Returning to the Mac after 18 years, Corel has revived its vector graphics editor for macOS with the release of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019. (The last CorelDRAW release for the Mac was CorelDRAW 11 in 2001.) In addition to the CorelDRAW 2019 vector illustration software, the suite includes Photo-Paint 2019 for image editing, AfterShot 3 HDR for raw photo processing, Font Manager 2019 (along with over 1000 TrueType and/or OpenType fonts), and thousands of clipart files, sample digital images, and vehicle wrap templates.
CorelDRAW is optimized for Dark mode in macOS 10.14 Mojave, includes support for the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro, and introduces the neural network-powered LiveSketch drawing feature, which uses artificial intelligence to interpret, adjust, and combine hand-drawn strokes into precise vector curves. You’ll also be able to access your graphic design projects on the go from any device with the cloud-based CorelDRAW.app, enabling you to open and edit design elements in existing files as well as start new projects.
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019 for Mac costs $499 for a perpetual license or is available as a $198 annual subscription. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019 requires a minimum of 10.12 Sierra, and a free 15-day trial is available to download, though note that it weighs in at over 2 GB when fully installed. The standalone CorelDRAW app (minus the extras included in the Graphics Suite) is available from the Mac App Store for a $19.99 monthly or $199.99 annual subscription after a 2-week free trial.
It’s nice to see CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019 providing some competition for Adobe’s Creative Cloud for significantly less money—the subscription works out to $16.50 per month, compared to Creative Cloud’s $52.99 per month. And Corel offers a perpetual license for those who dislike subscriptions. But it’s still not exactly cheap, and it will be interesting to see how it compares to established alternatives in the Mac world like Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo ($49.99 each) and Pixelmator Pro ($59.99; see “Pixelmator Pro: How Does It Compare to Photoshop CC?,” 13 February 2019).
While the Canadian Corel (owned by the private equity group Vector Capital) has largely focused its software efforts on the Windows side since the early aughts (including the acquisitions of WordPerfect and WinZip), the company looks to be devoting more attention to the Mac again. In addition to reviving CorelDRAW, Corel hoovered up the Parallels virtualization software company in December 2018 and released a major macOS upgrade to its CorelCAD drafting and 3D modeling app earlier this year.
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.
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
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.