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Thread: About to take the plunge with Corel Draw

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    6,670

    About to take the plunge with Corel Draw

    So I have a great CAD system, but I really need a way to make things for my business, like logos and things like that. I also need to be able to layout silkscreen on products that I'm making. I quickly ran into the limitations of my CAD system and all of the free graphics programs, like Inkscape.

    So what I need to be able to do is:

    1) suck a design in from my CAD program so I know the exact physical layout of my product
    2) design graphics in Corel
    3) spit it back out to the CAD program so that I can incorporate it in the design, check that features really do line up properly, etc.

    Does anyone have a link to any good tutorials on doing this kind of work? The tricky part is for all of the dimensions to line up as I move from program to program. So far, that has been the major down fall of a lot of what I've tried....things just move around too much to be useful. I'm working to very specific dimensions, and screen printing needs to match up with what the CNC machine is doing.

    Thanks for any help. I just downloaded the trial for Corel. If I can make it do what I need, the $500 it costs will be worth every penny.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    6,670
    Gee wiz...I got the thing to crash in the first 20 minutes. I guess it doesn't like to lay down dimensions and scroll the screen at the same time. LOL. Seriously, it's still 10x better than all the free stuff.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Hayes, Virginia
    Posts
    14,760
    John,

    FWIW I have never had any problems moving vector files among Autocad/Aspire/Corel Draw. The dimensional tolerances are perfect every time. Bitmaps might be a different story as they aren't mathematical representations.

    There seems to be no end to the training videos for Corel Draw, lots available on Youtube for free.
    .

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2011
    Location
    New Hampshire
    Posts
    101
    One of my favorite capabilities is vectorizing of bitmaps into a DXF. It is also way better at previewing any type of font compared to using a CAD program. I don't think I've used it for moving a line precisely .01" in X and I'm not sure it does that - that is what I like about CAD programs. It works great for designing from scratch and wrapping text around objects.
    CAMaster Cobra X3 408 w/Recoil
    BobCAD V25
    Corel Draw X5

    Precision Sign and Post
    Windham, NH

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    6,670
    I eventually ended up exporting my files from Rhino in WMF format, and that seems to be the best. All of the other formats had strange artifacts that went along with them, but WMF was good to .002", and that's good enough. In the future, I will use my CAD package to simply export important fiducials, and do all of the graphic layout in Corel, but this time I had already done a LOT of work in Rhino that I didn't want to loose. I was also using one of the free programs, and that made things difficult too. For example, it was a royal PITA to have a bunch of graphics in SVG format, resize them, and then have to go in and update all of the line width, fills and things like that. It would have been so much easier to just work from Corel from square one.

    I'm really liking Corel. Very easy to work with. I was able to go from zero to getting real work done and ready for printing in one day. Okay, I'm not exactly at zero....I have some CAD experience, but still that's pretty good. I'll be doing some test runs with a local printer in the next couple of days, but I think I'm pretty much sold. I don't know why I wasted so much time on the free garbage. For $500 (less now, I think), it would have saved me the DAYS of work I spent banging my head against a wall trying to do it other ways.

    I think my precision will go down to .000" once I've tweaked my CAD package a bit. I'm still a newbie to being a one man show, and I'm having some stuff done OEM because they can provide me with painted, drilled and printed enclosures, and everything has to fit and match up with the circuit boards I'm having made, so I have 3 software packages and 2 manufactures that all need to have exactly the right info so that everything is on the same page and it all fits perfectly. No biggie, but back when I had a real job you had "people" that were specialists and everything would all magically just work. It's eye opening to see just how much work it takes when you're doing it all yourself!
    Last edited by John Coloccia; 06-11-2013 at 9:05 PM.

  6. #6
    John

    I just received this in the mail. http://www.corel.com/corel/product/i...id=prod4260069
    Mike Null

    St. Louis Laser, Inc.

    Trotec Speedy 300, 80 watt
    Gravograph IS400
    Woodworking shop CLTT and Laser Sublimation
    Dye Sublimation
    CorelDraw X5, X7

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    6,670
    I think what I'm going to do is a monthly subscription for a couple of months and see if the new direction for my business takes off. If not, it's $50 down the drain instead of $400. If it does what I hope it does, I'll just buy it and will never miss the $50.

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