CorelDRAW Technical Suite 2024 Updates Release notes

September 2024 Update

New and Enhanced Features for Subscribers

Available exclusively to subscribers and licensees with an active CorelSure Maintenance plan, the CorelDRAW®Technical Suite September 2024 Update (v25.2) delivers new features and enhancements to several areas within the applications:

New! CorelDRAW Web

Design on the go with CorelDRAW Web, the browser-based vector illustration and graphic design app that's perfect for your creative needs. Available exclusively to subscribers, CorelDRAW Web lets you access and edit your CorelDRAW (CDR) files from anywhere without needing additional software installations.

Note: CorelDRAW.app is no longer included in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite/CorelDRAW Technical Suite. Instead, you can open and work with CorelDRAW (CDR) files saved to the Cloud directly in your browser by using CorelDRAW Web.

Enhanced! Painterly Brush tool

The latest updates to Painterly brushes offer enhanced control and customization over the pixel-based brushstrokes. Subscriber exclusive enhancements include:

  • Additional Brush Packs - Subscribers can now expand their brush collection with 50 new brushes in 5 free brush packs available for download from within the Welcome Screen. Simply go to Help > Welcome, then click Store, and filter by Free.
  • Favorites - You can now build your personalized list of favorite brushes and access them instantly in the Favorites category at the top of the Brush picker. Add and remove the brushes by clicking the star icon that appears to the right of the brush name.
  • Texture - You can now choose from 75 new textures and transform the appearance of a brushstroke. Texture influences the visual aspect of brush marks, creating the illusion of surface roughness.
  • Texture Strength - Once you have chosen a texture of your liking, you can also modify the intensity of the texture effect, from a delicate grain (left) to a more pronounced textured finish (right), to suit your artistic needs.
  • Simulate pen pressure - Enable or disable stylus-like pressure sensitivity with mouse movement. Especially useful when using a mouse, you can now achieve the nuanced effects of a stylus such as changing size, varying transparency, and tapering the ends of a brushstroke.
  • Glow - Create vibrant brushstrokes by gradually increasing brightness until colors build up to a luminous white.
  • Density - Modify the appearance of Airbrush and Particle brushes by adjusting the density of droplets or particles in a brushstroke, respectively. The higher the setting, the greater the number of droplets or particles a brush releases.
  • Brush Smoothing - You can soften brushstrokes by reducing jitter and rounding sharp changes in direction, especially when using a jittery input device like a mouse.

Enhancements available to all users

Several additional user-requested improvements have been made to the Painterly Brush tool and are available to all users:

  • A new brush cursor now appears when using the Painterly Brush tool. This cursor represents the size of the brushstroke about to be or being created.
  • A reset button has been added. Experiment freely with brush settings and simply restore to factory default settings of brushes by clicking the new reset button
  • A new Properties docker tab has been added to house Painterly Brush settings enabling quick access to controls.
  • The new Painterly Brushstroke option in the Change Document Defaults dialog box lets you set the default color for brushstrokes independently from other graphic elements
New! Latest Pantone color palette (175 new colors)

Explore the latest PANTONE® FHI Cotton TCX 2801 palette with 175 new colors, offering fresh options for your designs and keeping your work current with the latest color trends.

New! Default save version

The new application option ‘Set default version’ in the Options dialog box (Tools > Options > CorelDRAW/ Corel DESIGNER > Save) allows you to choose a specific version for saving CorelDRAW (CDR) and Corel DESIGNER (DES) files.

Updated! Detection of Type 1 fonts

Type 1 fonts, such as PostScript and Adobe Type 1, are outdated and have been replaced by TrueType and OpenType formats. When opening or importing documents with Type 1 fonts, the application now warns you about potential future compatibility issues. To prevent problems, it is recommended to use TrueType (TTF) or OpenType (OTF) fonts instead. You can leverage PANOSE font matching to automatically replace missing fonts with similar ones, preserving your project’s visual consistency, or manually adjust the mappings to choose different substitutes.

Performance and stability

The September 2024 Update for CorelDRAW® Technical Suite 2024 (v25.2) also includes performance and stability fixes for several customer-reported issues.

