CorelDraw Vs Adobe Illustrator: Which is better?

I am self taught in both programs. They each have their strengths. The one leg up for illustrator is it's prominence in the graphic arts industry and it's reach into other programs such as Photoshop, Fireworks and others is good.

although Corel is more user friendly, but when you start using Illustrator, I never went back to Corel.

adobe illustrator is the best.... but i think everyone have a specialization of their own experience with their software

IMHO, Illustrator is much better and user friendly than in Corel Draw especially on the latest version CS6 (see my name for a proof). But in most of the garments or clothing companies, they prefer on Corel Draw rather than AI because according to them, Corel is more professionally made than in AI in which they seen it as an amateurish type of vector software and it's not great for t-shirt design on using AI and it's quite true. I'm trying to use it though and being a long-time AI user, I'm having quite difficulty on using it but as what they say, practice makes perfect.

But if you prefer on a free version of vector software, try to download Inkscape and if you're an expert on using Corel Draw, you could use that with a breeze because it's very similar to the look, feel and functionality on Corel Draw to Inkscape but for a long time AI users, its gonna be difficult.

For me Adobe .. Ai flash etc.. But in opinion what ever your comfortable and most knowledgeable with

IMHO, Illustrator is much better and user friendly than in Corel Draw especially on the latest version CS6 (see my name for a proof). But in most of the garments or clothing companies, they prefer on Corel Draw rather than AI because according to them, Corel is more professionally made than in AI in which they seen it as an amateurish type of vector software and it's not great for t-shirt design on using AI and it's quite true. I'm trying to use it though and being a long-time AI user, I'm having quite difficulty on using it but as what they say, practice makes perfect.

But if you prefer on a free version of vector software, try to download Inkscape and if you're an expert on using Corel Draw, you could use that with a breeze because it's very similar to the look, feel and functionality on Corel Draw to Inkscape but for a long time AI users, its gonna be difficult.

In this case its not practice but more like searching and learning. When vinyl signage was in the infancy corel and others were ahead of Ai especially connecting and running from a plotter.... Shoot I remember having to use a app called sign maker which I thought was a crude version of Ai.. But that was the only app I could get the plotter to cut lmao..

I like Ai for it cross platform multitasking abilities,, Unlike the others where you have to save and or convert and then open another app to get your end results. Plus its was Quark friendly

Illustrator!

I used corel draw. it's easy to use. but adobe illustrator is more powerful for design in my opinion

Hello
First sorry for my bad english

I've been working with corel over 6 years and illustrator 3 years
booth have their own cons and pros, so i use them depends on the task

Illustrator
Small and few pages printing (brochure, name card, poster, etc) because illustrator have a wonderful and limitless effect you can mix. If doing larger print i will not use AI except for the logo, icon, or any little detail because AI so laggy when it comes to large file.

Corel
Fast and powerful, best friend for any situation but lack of customization in effect and effect tools.

Adobe. hands down

I learn both around the same time. Illustrator 6 on the Mac and Corel 5 on the PC... CorelDraw was much easier to use and did a lot more than Illustrator did. Today, I still use CorelDraw X6 for almost all of my vector work. I still use Illustrator but mostly for converting AI and EPS files to Adobe Illustrator CS3 AL & EPS formats (industry standards).

Speaking of industry standards. The only reason "Adobe" became industry standard is because Apple pushed their Macs for Graphic designs which meant that all designing software were mainly developed for Macs. Back then it was believed that if you're going to become a "designer" you must use a Mac. That would have been true today if Apple never screwed over the Mac clone makers.

Anyhow, CorelDraw was a suite back then as it still is today. Corel Photopaint was just as powerful as Adobe Photoshop, but serious designer used a PC and Corel was only on PC. In the same way, CorelDraw was running rings around Illustrator - heck even Aldus Freehand was running rings around Illustrator. Today, I still have Illustrator users calling asking me how to do stuff like vector shaping. Most of these people I would ask, why do you get Corel for one of your PCs. The ones that actually did, never had to call back. So much for the user friendly bit for Illustrator. For years, Illustrator and other graphics software have been trying to catch up Corel in features and user friendliness. Illustrator's usage is more about familiarity (from Photoshop) and not necessarily user friendliness.

Illustrator has gotten a lot better over the years, but find the same problem with designers today with the ones from version 6. I found that Illustrator users developed a bad design habit because of how they are forced use Illustrator. It's not the overall design or layout thats the problem. It is the small technical things like elements not properly centered to the page, measurements are slightly off although it is not off enough to look off.

Of course Corel did release some crappy versions, like Corel GS v11 & v12. These were the worst versions of Corel GS ever released. But, for all the others, it's been a pleasure working with them. I'm not saying Illustrator is not a wonderful piece of software, but when it comes to real world designing, Illustrator cannot beat Corel's fast delivery and with accuracy.

Oh yea.. someone mentioned about colours? You should tell Corel what colour profile you want to use - just like you did with Illustrator.

I learn both around the same time. Illustrator 6 on the Mac and Corel 5 on the PC... CorelDraw was much easier to use and did a lot more than Illustrator did. Today, I still use CorelDraw X6 for almost all of my vector work. I still use Illustrator but mostly for converting AI and EPS files to Adobe Illustrator CS3 AL & EPS formats (industry standards).

Speaking of industry standards. The only reason "Adobe" became industry standard is because Apple pushed their Macs for Graphic designs which meant that all designing software were mainly developed for Macs. Back then it was believed that if you're going to become a "designer" you must use a Mac. That would have been true today if Apple never screwed over the Mac clone makers.

