Introduction

This is a primer.  It is intended for users of Corel Draw 4.0, both those who come to the product, or even computer graphics for the first time, and those who are old Corel hands.  The information is much distilled; we've aimed at keeping things succinct, and broken it down into topics for easy reference as far as possible.  The intention is to make available the best insights we have, based on our own use of the product and of computer graphics in the PC-family environment as a general thing.  The purpose of the primer is to give Corel users a useful companion, alongside the Corel 4.0 manual, to "short circuit" the learning process as far as possible.

Corel Draw is the "hot" PC-family illustration system.  In one package, you get all the tools needed for serious graphics work.  The Draw module, the heart of the system, is clearly a best-of-breed program, and the 4.0 version represents the standard against which competing products are measured.  The Photo-Paint program, introduced in Corel Draw 3.0, has matured dramatically in the intervening year; the implementation included with Corel Draw 4.0 is much more able than its predecessor, and stands up well against all but the most sophisticated stand-alone image-editing and paint programs.  Much the same is true for the other modules included with Corel Draw 4.0.  These programs are now more tightly integrated to the basic drawing module -- this makes for greater speed and agility, among other things.  The whole package, taken together, is enormously flexible, and for many users, has all the capability needed for sophisticated graphics.  High-end users, who commonly use more than one graphics product and who build a suite of applications tuned to their needs, will find the new version integrates better with other Windows products.

It is an aphorism that greater flexibility entails greater complexity.  This is particularly true in graphics computing.  Graphics puts more demand on the central processor and all the peripheral units that make up a desktop or deskside computing environment.  The data sets are enormous.  The number of calculations needed to draw figures and process bitmaps is vast.  In short, it ain't easy (technically speaking) to do pictures on computers -- and yet, software like Corel Draw, on an able system, is something most of us can do, with rewarding results.

Those results will come faster if the system is tuned to the purpose.  To that end, we offer suggestions not only on the use of Corel Draw and its various component applications, but also on the hardware platform from which it is run, and the DOS/Windows operating environment which will be its most common underpinning.  Finally, we also take up the ways that Corel Draw and its various components work with other commonly used applications in total computing solutions.