Corel Draw alternative/better?

[dozy]

We have a lady who works a lot with Corel Draw 12 to produce large posters with pictures and fancy graphics that could be up to 5metres long and 2 metres high. She then prints them out onto A3 pages and joins them all up.

 

Corel always seems to be crashing or not saving properly or having problems printing, it never seems to work smoothly and I have to spend days trying to find ways around printing.

 

Does anyone use or know of some software that is similar to Corel that will do the vector graphics and large scale prints but that actually works well on Windows XP?

 

Many thanks for any advice.

[6Foot2]

Assuming your OS is Windows have a look at:

 

Link 1: Inkscape. Draw Freely.

 

Link 2: Draw

 

We have deployed Inkscape and OpenOffice via MSI but there has been little or no take up [the Art Department even went so far as to complain that there is not enough image manipulation software on the network not having looked at Inkscape. ]

 

Edit: To look for more alternatives you could try this website:

 

Link 3: http://alternativeto.net

 

Put the software name you would like an alternative for in the 'Search Apps' box at the top right.

Edited October 12, 2010 by 6Foot2
Amend post content.

[teejay]

Sign up for Microsoft Dreamspark and you can get Microsoft Expression Studio 4 free for students/teachers.

[mac_shinobi]

paint.net

 

Paint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo Editing

 

gimp

 

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program

[localzuk]

Expensive but good - Adobe Illustrator, or Adobe InDesign. The first is more aimed at vector graphic work, the latter is more like Publisher.

[pritchardavid]

sorry to but in, any alternatives to photoshop for mac?

 

Seems very expensive, even for schools pricing, think it was like £250 a mac

[6Foot2]

sorry to but in, any alternatives to photoshop for mac?

 

Using the same site again [alternativeto.net] and performing the search [MAC only] gives:

 

Link: Photoshop alternatives for Mac (OS X) - AlternativeTo.net

 

I can't comment on the results though as I know next to nothing about MACs and MAC software. Plenty of results to have a look at though!

[Arthur]

sorry to but in, any alternatives to Photoshop for Mac?

Pixelmator, Acorn, DrawIt and Opacity are all really good, although which one is best depends on what you want to do.

 

There are a couple of really good reviews of these programs on the websites below...

 

http://jonwhipple.com/blog/2010/10/03/more-than-a-checklist/

http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/fireworks-alternatives-on-trial-acorn-drawit-and-opacity

[6Foot2]

I am not sure if this will help with the original enquiry. However it seemed to fit better here than creating a new post. Have a look at this:

 

Link: CloudCanvas

 

Note: To get the best out of the work you have created in Cloud-Canvas you should have/should create a Google Docs user ID.

 

Screenshot:

 

http://gyazo.com/567162b9882f304fa2e273a38554e798.png

 

No install: No costs. Worth a look?

[Butuz]

Also worth looking at Serif Drawplus - DT / ICT dept love it here.

 

Butuz

[CyberNerd]

Note: To get the best out of the work you have created in Cloud-Canvas you should have/should create a Google Docs user ID.

 

I've not been able to get this to work with SSO google apps domain accounts

[localzuk]

I've not been able to get this to work with SSO google apps domain accounts

 

It might not be accessible yet. Have you had notification that the Google Apps domain account system is changing yet? ie. they're making it so that those accounts operate as normal google accounts.

[bossman]

@dozy:

 

Xara extreme been using it here for the past 3 years and the students just love it as do the teaching staff who use it.

 

Xara Products

 

At the time it only cost pennies as compared to other products.

[here_hare_here]

I bigup Xara. Its a fast app even on lower spec pc's.