Ok this question is bugging me

[kevin leasure]

Alright guys, i see everyone using Coreldraw and never hear anything about my program, engravelab. is there a reason you guys don't us it, or do u use it in conjunction. pros, cons to the either program would be nice, i am liking what i have but would be happy to change if its worth my time. let me know what yall think.

[Michael Simpson Virgina]

I have Adobe Illistrator.

Both Eplilog and Universal recomend Corel and everyone else seems to be using Corel. I purchased it and find it much easyer to use than AI and any other cad program I have used in the past.

I know for CNC other cad/drawing programs work better.

[Mike Null]

Corel is the standard for laser engraving. I don't know the reason but I find it much easier to use than Engravlab. I have Engravlab to run my Newing Hall engraving machine. The price of Engravlab is about 4 times the price of Corel, even more if you go to the top of the line.

[Rodne Gold]

Engravelab offers you almost nothing better than Corel does for lasering at many times the price. Its much better than Corel for engraving machines , vinyl cutters , computerised overhead routers etc - I use it and use 2 other "variants" , signlab and profilelab for other processes.

[Albert Nix]

My MII came with Laser Maser with is a spin off of flexi sign pro. My coreldraw x4 came with photo-paint which makes it a better tool for processing images like photo that I want to engrave. But for 95% of what I do Lasermaster wins hands down.

[Richard Rumancik]

Did a quick search on pricing and I see the basic EngraveLab lists for $800. The Laser version is $1200 and the laser "Professional" version lists at $2999. This was just one dealer I found.

Kevin, which version do you use and what did it cost?

I think the answer to your question is pricing. CorelDraw and PhotoPaint does 90%+ of what laser users need. Some people supplement this with PhotoGrav and an assortment of various add-ons to CorelDraw or other independent applications depending on their work. But generally the investment in software is quite low. Many users purchased their CorelDraw for only a few hundred dollars.

Users who fabricate precision/technical parts often have a CAD program already, so will do precision work in CAD and export to CorelDraw.

As well, all the main manufacturers tend to put 90%+ of the customer support into making sure Corel works. If you tell them you are having a problem with EngraveLab on their laser, guess where you will be in the priority list?

I experienced that when trying to get AutoCad running on my LaserPro. At the time (many years ago), GCC said AutoCad would work, but would not really put much time into trying to diagnose problems. From their point of view it makes sense. The other thing I found is that if I was using an older level of software or operating system, the first thing they would tell me is to upgrade to the latest and then come back.

So if you are a level behind in EngraveLab, support might be even harder to get.

From the manufacturers' point of view, they usually prefer to test the latest CorelDraw on the latest operating system using the latest laser driver and firmware. If you are using anything else, they may not have the time or inclination to set up a system to test it.

[Rodne Gold]

Well one reason we dont use any of the "xxxlab" products on our lasers is that we have 6 lasers and 3 puters to run em , engravelab requires a dongle on any puter its installed on , unlike corel. We have one designer and 2 operators , with elab we couldnt design , send the file to all puters and decide which laser to use to engrave.
We also had major issues when the dongle of profilelab went wonky and when changing to XP from 95 and got real poor service and incurred some unexpected costs.


Cadlink offer free Downloads and you can actually try the package for those that might be interested.