The Ultimate Guide : Corel Draw vs Illustrator for Screen Printing
Finding the difference between two software is not as easy as we think, and when the softwares have the same intention of work, this is the toughest task to determine the difference between them. Corel draw vs Illustrator is the hottest topic, whether not Corel draw and nor illustrator have lack of fans, but users will always trying to find the difference between the software, when they will familiar with one software and see some coolest designs made in another.
Creating and printing a good design is not similar, it takes a lot of effort to see the exact result in printing what we seen on the monitor screen, and this practice takes a long time to gain experience, and so, for this longest time, your real friends are the software in which you’re working.
Now if you are confusing within Corel Draw vs Illustrator for screen printing business, then read the complete article to rank your quality in designing with the speed.
About Corel Draw
Corel draw is a vector-based computer graphic program, mostly used by graphic designers for printing services. Corel Draw is developed and marketed by Corel Corporation and this is a powerful graphic design program, and especially if your design is for printing purposes, then CorelDraw is the best choice ever.
About Adobe Illustrator
On the other hand, Adobe Illustrator also has the same purpose as the graphic design program, developed and marketed by Adboe Inc. Today, Adobe Illustrator has more fans than any other vector design program. Adobe Illustrator has many advance features that help a lot to a designer, and these features make it the industry standard software in graphic designing.
Difference between Corel Draw & Adobe Illustrator :
- Corel Draw Environment: CorelDraw’s work environment is mostly focused on printing services, so the well-generated CMYK color plate, advance toolbox, powerful printing engine, and default complete white theme gives it the most attractive work environment.
- Adobe Illustrator Environment : Adobe illustrator is mostly focused for illustrators and graphic designers, so the work environment is on dark theme and too similar to Photoshop, so if you are already familiar with Photoshop than adobe illustrator can be a good choice for you, where you will don’t take long enough time to learn and familiar with this software. Every graphic designer can feel comfortable even doing work till late at night in adobe illustrator. The toolbox is more powerful in Adobe Illustrator vs Corel Draw.
B. FUNCTIONALITY: Both software has user-friendly functionality, where Corel Draw has a more strong command on text tools and editing, page layouts, printing and supporting many file formats, while illustrator has strong commands on coloring, vectors and shape editing, layers panel and 3d effects.
CorelDraw’s Advance Functions :
- Text Tool: Corel Draw’s text editing tool is the most powerful text editing tool than Illustrator. In Corel Draw, you can easily create thousands of words document. Easy editing and formatting, high features paragraph text, text flow between pages and many more advantages make it the high-end software with the priority of designers.
- Fast forward: Corel Draw is the fast forward designing program, where you can create everything too fast compared to other software. The easy shortcut keys for every function make it more user friendly program.
- Powerful Printing Engine: Corel Draw is the first choice for printers all over the world. Average 99% even high profile printers around the world are using Corel Draw for their printing business. Corel Draw supports every printer, while it can be a laser printer, digital color printing machine or can be a multicolor offset printing machine, Corel Draw work well with every printer’s driver.
- Advance CMYK Mode: As it is already discussed that Corel Draw is the first choice for printing services, and so, every printing work is done in CMYK color mode, and Corel Draw handles CMYK mode in digital screen very well. Also, Corel Draw has default CMYK plate, which is created with a variety of CMYK shades, that work well while printing.
C. SUPPORTING FILE FORMATS: Making designs is not one program work, you have to regularly switch from one to another and get help from other software, and every software have it’s separate file formats, so you have to always find the main software, which supports every file formats created in other software.
So, Corel Draw supports at least every file format, that a designer can use in his workday. Corel Draw supports other software file formats like PNG, JPG, BMP, EPS, AI, SVG, TIFF, PSD, HTM, FMV, WMF, eps, ai and many more. In Corel Draw, you can easily import multi-page PDF, while in Illustrator you need an external script to import multi-page PDF.
Adobe Illustrator works really well with real-time supporting its family program files like Photoshop file, InDesign. Suppose you had created a PSD file in Photoshop and then placed it in Illustrator, Now you made some changes in that PSD file and whenever you save it in Photoshop, that changes automatically will be visible in illustrator also. Adobe Illustrator supports AI, PDF, DWG, BMP, CGM, CDR (CorelDraw 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), JPG, GIFF, PNG, DOC, SVG, PSD, BMP, file formats and many others also.
So file formats that support in Corel Draw vs Illustrator don’t have enough difference
D. PRICING:The most important part of any process is the cost of things. Before discussing price, you should know that you can create your designs in both programs Corel Draw and Illustrator, but the process and experience can be changed in creating the design. So choose the program as per your need, and also which is in your budget.
Corel Draw’s lifetime version is sold at $635, also you can buy the software on a monthly subscription at the costs $16.50 month.
While you can not purchase the illustrator’s lifetime license, you have to pay the monthly subscription price ranged from $9.99 to $49.99/month.
So here, Illustrator is more costly than Corel Draw, but also the huge demand of illustrator in the industry makes coordination between price and quality.
As the discussion is on Corel Draw vs Illustrator for screen printing, then we have already discussed the difference between CorelDraw and Illustrator, so now we will see the real difference between them that what happens, how long does it takes, how much easy is it, when the designing process is done in Corel Draw or Illustrator.
Design for Screen Printing Created in Adobe Illustrator :
Time took: 20 Minutes
As this design is created in Adobe Illustrator, rather I had taken 20 minutes to complete the design, without any revisions. Where the square bubbles you can see in the design are created by Illustrator symbol sprayer tool, which create my work quite easy instead of Corel Draw where I had to manually place the bubbles.
Indian Musical Instruments Course Poster created in both Corel Draw & Illustrator.
Time Took: 2 hours 30 Minutes
The Tabla was created in Corel Draw and the floral pattern was created in Illustrator. While the only tabla took me more than one hour creating in Corel Draw, then exported them into AI format and imported in illustrator, after that creating the floral pattern border also took more time, where I created only one part out of four, then duplicate it to the all corners.
CONCLUSION: The final discussion of comparing both software is that I prefer Adobe Illustrator if this is in your budget because there’re a lot of functions that you can’t find in Corel Draw like easy image tracing, Global Editing, Recoloring Artwork. But if your work is more consistent with printing with needed multi-pages you can choose Corel Draw which is worth money. Buy the lifetime license, and start your work.