelDRAW.com to the Groundswell Awards which honor projects that make exceptional use of social technologies. Feel free to check it out and to rate / add your comments to the submissions. The nominees include a whole list of cool sites and communities.

Earlier this morning, Wilcom and Corel announced the new versions of both EmbroideryStudio e1.5 and DecoStudio e1.5. Both of these products are combining the power of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 with the great embroidery functionality of the Wilcom Embroidery products. We at Corel are really excited about the announcement that represents the second phase of the strategic partnership between both companies.

And for those who want to find out more about these two new products, Wilcom and Corel are hosting an online launch event all day today (it started a few hours ago). To join, simply go to http://www.wilcomdiscovery.com. In addition to demos and tips&tricks sessions, I will be taking part in a panel discussion at 2PM Eastern to answer your questions about Corel, CorelDRAW and the strategic partnership with Wilcom.

Gérard

You might have seen the great gallery Mo has on CorelDRAW.com. He also posted a cool video on YouTube showing how this illustration was created.

There are more and more books available for CorelDRAW X4. The latest one comes from Dreamtech in India and is called "CorelDRAW X4 in Simple Steps" (SBN: 978-81-7722-859-5; Price: INR: 179.-). This book is currently only available in India from what I understand. 

According to Dreamtech:

CorelDRAW X4 in Simple Steps offers you a quick and easy way to learn and master CorelDRAW X4. Simple language and step-by-step approach with lots of illustrations make this book an ultimate reference book. Some of the topics covered in the book are:

•  Basics of CorelDRAW X4;
• Working with shapes, lines and colors;
  
• Working with different tools to convert, format and edit objects and text
  
• Understanding Layer Management in CorelDRAW;
  
• Handling bitmaps; adding special effects to bitmaps and managing color displays. 
  

One of the regular question I get is about books related to CorelDRAW. In addition to the amazing CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed eBook that is already available from the CorelDRAW Unleashed web site, I am very happy to announce that McGraw-Hill has just released the CorelDRAW X4 Official Guide, an 892 pages book written by Gary Bouton. Here is a little extract from the cover copy:

Create fine art and commercial graphics with one powerful tool! CorelDRAW X4: The Official Guide shows you how to get a visual message across with impact and style; edit photos; build captivating layouts; and compose scenes in a clean, attention-getting style. Learn how to illustrate like the pros, justify and flow text around shapes, and truly understand digital color. You'll also discover how to create 3D objects, apply special effects, and integrate different media to build outstanding graphics. Packed with expert tips and techniques for creating professional-level art, this is your one-stop CorelDRAW X4 resource.

More information about this book is available on the McGraw-Hill web site, including the full table of content.

You can get this book from your favourite book store (ISBN number 9780071545709) as well as from the Corel eStore in the USA and in Canada (for now). And if you are outside of North America, we are working with McGraw-Hill to have this book available around the world and even have it translated in certain languages. I hope to have more details about this to share in the future.

In recent years, more laptops than desktop computers have been sold around the world as people prefer the benefits of mobility and form-factor. But when it comes to graphics design, these smaller devices have always been limiting and required to carry around a lot of different accessories next to the main computer when you wanted to be mobile: a Wacom tablet, a Huey Stick color calibration device and more.

Well, looks like Lenovo is offering a new laptop aimed specifically at the graphics designers: the ThinkPad W700. In addition to a huge 17-inch display and an Intel Quad Core Extreme CPU, it includes an nVidia Quadro FX 370 graphics chipset with 1GB of video RAM, up to 8 GB of memory and more disk space than you can think of. But these specs would make it a high-end gaming laptop. What makes this one a very interesting solution for graphics designers is that it includes both a Wacom tablet (to the right of the trackpad) as well as an on-board color calibration system. Yes, it gets a little pricy (about $3,000 for the starting price), reason why I don't think I will be able to test one in the near future

Engadget has more information and a gallery with photos of the W700 online. 

On September 9, 2008, Wilcom will be hosting a live online event for the global launch of Wilcom EmbroideryStudio (ES) and Wilcom DecoStudio e1.5 and Corel will be participating in that event. 

The one thing I can tell you right now is that DecoStudio e1.5 will include CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 and will be available to everyone who purchased DecoStudio e1 for a nominal fee, as previously mentionned. For the rest, you will have to wait until September 9.

You can pre-register at www.wilcomdiscovery.com for free and there is even an opportunity to win a life-time supply of Wilcom EmbroideryStudio. 

See you online on September 9, 2008.

If you use CorelDRAW, you must have heard about CorelDRAW Unleashed. In addition to the recently held User Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Foster Coburn III and the team behind CorelDRAW Unleashed is also organizing regular bootcamps, publishes the CorelDRAW Unleashed Magazine (available for free) and releases great learning resources about CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, including the CorelDRAW Unleashed eBook series.