Anyhow, CorelDraw was a suite back then as it still is today. Corel Photopaint was just as powerful as Adobe Photoshop, but serious designer used a PC and Corel was only on PC. In the same way, CorelDraw was running rings around Illustrator - heck even Aldus Freehand was running rings around Illustrator. Today, I still have Illustrator users calling asking me how to do stuff like vector shaping. Most of these people I would ask, why do you get Corel for one of your PCs. The ones that actually did, never had to call back. So much for the user friendly bit for Illustrator. For years, Illustrator and other graphics software have been trying to catch up Corel in features and user friendliness. Illustrator's usage is more about familiarity (from Photoshop) and not necessarily user friendliness.

Illustrator has gotten a lot better over the years, but find the same problem with designers today with the ones from version 6. I found that Illustrator users developed a bad design habit because of how they are forced use Illustrator. It's not the overall design or layout thats the problem. It is the small technical things like elements not properly centered to the page, measurements are slightly off although it is not off enough to look off.

Of course Corel did release some crappy versions, like Corel GS v11 & v12. These were the worst versions of Corel GS ever released. But, for all the others, it's been a pleasure working with them. I'm not saying Illustrator is not a wonderful piece of software, but when it comes to real world designing, Illustrator cannot beat Corel's fast delivery and with accuracy.

Oh yea.. someone mentioned about colours? You should tell Corel what colour profile you want to use - just like you did with Illustrator.

true but here's the BIG difference between AI and Corel Draw - on Corel Draw, it is THE best software for t-shirt designing and layouting and for large scale layouts while AI it's everything that you could make it there from logo designs, icons, business cards, etc. but NOT on t-shirt designing and layouting and for large scale layouts that's because AI cannot handle larger files to save the designs and it cause either a slowdown or hanging in your computer. But I cannot say that both of them are perfect softwares and not all of it are perfect, and that's common sense for computer users.

CorelDraw not support transparency and gradients in eps, also not support transparency bitmaps in pdf and this i a big problem in design industry. If i create a complex work (poster,brochure,label) with gradients and transparency bitmaps in CorelDraw i cannot finalize perfectly , in eps and pdf formats. This is not good, because nobody(client) not accept bad files.

In my opinion that should appear high compatibility between Corel and Illustrator.
Then they would see that it is more useful and used. There are some who do not see well transparent in corel when importing from Illustrator. And also is weaker mesh tool in corel. But that does not mean it is not still used extensively the Corel.
I think I use 70% of its maximum capacity. I hope to improve Corel these tools(mesh and transparent compatibility)and I think no one has any objections. I use Corel further

true but here's the BIG difference between AI and Corel Draw - on Corel Draw, it is THE best software for t-shirt designing and layouting and for large scale layouts while AI it's everything that you could make it there from logo designs, icons, business cards, etc. but NOT on t-shirt designing and layouting and for large scale layouts that's because AI cannot handle larger files to save the designs and it cause either a slowdown or hanging in your computer. But I cannot say that both of them are perfect softwares and not all of it are perfect, and that's common sense for computer users.

I do all my designs in CorelDraw - from logos to website layouts, so this is either not true or you do not know CorelDraw.

CorelDraw not support transparency and gradients in eps, also not support transparency bitmaps in pdf and this i a big problem in design industry. If i create a complex work (poster,brochure,label) with gradients and transparency bitmaps in CorelDraw i cannot finalize perfectly , in eps and pdf formats. This is not good, because nobody(client) not accept bad files.

This is also not true. I export to eps when carrying graphics over to Photoshop and the gradient goes over with quite fine. When preparing for press, I convert to PDF directly from CorelDraw and I have never had any complaints from the printers.

In my opinion that should appear high compatibility between Corel and Illustrator.
Then they would see that it is more useful and used. There are some who do not see well transparent in corel when importing from Illustrator. And also is weaker mesh tool in corel. But that does not mean it is not still used extensively the Corel.
I think I use 70% of its maximum capacity. I hope to improve Corel these tools(mesh and transparent compatibility)and I think no one has any objections. I use Corel further

it is true, CorelDraw's mesh tool is weaker than the one in AI. What I do fine though is that AI adds a lot of meta data to their AI and EPS files that makes it difficult for other softwares to read. You have to back save to an earlier AI version for it to be compatible in other software. Exporting from CorelDraw for AI on the other hand, has less issues. One thing though, when exporting complex gradients to from CorelDraw to AI, it's best to export it as an AI file. Also, transparent PNG files doesn't import well into CorelDraw. This I hope they will fix someday.

It's obvious that I perfer working in CorelDraw. The truth is I work very well in and between both, but I mostly work in CorelDraw. I find it much easier to use than Illustrator. There's one thing from the Adobe graphics softwares that i would love CorelDraw to adapt to make things even better, which is the spacebar spanning. In CorelDraw, would have to select it and there's no way to toggle it like in the Adobe softwares.

I do all my designs in CorelDraw - from logos to website layouts, so this is either not true or you do not know CorelDraw.

I don't know, Winchester but I'd learned this issue on t-shirt layouting from a manager/owner of a garment company when I'd applied to his company for graphic designer a few months ago and they'd mostly use Corel Draw for their t-shirt designs and layouts and even larger layouts which is as size of a car or jeep in which he said to me and Corel Draw could handle that kind of layouts than AI.

Maybe we should investigate more on this one especially on the garment or clothing companies out there.

But I do really admit that I prefer on AI than Corel Draw because its quite geeky type of software and its easy to learn and to use it and I have difficulties on using Corel especially if I'm already too much dependent on using AI.

I think is Coreldraw. I use coraldraw it's easy to handling.