Likelihood to Recommend It is a perfect suite of applications to finish presentations and create beautiful layouts for design. It is very useful both for graphic design and for architecture design when you want to draw a realistic idea of a project without being a rendering or when you need to present both images and vectorial drawings.
Read full review Vellum is perfect for novels, novellas, short fiction anthologies, and any lightly illustrated fiction. It’s excellent for most non-fiction. It’s great for e-Books and Paperbacks. I haven’t tried using the file for hardcover but it is likely good for that as well. Vellum wouldn’t be the right tool for coffee-table art books, picture books or children’s illustrated books.
Read full review Pros Easy to learn - especially if you have experience with other graphic software. It is fairly intuitive which is helpful. Creating high resolution graphics is a breeze with this software - and it has the ability to export into a large variety of formats! I am able to import a wide variety of file formats. I have also had success with importing and editing PDF files which has been helpful. Read full review Professional, Tasteful Formatting Table of Contents management File Management Ease of switching elements (i.e. Chapter, Acknowledgement, About the Author etc.) Beautiful Style Sheets Generating uploadable files quickly and painlessly Previewing for a variety of formats and devices Read full review Cons The bitmap edit feature to edit images. The pop out is clunky and with it was a bit more integrated. Trace - Would love to see this strengthened. We love to scan in hand drawn things to turn to vector and would love to see the accuracy increased. Read full review Could improve ability to change the look of a design element like Ornamental Break. Doesn’t currently output in Smashwords .doc format (but does EPUB). Spell Check is rudimentary but accurate - still, it’s much better to use Word or Grammarly. If style uses initial drop cap, it doesn’t handle one-letter words well (I, A, O) - repeats letter in sentence. This may be standard practice, not sure. There are a couple dozen styles. I would gladly pay for a “Style Pack” to add on additional styles. Read full review Usability Just like any design program or suite, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't do graphic design professionally. If you're not adept at learning a program or experience, it isn't a program you can just pick up and start using easily. Outside of the learning curve, it's a nice program with a decent user interface.
Read full review Support Rating Overall, CorelDRAW meets all my needs as a researcher and allows me to create beautiful and clear graphics to illustrate the main ideas for publications. It does not lack any functionality for my needs; however, it has some bugs that impact productivity, such as the color drag and drop that sometimes stops working and needs restarting, and crashes, especially when working with large bitmaps.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Although other softwares are good in there field but CorelDRAW is very good when it come to ease of making the designs. We can create designs in it very quickly and efficiently and also it us Avery easy software to learn, anyone can pick it up at good pace. Also it is more widely used by vendors here for printing, so its a better choice.
Read full review Up until purchasing Vellum, I’ve used Smashwords Meat Grinder template and Kindle’s PC-Only software. I had to buy a PC just to publish to Kindle - very expensive investment with modest return. Vellum is only for Mac. In fact, it would have been cool if it worked with a PC. But Mac is my ecosystem for writing, and the PC is a pain. I ultimately chose Vellum because it works with my MacBook.
Read full review Return on Investment Ease of use reflects on less time to train new users, a positive impact in investment and productivity. The practicality to make new designs results in less time needed to do them, again a positive impact. The integration with other graphic programs could be better if needed to finish a rendering using the design made in Corel Draw it's needed to export in formats that don't carry all information and the process is not that simple. Read full review Less time publishing means more time writing Beautiful books sell better than Times New Roman dreck I’ve stayed away from Google Books but will move into that market now Read full review ScreenShots CorelDRAW Graphics Suite Screenshots