About Alex Gray Expertise I was Chairman of the UK Corel Users Association which had upwards of a thousand individual and corporate members), and Editor of Corel User journal (back issues for sale!)
I now run my own graphics business and also manage a local radio station, and continue to use Draw heavily.
Experience All versions of Draw from v1 to version 12
I have a question that is just the opposite of the 11/28/2006 inquiry from Joane; I use Illustrator CS2 to design logos and set-up for promotional items, etc. One of my key suppliers only uses Corel Draw 12. I need to review, and possibly edit, CDR files. Can Illustrator CS2 handle this? If not, how should they save files from Corel Draw in order for me to read?
Thanks, Alex!
~ Jay
Thanks,
Joane
Answer Really to edit CorelDraw files you need CorelDraw, especially if they are to go back to the original designer for any further work.
However, AI CS2 can import CorelDraw 10 CDR files as standard, so your CorelDraw 12 user should be able to select the option in the CorelDraw 12 Save As dialogue to save in CorelDraw10 format, and send the file to you. The Draw 12 user can also reopen these Draw 10 format files with no problem.
Note however that AI CS2 will only import the first page, so multipage documents have to be saved and imported a page at a time.
Kerning information is lost on import to CS2 so text may reflow if a lot is fitted in tightly and it may not lay out identically. You will of course need to have the same fonts available unless these are all converted to curves first. Also only linear and radial gradient fills (the most usual) are imported as such. All other more complex gradient fills from Draw are converted to equivalent bitmap fills by AI on import, which means they are not easily editable.
There are other export/import options, but I would expect the Draw10 route to be the most reliable. Among the other options are:
Draw12 user saves in AI format - AI CS2 can import this directly, but the format is more limited in terms of what special Draw features it can contain, so there could be some complex things not handled well. This is one-way - you can't give the CS2 file back to the Corel user just like that. Worst aspect is that it converts text to curves, so it becomes non-editable. Also blends are broken out into individual objects rather than being maintained as editable live blends.
Draw 12 user exports in EPS or PDF from Draw. Should also work for import to Illustrator, but again certain complex advanced types of object from Draw may not come through properly, or may come through rendered in an inconvenient way. For example multi line text is broken into separate text objects, making editing inconvenient. Also same limitations of advanced gradient fills being turned to bitmaps. However most aspects of the drawing should come through fine.
All in all I think interchange via CorelDraw 10 format is likely to be the most effective route if you must do it.
If you decide not to try editing, but just want to see a good rendering of the Corel file, then the best thing is definitely for the Corel user to output to a PDF for you to view, print, zoom in on etc.
