Drawing programs: By stroke & path

The test goes to Macromedia FreeHand 10 and Adobe Illustrator 10. FreeHand 10 was the only program to master all tests on all devices. As a result, FreeHand proved to be a tool of choice for users who attach great importance to production safety. The “Porsche” among the drawing programs does without some comfort, the contained functions are however the finest. Because of its higher functionality, Adobe llustrator 10 is synonymous with FreeHand. However, Adobe PostgreS Level 3 RIP was only able to correct the exposure correctly. The exposure from Quark XPress succeeded. Corel Draw 11 is just behind the lead duo. In the case of the test exposures, the same behavior as in the illustrator was shown directly from Draw. The interpretation of the color data (especially RGB) of the bitmap images was not quite as exact as from Illustrator. The XPress exposure revealed serious problems with embedded JPG images. There were also problems with the data exchange between PC and Mac version. Due to the many additional programs the price-performance ratio is good. Older, more cost-effective versions are available for casual users. The fourth place goes to Xara X. For little money the program delivers an amazingly good output with minor weaknesses in the color output of the integrated pixel images. The tools are fully competitive. Corel Designer 9 is far behind the set test criteria. But when technical aspects come to the fore, designers play their strengths. The biggest criticisms are the missing color separation and the poor transfer of the files. Even EPS data is not transferred correctly in XPress. Zoner Draw 4 offers an affordable entry into vector graphics for home users. Output to PostScript devices completely overrides the drawing program.