*** FREE TRIAL VERSION ***
The best way to get yourself to form an opinion on the software is to download the fully functional 30-day trial version of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7 (directly from the Corel Web site). The main competitor of the software, of course Adobe Illustrator, and of these, you can also download a 30-day trial (directly from the Adobe website).
There are also completely free alternatives such as the Draw application of open source LibreOffice package that includes many of the CorelDRAW functions, but also functions are missing, such as the bitmap tracing functionality, photos or other bitmaps in can convert editable vector graphics.
*** PHOTO-PAINT X7 ***
In addition to CorelDRAW itself includes CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X7 some small utilities for managing fonts, finding Stock images and the making of screenshots. It also includes the Photo-Paint application from Corel, which can be opened from CorelDRAW to edit bitmaps, or that can run as a separate application.
Photo-Paint has some of the same features as Adobe Photoshop, to structure with the possibility of images in layers (mixed and masked) and offers a very similar range of effects filters. If you have already used similar image editing software, you'll probably notice that Photo-Paint is easy to use. It does not have as many features as Photoshop, but I find it not bad for basic editing.
Photo-Paint can also open images that were taken in raw format, but I have tried this with a variety of RAW files from Nikon, Canon and Sony cameras and found that the support for camera models or in the last year are published, is very bad. This limits the usefulness of me, but I see PhotoPaint rather than a bonus that comes along with CorelDRAW, as something that I need particularly.
*** Stability and performance ***
I find the latest version of CorelDRAW and Photo-Paint to be quite wrong. For example, the help system of CorelDRAW and Photo-Paint does not work with me. When I click 'Help' in a window, the program opens only one unrelated text editor, which is installed with me.
CorelDRAW is also repeatedly crashed on my Windows 8.1 computer. The autosave function of the program has thus far been kept me from losing more than the last change, but this is still very frustrating and undermines the efficiency of the workflow of the new version. I hope that some of these bugs and crashes are adjusted in future updates.
*** PRIVACY ***
Those who are concerned about the transfer of personal data, should know that CorelDRAW asks for a valid email address when you run the program for the first time. And you need to specify this, in order to proceed. You must also agree that you receive promotional emails. There is a way to do this later deselect again, if you find this on the Corel Web site, but you can not deselect when executing the program for the first time.
CorelDRAW for clip art, font and template archive are only available online and are not included in the installation, so you need a CorelDRAW account to access these can.
*** SUMMARY ***
I CorelDRAW used repeatedly since the early 1990s and have always found the software to be a very powerful and efficient tool if I had to draw very precise graphics. All in all I am very satisfied with this version, although there are still some problems with the stability of my computer.