General
  • When the application is launched on a system that does not meet the minimum CPU or GPU requirements, a warning message is displayed that includes a list of the features that will not be supported or whose performance will be less than optimal. The message also includes a link to information about minimum system requirements in the product Help.
  • The version of GPL Ghostscript that installs optionally with the suite has been updated to the latest 10.03.1.
Printing and Print Merge
  • After application launch, the print style used in the Print dialog box (File > Print > Print style) matches the print style specified in the Options dialog box (Tools > Options > Global > Printing > Default print style). If a different print style is chosen, that print style is used by default for that document for the rest of the current session.
  • Stability issues experienced when attempting to print a file using an unavailable printer have been resolved.
Opening, importing & Saving files
  • In CorelDRAW and Corel DESIGNER, the Save button is grayed out if there are no unsaved changes in the document.
  • Stability issues related to opening PDF files created using Esri ArcGIS Pro software have been resolved.
Working with Colors
  • In CorelDRAW, the color option for borders (Layout > Border and Grommet > Add border > Type) is available in all languages.
  • Crash when using different color profile than default on fills is resolved.
Pages & Objects
  • In the Pages docker, page names are now displayed when the Thumbnail preview is set to grid view.
  • Adding or editing data to an object (Window > Dockers > Object Data > Open Spreadsheet button > Name field) works as expected.
  • In CorelDRAW and Corel DESIGNER, setting the Object Origin point to middle-bottom, clicking the Relative to object button on the property bar (Free Transform tool), then resizing an object using the Object size boxes on the property bar works as expected.
Content on Network Drives
  • Stability issues related to working with Assets/Fills/Fonts/Templates stored in a network location has been resolved.
  • Importing a Corel Symbol Library (CSL) file (Symbols docker > Options button > Import Library) into Network Symbols works as expected.
  • In Corel Font Manager, accessing a custom font library stored on a network no longer impacts the performance of the system’s central processing unit (CPU).
Tools & Tooltips
  • Finding and replacing objects using outline width as a search criteria with inches or pixels as the unit of measurement (Edit > Find and Replace > Replace Objects, Find, Outline width) works as expected.
  • Zooming in and out with a mouse wheel works as expected when the B-spline tool or Polyline tool is active.
  • Stability issues related to the display of tooltips have been resolved.
  • Stability issues related to combining, moving, and editing curves have been addressed.
  • Corel DESIGNER / CorelDRAW no longer stops responding when an object on a locked layer is selected and brought into Focus Mode.
Others
  • Stability issues related to working with files containing barcodes created with previous versions of the application have been resolved.
  • The application no longer stops responding when a VBA script fails to run.
  • Performance improvements deliver noticeably faster finding and replacing of text.
  • In Corel PHOTO-PAINT files (CPT) with no background color (File > New, disable Background color check box), creating a new empty spot color channel with transparent ink properties works as expected.

June 2024 Update

New and Enhanced Features

The June 2024 Update for CorelDRAW® Technical Suite 2024 delivers enhancements to several areas within the applications:

Enhanced! Painterly Brush tool

CorelDRAW 2024 introduced exciting new Painterly brushes that combine the unique expressive qualities of pixel painting with the precision of vector editing. This update offers a range of enhancements, including:

  • The improved Brush picker lets you quickly search for Painterly brushes by typing the name of a brush style or brush category. The new My media count at the top of the Brush picker displays the number of brushes. The default size of the Brush picker has been increased, and you can also easily resize it to suit your creative workflow. Expanded and collapsed brush categories are now retained between sessions.
  • The settings for several Painterly brushes have been optimized to make them more memory-efficient, especially when used at their largest size.
  • You can now purchase additional Painterly brush packs from within the Welcome Screen or the Brush picker.
Updated! Corel DESIGNER (DES) and CorelDRAW (CDR) file format

The default Corel DESIGNER (DES) and CorelDRAW (CDR) file version is now 25.1 (2024.1). You can save a drawing that is compatible with an earlier version (including the March 2024 release) of CorelDRAW Technical Suite (File > Save As > Version list box) and specify save options (Advanced). Such options are useful when the file contains new Painterly brushstrokes, text, fill, outline, or transparency features that are not supported in earlier versions.

Enhanced! File Locations options
  • When CorelDRAW/Corel DESIGNER/Corel PHOTO-PAINT cannot locate content folders that have been renamed, moved, deleted or disconnected, a new message displays information on how to correct the issue.
  • Content Type folders that have been renamed, moved, deleted or disconnected and require updating are now indicated by an icon in the Options dialog box (Tools > Options > Global > File Locations).
Enhanced! PDF import

When importing a PDF file containing text, the new Maintain paragraphs, text flow, and formatting option is selected by default. This option delivers the best text-editing experience by organizing blocks of text into full paragraphs.

