New Laser on order, now need Editing Software - CorelDraw Vs. ??

[David Somers]

Good Morning Bert!

The standard or business edition of Corel (not the home & student edition or the educational edition) is meant for someone who wants to use the product to make money. The home edition is meant for the dabbler/casual user. The Student edition is for...well....a student who is taking classes in graphics and learning how to use the product. The educational version is meant for schools of some sort to use in a classroom environment.

So....if you are a dabbler and want to edit your photos of Mom and kids and the dogs and make fun signs for the church picnic and generally dink around the home edition is what you want. And I will go so far as to say that if you used it to to do something and later some folks offered to buy that from you and you earned a few bucks and then went back to editing photos of Mom the Corel police will not be at your door the next morning. But when you start using the product with the intent to make money with it, either directly or indirectly, then you have crossed the line and the home edition isn't the right one for you. In other words. If you start using Corel to make designs and drawings for laser output or a CNC or a Dye Sub printer or whatever, and you intend to sell the things you make, you should have the full edition in order to be righteous and develop good corporate karma.

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

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So Dan your saying that someone with a home version of corel can't design a craft with that program and then sell that craft at a craft-show or something?? Or are you saying a business can't use the home version and sell their stuff.

If however much you are selling puts you into the "business" classification for your area (county/state), you can't legally use it. Most areas have a lower limit to what constitutes a business and what is just a hobby... check yours out before committing.

[David Somers]

Good morning Dan!!

I don't have this in writing from Corel, but when I called them to ask about this about 6 mos ago they basically said they didn't care if I needed a local business license or not for what I was doing. If my intent was to use what I made in Corel to make money then I needed the full edition.

Now, we won't get into exactly how they can determine what my intent was, clairvoyance perhaps?, but that was what I was told by phone going up a few levels in Customer Service. There was not that much of a savings, especially once I got a bit aggressive looking for pricing, so I didn't waste time pursuing this further. Besides, I actually have a business license and did intend to try and sell stuff made from a Corel file someday so arguing seemed somehow disingenuous. <grin>

Dave

[Jason Hilton]

I know I'm an outlier in the laser world, but I prefer Adobe Illustrator for 2d laser design work. It's a lot cheaper because it's a subscription ($20/month including 20gb cloud storage and access to all typekit fonts) and it's 2d design tools are, in my opinion, much more powerful and much easier to learn.

[Dan Hintz]

I don't have this in writing from Corel, but when I called them to ask about this about 6 mos ago they basically said they didn't care if I needed a local business license or not for what I was doing. If my intent was to use what I made in Corel to make money then I needed the full edition.

I would have to read their TOS again... it could very well be either. If they say "for business purposes", that's vague and can be construed to mean "if you're legally declared a business". If it's more strict, such as "with the purposes of financial gain", then you're out of luck.

[Bert Kemp]

Well tell me this. there's many people on here who have business's. they make and sell stuff with their lasers. Lets say that a business owner goes into Corel designs a nice sign for someone who commissioned him to do it, he gets paid for the sign he made and the people hang it out for all the world to see How would anyone know and especially "Corel" what program was used to create that sign? I mean I have corel, inkscape, and draftsight. sometimes I use all 3 to make a design, mostly cause one might do something easier then another. Now I'm not a business but sometimes I have like a yard sale to sell some of the stuff I made. In AZ you need a peddlers license to do this so I got one of those and every month I have to file and pay the taxes on anything I sold. Now would corel consider me a business and would they exspect me to buy their business edtion, for a few hundred dollars in stuff I sold in the yard?and how would they know anyway? is it just the honor system. I think if I was expected to buy that software I'd just drop Corel all together and use the free design programs that are available. Now on the other hand if I was a big business selling thousands of dollars worth of stuff I designed in corel then I would surely buy their business package.

[David Somers]

Hey Bert!

Like I said, I have no clue, other than through the use of paranormal faculties, how they would know. I have visions of teams of Corel psychics roaming the streets, homing in on anything graphic and remotely sensing your intent! Boggles the mind doesnt it? <grin>

Seriously, I suspect that unless something egregious came to their attention they are not out there looking. I asked, got an answer, and honored what they told me. Even if I had a business license but used Corel occasionally I might not have bothered with the full license. But I figure for me it will be a fully used tool so honoring their TOS was fine.

And to be honest....the free packages out there are really excellent. I could just as easily have gone with those, and having played with them some think I would have been just fine. I just like knowing I can turn to folks here if I really need help and will find lots of experience. And eventually, I can try to pay that back by helping others out.

Dave

[Mayo Pardo]

For those who would object to buying the full version, the objection is because of the additional cost correct?
Then the simple answer is don't buy it at full price!

You can buy the full version on auction sites frequently for less money than the home or student/academic versions at retail. You may have to purchase the previous version instead of the latest version but so what?
It will have more bells and whistles than you will need for laser work anyways.

[Dan Hintz]

Well tell me this. there's many people on here who have business's. they make and sell stuff with their lasers. Lets say that a business owner goes into Corel designs a nice sign for someone who commissioned him to do it, he gets paid for the sign he made and the people hang it out for all the world to see How would anyone know and especially "Corel" what program was used to create that sign?

Don't confuse legality with "getting caught". Legality in this case is relatively cut and dry... you base it upon their TOS and what your locality's definition of a business.

I can jaywalk every day for 10 years and not get arrested... doesn't mean it's legal.

[Bert Kemp]

Don't confuse legality with "getting caught". Legality in this case is relatively cut and dry... you base it upon their TOS and what your locality's definition of a business.

I can jaywalk every day for 10 years and not get arrested... doesn't mean it's legal.

Thats true

[Jason Hilton]

Well tell me this. there's many people on here who have business's. they make and sell stuff with their lasers. Lets say that a business owner goes into Corel designs a nice sign for someone who commissioned him to do it, he gets paid for the sign he made and the people hang it out for all the world to see How would anyone know and especially "Corel" what program was used to create that sign?

Lets look at this from a different perspective. You did all the work to design this sign, and then another shop sees the design on your website and copies it outright. They make a fortune selling those signs. All the hard work you've done to design the sign is being profited on by someone else. Exactly the same as buying student versions of software and using it to produce work for profit. They put thousands and thousands of hours of work and potentially millions of dollars into designing and building the software package you're using to create your work. Yeah you can pirate it or use a student edition and you probably won't get caught, but that doesn't mean it's right. If you're running a business the software is pretty close to free anyway, it's a tax right-off!!

[Martin James]

I just use photoshop. In PS you can turn any selection into a path with one button then "export path to illustrator" which saves the path as a .AI file.

I do have corel x6, but it doesnt have the plug for the shenhui when working on windows 8.
If you are doing signs and your art looks like the stuff people put on business cards then corel would be OK if you want to spend the time learning how to use it. For me corel make me feel like i have time warped back a couple of decades into the days of polyester suits and olivia newton john.

and yes corel works just fine on a mac with parallels, vm or boot camp.

cheers. Marty
i pay $10 pre month for photoshop cc

[Jason Hilton]

Right, if you're concerned with price AND want to do things legal, Adobe is a more economical choice. $20 a month for Illustrator is all most people need.