Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2019/03/15/coreldraw-comes-back-to-the-mac/
After an 18-year absence, the CorelDRAW vector graphics editor returns to macOS in a graphics suite that also includes a photo editor and font manager, as well as a cloud-based app for on-the-go design work. Further showing its renewed interest in the Mac, Corel has also acquired virtualization company Parallels.
I think a lot is going to depend on how reliable the new Mac version of CorelDRAW is in real-world use. Unfortunately, I can remember the bad old days of the late 90s and early 2000s when Corel’s reputation in that department was not good, even on its home turf of Windows. That reputation played a big part in seeing its profile diminished greatly amongst design and print shops. I’m currently happy with Affinity’s offerings, and am looking forward to checking out Affinity Publisher when it’s released. Corel will need to come up with something really compelling to tempt me.
Too much money, too little and way too late. Using Affinity Designer & Photo and woah. Nice stuff. Almost as good as Adobe and only $50 on Mac or PC and $20 on iPad. No subscription. Having used CorelDraw for years, looks like it’s barely changed. Affinity is light years ahead.
If one is interested in using it for photography only then it ends up as expensive if not more than Creative Cloud.
Need to try and see what the RAW photo editing is like - how it compares with Lightroom and Capture 1 etc.
I’m impressed with Afffinity Designer too, not that enamored of Photo but it may grow on me. I’ve taken more to Pixelmator Pro. That said, when I want to do serious editing I hunt down my old PS v.5.
That reputation played a big part in seeing its profile diminished greatly amongst design and print shops. I’m currently happy with Affinity’s offerings, and am looking forward to checking out Affinity Publisher when it’s released. Corel will need to come up with something really compelling to tempt me.
Corel’s bad rap will probably be impossible to repair. Most professional printers wouldn’t accept the files because they wouldn’t render properly on imagesetters. The few that would take them would end up charging a fortune for prepress work, which might not render good results. And Adobe is firmly intrenched in most professional workflows, with some Quark holdouts.
$499 … hmmm … I stick I’ll with Omnigraffle!
Apologies if this is stretching the topic, but what software/kind of software do people usually use to create the kinds of figures I often see in research papers? I’ve attached some examples.
I’ve not used it for anything quite like those diagrams, but I like Graphic (https://www.graphic.com/mac/; used to be called iDraw, I think).
Jeremy
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There are a lot of options, but I don’t know anything at all about Corel Draw. I don’t know about Keynote, but stuff like this can be done very easily in PowerPoint once you get the hang of the drawing tools and layouts. If you’re working with charts with numbers, PowerPoint and Excel are a match made in heaven. PowerPoint is also good for mind mapping, but with Illustrator you can work more easily with very complex diagrams, and it’s a breeze to import stuff from Photoshop and go back and forth with it. It would probably be more time consuming and annoying, but any of these could be done in Word.
There are a ton of free tutorials, and free and paid templates out in the wild that can help get you started in any of the above. There’s excellent free stuff from Adobe and Microsoft. Maybe Apple too.
I forgot to mention InDesign and Quark, they’re great too. But IMHO, PowerPoint is the easiest way to go, and it’s geared for people who aren’t heavy users of design software.
I use OmniGraffle for this stuff. It’s wonderful. The Pro option is great if you do a lot of it but it’s not necessary for most users.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I have PowerPoint but it hadn’t really occurred to me to explore its drawing functions. I think I’ll start there.
Still need Word Perfect 
CD is used by many of the less expensive laser cutters and cad machines.