Deselecting this option reverts to the legacy text-importing behavior used in earlier versions of the application, where imported text objects remain grouped in smaller artistic text runs. This maintains the explicit kerning, spacing, sizing, and effects specified in the PDF file.

Performance and stability

The June 2024 Update for CorelDRAW® Technical Suite 2024 (v25.1) also includes performance and stability fixes for several customer-reported issues.

Printing and Print Merge
  • CorelDRAW and Corel DESIGNER now properly handle page sizes smaller than 1 inch by 1 inch when printing to various device drivers.
  • Changing printer settings such as media size in the Print dialog box and printing to PS and PDF printers in CorelDRAW/Corel DESIGNER now works as expected ensuring that the printed document matches the selected page size.
  • Print Merge: Now after you add one data field, CorelDRAW automatically deselects the print merge object, streamlining the process of adding the next field.
Working with text and fonts
  • Fonts installed using Corel Font Manager are immediately available for use in CorelDRAW, Corel DESIGNER and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.
  • Application performance has been improved when working with OpenType or distressed fonts. In addition, previewing fonts on selected text objects is noticeably smoother.
  • Issues related to finding and replacing text and displaying non-printing characters have been addressed.
  • When you select the Text tool in CorelDRAW or Corel DESIGNER, create a text object, position the cursor within the text, and move it by holding down the arrow keys, the cursor now remains visible as expected.
Importing, exporting and saving files
  • In CorelDRAW and Corel DESIGNER, stability issues related to importing PDF files and working with CDR/DES files from earlier versions of the application or recovered backup files have been resolved.
  • In Corel DESIGNER, opening a CGM file that contains missing fonts (previously resulting in an “Unknown file format” error message) now works as expected.
  • Exporting a bitmap for the web from CorelDRAW, Corel DESIGNER and Corel PHOTO-PAINT now works as expected.
  • To enhance performance when saving large CDR files to the AI format, the PNG compression level is now set to medium by default.
  • You can now successfully import PDF files from Canva that contain hidden markup for accessibility features, where some elements are missing a required dictionary property.
  • Exporting a document containing an object with a Feather or Gaussian Blur effect to the PNG format works as expected.
  • The issue with handling attributes containing empty values in SVG files has been resolved. CorelDRAW/Corel DESIGNER now accurately parses and stores these attributes, ensuring a smoother import and export process, particularly for SVG files with empty string attributes.
  • The Save only selected elements option and the Export this page only settings in the Publish to PDF (File > Export To > PDF) dialog box in CorelDRAW and Corel DESIGNER are now stored independently. Therefore, configuring these settings in one dialog box will no longer impact the other.
Painterly Brush tool improvements
  • When you apply a Painterly brushstroke to an object with an outline in CorelDRAW, the brushstroke now matches the color of the outline. When you clear a brushstroke, the object always has an outline with a default width, matching the outline color of the last brushstroke applied.
  • Painterly Brush tool enhancements offer improved performance:
    • Moving a Painterly brushstroke no longer re-renders the brushstroke.
    • The Brush picker now maintains a consistent width when you scroll through the list of brushes.
  • Applying Painterly brushstrokes to a symmetry group now works as expected.
Other improvements
  • Corel DESIGNER and CorelDRAW no longer stop responding after you launch the application, sign in, choose a template, edit credentials on the Global tab of the Options dialog box (Tools > Options > Global > User ID > Edit Credentials), and sign out.
  • Stability issues when creating new documents have been resolved.
  • In CorelDRAW or Corel DESIGNER, adjusting the color and tone of a bitmap (Edit > Adjust) which has been modified with one of the Effect tools or the Transparency tool works as expected.
  • In Corel PHOTO-PAINT, specifying a network location for fills in the Options dialog box (Options > Global > File Locations) functions as expected.
  • In the Assets docker (Window > Dockers > Assets), sorting assets by name (Options button > Sort by name) works as expected.
  • After you restart CorelDRAW or Corel DESIGNER following a system error and choose not to recover auto-backup files, the backup copies of files are erased upon quitting the application, as intended.
  • When you add multiple circles and rotate them in CorelDRAW or Corel DESIGNER, the circles now appear correctly.
  • CorelDRAW Technical Suite now includes all necessary WebView2Loader tools within its executable, eliminating the need to ship a separate WebView2Loader.dll file along with the application. If the WebView2 control, which is used in the Welcome Screen and the Learn docker, fails to create, a dialog will appear, guiding you to install it from Microsoft.
  • When deploying CorelDRAW Technical Suite to a network, the public property REMOVE_GPL=1 removes Ghostscript 10.01.2 as expected.
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