What are others' thoughts on Corel?

[MrFun]

I am thinking about saving more than 60 percent in cost for software packaging with my planned laptop purchase by buying Corel for the software packaging rather than Microsoft Office. Corel advertises their product as being highly compatible with Office documents.

How much truth is there in this subjective statement though? What are other people's thoughts on this, based on second-hand knowledge, or first-hand experience with Corel?

Thanks for actual help along with the usual bull**** spam in advance.

[DaShi]

bull**** spam

[MrFun]

Seriously, what's a guy to do when he wants insight on something?

[Jon Miller]

its the devil

JM

[Urban Ranger]

Re: What are others' thoughts on Corel?

Originally posted by MrFun
Corel advertises their product as being highly compatible with Office documents.

That appears to be a reliable statement.

It just means that WordPerfect can import and export files in MS Word .doc format, which isn't too difficult.

Of course, the layout of the documents may be off here and there, but that's to be expected. Heck, that happens between different versions of Word.

After saying that I recommend you using OpenOffice or Latex.

[Sikander]

Good move avoiding Office. I really hate MS "productivity" software. Almost anything else is usable with about 1/4 of the learning curve, cheaper and faster to use.

[Ecthy]

I vaguely remember one program by them: Corel Draw. That was back in the early 90s.

[Adrian Hon]

Can't comment on their office software, but I liked Corel Draw and Corel Photopaint back in the late 90s and early 2000s; they were easier to use than Adobe Photoshop, and much cheaper. Problem was that for some reason they slowed down development, so I'm not sure if anyone uses Corel for graphics any more.

[chequita guevara]

Adrian, not professionally, no.

MrFun, go for it.

[Urban Ranger]

CorelDraw is widely used, at least here. OTOH, PhotoShop is the standard bitmap graphics program.

[chequita guevara]

For vector grpahics, Illustrator rules here, followed by Freehand. CorelDraw isn't even on the map.

[Urban Ranger]

Freehand is still around? I thought it's gone. Aldus was bought out by Adobe, right?

[chequita guevara]

I dunno, but Freehand is a Macromedia product. Not that it matters ultimately, since Adobe bought Macromedia.

[Urban Ranger]

Ah. It seems unlikely that Adobe is going to maintain two competing vector graphics package on the market.

[Asher]

Freehand isn't being developed anymore.