Corel Draw v Adobe Illustrator?

[Laurelin]

Anyone used both programs? I have illustrator but have never used it. I'm used to Corel and was wondering if the two are very similar?

[Dekka]

I have used and loved illustrator, but never used corel draw.

[Laurelin]

Ok, I have a question for you.

I have CS3, btw.

In Corel when you draw a line or an object you can use a 'bezier' tool to place your line. When you select objects, there's two different pointers you can use- one grabs the entire object and one grabs the specific point on the line. How do I do this in Illustrator?

Also in Corel when you have a line drawn you can highlight all the nodes on the line an then there is a slider at the top that you can slide to reduce the nodes and smooth out the lines. Is that feature in Illustrator?

[Laurelin]

Oh and any good illustrator tutorials or pages you know of would be great.

[Dekka]

I haven't used illustrator in years!! And it will be many more incarnations than the one I used, so for your first question I don't know.

For the second one, I think there are other ways to do it.

From how I had others explain it to me, corel draw is easier to use 'out of the box' but illustrator, once you know how to use it gives you more control and options.

[Laurelin]

Yeah Corel is extremely intuitive to use. I do think it's pretty limited but it works well for what I need if I can combine it with photoshop. For some reason I have never been able to smoothly outline anything in photoshop although I know how to use the program.

I made my sig in Corel and would like to find something I can use at home to make similar logo type things.

I'm starting to play around with Illustrator but I'm just so overwhelmed! I don't know where anything is located.

[RedHotDobe]

Originally Posted by Laurelin

In Corel when you draw a line or an object you can use a 'bezier' tool to place your line. When you select objects, there's two different pointers you can use- one grabs the entire object and one grabs the specific point on the line. How do I do this in Illustrator?

Also in Corel when you have a line drawn you can highlight all the nodes on the line an then there is a slider at the top that you can slide to reduce the nodes and smooth out the lines. Is that feature in Illustrator?

For your first question, there are two different selection tools. They should be at the top of your tool bar. One is black, and it selects whole object. The other is white, and it selects parts of objects. You can use that one to select specific points on your line.

Not sure I quite understand the second question. There is a tool that will erase points and make a line simpler. You can also select a specific point, and a bar (or two, depending how you made the line) will stick out from that point with points on the end that you can grab. If you move those, it will change the shape and flow of the line(s) connected to that point to smooth things out.

[Laurelin]

Yeah I mean a tool that simplifies a line. I wasn't sure how to describe it. Where is that in Illustrator?

[Beanie]

You should be able to hold down on the pen tool in the tool box and I believe you're looking for the pen tool with the little "-" next to it. That will delete points. If you delete points, be aware you'll almost definitely need to adjust the curves of the surrounding points to compensate.

There's also a "smooth" tool I think it is that you can use that will sometimes do the job for you... but it doesn't always work as nice as I'd like and I usually go back and manually adjust some of my curves anyway.

[RedHotDobe]

That's what I was referring to - the smooth tool. I don't know specific names for anything. It really does not work as well as Adobe would leave you to believe, lol. You're better off deleting individual points like Beanie suggested.