The latest addition to the series is the brand new CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed eBook. To quote the information on the site: "This is a 932 page ebook featuring full color pages of detailed information on getting the most from CorelDRAW X4. Not only will you get an illustrated description of how a feature works, you'll also get more than eleven and a half hours of multimedia tutorials to help you fully understand what you've read. This book was fully designed to get the very most from the PDF format with links to useful Web pages, links to the multimedia tutorials and links to other related information within the book. Sample files are provided so that you can work along while reading and watching. This is the most complete learning tool available for CorelDRAW X4!" 

And to make your choice just a little bit more difficult, a special Premium Bonus Content Edition adds more than eleven and a half hours of movies to the CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed eBook, plus 3.5 gigabytes of bonus content, including a 120+ page ebook on Corel PHOTO-PAINT X4 with accompanying movies, 37 Powertips on CorelDRAW and/or Corel PHOTO-PAINT with accompanying movies and a lot more. 

You can get the eBook from the CorelDRAW Unleashed site now, pre-order the Premium Bonus Content Edition there as well (should be shipping shortly according to Foster). We are also working with Foster to get the eBook available on the Corel eStore in the near future.

Gérard

Earlier today, Corel announced Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4.

Corel DESIGNER X4 expands on the features and functionality of CorelDRAW X4 to add specific tools and benefits for technical graphics and illustration. For example, technical illustrations rely on callouts to provide additional information on specific objects, such as parts numbers, magnifying effects or text descriptions. A key requirement for technical illustrations is that halos surround callouts (and other explanatory lines in the drawing) so that they are easily readable in complex graphics. Creating halos with creative graphics applications requires 10 to 15 steps. However, with the specialized features provided by Corel DESIGNER X4, halos are created automatically with callouts and now also with other types of lines and curves. Other features include CADCAM 3D formats import, enhanced diagramming features and a lot more.Find out more information on your local Corel site:

• North America: http://www.corel.com/designer
• Europe (English): http://www.corel.co.uk/designer
• French: http://www.corel.fr/designer
• German: http://www.corel.de/designer 

The first post in the Corel Insider blog was published today. This blog will include articles written by various people working on CorelDRAW @ Corel about various aspects of the product. As a warning before you dive in there, some of these posts will be very technical, but will add a lot of in-depth information to those of you who are in VBA and object models for example. The first post for example from Alex is about the Corel Query Language.

One additional comment regarding Service Pack 1 for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4. As reported by some of you in the forums, after applying the SP1 patch, some customers launching CorelDRAW or Corel PHOTO-PAINT will receive the following error: "Fail to load the appboxid.xml file." Followed by a "Runtime Error!"

There are two possible solutions to this problem from the information we have and the reports from the forums:

Turn off virus protection/firewall when installing the SP1 Patch. It will start up again on reboot. If you are worried about disabling virus protection/firewall, and as long as the patch or software upgrade is fully downloaded on the system already, you can disconnect your internet cable during the installation process of the service pack.

If you are still getting the error try installing/re-installing the Microsoft 6.0 XML Parser. This should allow CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT to launch again. 

As mentioned a little over a week, the Service Pack 1 for CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 is available. I've uploaded a little video to YouTube and Vimeo to show you how easy it is to get Service Pack 1 from within CorelDRAW X4 (it's the same from Corel PHOTO-PAINT). At the end of this video, you will also notice the new splash-screen that enables you to easily identify if Service Pack 1 is installed or not. One more thing, this video is real-time on my Vista Ultimate 64-bit computer (no accelerated application load or installation time). 

A few month back, we added live chat capabilities on CorelDRAW.com (in beta) to enable a better communication amongst community members. One of the challenges we've noticed is that nobody is online at the same time. Therefore the usage of the chat rooms hasn't been very big so far. In addition, you've certainly noticed a few people from Corel participating in the forums on a regular basis, and we wanted to go to the next level.

Starting next Friday, a certain number of people from Corel who work on the CorelDRAW product family will join the "CorelDRAW.com" chat room for one hour, starting 11 AM Eastern Time (the time zone where Ottawa, ON, Canada is located, e.g. where CorelDRAW comes from) to have a discussion with the members of the community and to (try to) answer your questions. This will repeat every second Friday of the month at the same time and place. Here is a link to see what time that is in your time zone. There is currently a limit to 100 participants in the chat room

For all of you who will attend the CorelDRAW Unleashed Conference, you'll actually have the chance to talk face-to-face with my colleagues from Corel (even better). For those who really cannot make it to Arizona, I look forward to chatting with you then. 

To summarize, come and join us in a live chat session every 2nd Friday of the month at 11 AM Eastern Time.