Corel Draw purchase decision

[Tammy Arnott]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forum, though I've lurked here occasionally for a few years when I've been stumped. We bought a 30w Versalaser a few years ago and have primarily used it for my husband's controls system business. I recently quit my job as a marketing director and decided to see if I can't make a business out of my design skills and this cool toy we have. While I have the ability to recreate files, I was hoping to get a nice sample selection created quickly for a trade show I'd like to attend, and I have noticed that a lot of the stock designs or files shared on this forum that would be perfect to display a range of laser capabilities are .cdr.

I have the full Adobe Creative Suite CS6, but I'm not able to import cdr files. The freeware available doesn't seem to work, and online file converters such as zamzar have been doing weird, weird things to the files. I thought I might just purchase Corel Draw for the purpose of opening and then immediately converting those files to something I can work with. I have years of design files saved in Adobe-compatible formats, so I'm not looking to switch - I just want access to .cdr files, convert them, and move along with the software I'm comfortable with. I don't want to buy the new version for such a limited purpose, so I was hoping someone could let me know what would be the oldest version I could functionally get away with if I purchase from eBay or Amazon. I'm running XP and the husband is not wanting to upgrade any time soon.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I personally wouldn't go older the version 12 in your situation. Many of the files on this forum have been posted in version 13/X3 so you would probably be better off getting that version. You will still have occasional problems opening newer files made with Corel X4 and higher, but at least you can open a majority of files that have been posted on this forum.

I've posted about this several times on this forum. I am still running XP on my engraving computer and when I installed version X6 on a brand new clean XP install, it brings my computer to a crawl when I use Corel. I can dual-boot to my old build, slow-running XP hard drive with Corel X3 on it and the computer is blazing fast when I use Corel.

[Gary Hair]

Download the 30-day trial and convert away! If that's not enough time then what version you would need to buy depends entirely on the version used the create the files you want to open. I would go with the newest just to be sure you can open anything.