New and Enhanced Features
The June 2024 Update for CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite 2024 delivers enhancements to several areas within the applications:
Enhanced! Painterly Brush tool
CorelDRAW 2024 introduced exciting new Painterly brushes that combine the unique expressive qualities of pixel painting with the precision of vector editing. This update offers a range of enhancements, including:
- The improved Brush picker lets you quickly search for Painterly brushes by typing the name of a brush style or brush category. The new My media count at the top of Brush picker displays the number of brushes. The default size of the Brush picker has been increased, and you can also easily resize it to suit your creative workflow. And on Windows, expanded and collapsed brush categories are now retained between sessions.
- The settings for several Painterly brushes have been optimized to make them more memory-efficient, especially when used at their largest size.
- You can now purchase additional Painterly brush packs from within the Welcome Screen or the Brush picker.
Updated! CorelDRAW (CDR) file format
The default CorelDRAW (CDR) file version is now 25.1 (2024.1). You can save a drawing that is compatible with an earlier version (including the March 2024 release) of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite (File > Save As > Version list box) and specify save options (Advanced). Such options are useful when the file contains new Painterly brushstrokes, text, fill, outline, or transparency features that are not supported in earlier versions.
Enhanced! File Locations options
- When CorelDRAW/Corel PHOTO-PAINT cannot locate content folders that have been renamed, moved, deleted or disconnected, a new message displays information on how to correct the issue.
- Content Type folders that have been renamed, moved, deleted or disconnected and require updating are now indicated by an icon in the Options (Windows) dialog box (Tools > Options > Global > File Locations) or Preferences (macOS) dialog box (CorelDRAW menu > Preferences > Global > File Locations).
Enhanced! PDF import
When importing a PDF file containing text, the new Maintain paragraphs, text flow, and formatting option is selected by default. This option delivers the best text-editing experience by organizing blocks of text into full paragraphs.
Deselecting this option reverts to the legacy text-importing behavior used in earlier versions of the application, where imported text objects remain grouped in smaller artistic text runs. This maintains the explicit kerning, spacing, sizing, and effects specified in the PDF file.
Performance and stability
The June 2024 Update for CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite 2024 (v25.1) also includes performance and stability fixes for several customer-reported issues.
Printing and Print Merge
- CorelDRAW on Windows now properly handles page sizes smaller than 1 inch by 1 inch when printing to various device drivers.
- Changing printer settings such as media size in the Print dialog box and printing to PS and PDF printers in CorelDRAW now works as expected ensuring that the printed document matches the selected page size.
- When you click the Printer preferences button next to the Printer list box on the General tab of the Print dialog box in CorelDRAW on macOS, and then choose an option from the Paper size list box that matches the size of the page, the printed output no longer appears scaled down.
- Print Merge: Now after you add one data field, CorelDRAW automatically deselects the print merge object, streamlining the process of adding the next field.
Working with text and fonts
- Fonts installed using Corel Font Manager are immediately available for use in CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.
- Application performance has been improved when working with OpenType or distressed fonts. In addition, previewing fonts on selected text objects is noticeably smoother.
- Issues related to finding and replacing text and displaying non-printing characters have been addressed.
- When you select the Text tool in CorelDRAW on Windows, create a text object, position the cursor within the text, and move it by holding down the arrow keys, the cursor now remains visible as expected.
Creating new documents
- On macOS, CorelDRAW no longer stops responding when an app window is moved over the Create a New Document dialog box (File > New from Template).
- On Windows, stability issues when creating new documents have been resolved.
Importing, exporting and saving files
- In CorelDRAW, stability issues related to importing PDF files and working with CDR files from earlier versions of the application or recovered backup files have been resolved.
- On Windows, exporting a bitmap for the web from CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT now works as expected.
- To enhance performance when saving large CDR files to the AI format, the PNG compression level is now set to medium by default.
- You can now successfully import PDF files from Canva that contain hidden markup for accessibility features, where some elements are missing a required dictionary property.
- Exporting a document containing an object with a Feather or Gaussian Blur effect to the PNG format works as expected.
- The issue with handling attributes containing empty values in SVG files has been resolved. CorelDRAW now accurately parses and stores these attributes, ensuring a smoother import and export process, particularly for SVG files with empty string attributes.
- The Selected only option on macOS or the Save only selected elements option on Windows and the Export this page only settings in the Publish to PDF (File > Export To > PDF) dialog box in CorelDRAW are now stored independently. Therefore, configuring these settings in one dialog box will no longer impact the other.
Painterly Brush tool improvements
- When you apply a Painterly brushstroke to an object with an outline in CorelDRAW, the brushstroke now matches the color of the outline. When you clear a brushstroke, the object always has an outline with a default width, matching the outline color of the last brushstroke applied.
- Painterly Brush tool enhancements offer improved performance:
- Moving a Painterly brushstroke no longer re-renders the brushstroke.
- The Brush picker now maintains a consistent width when you scroll through the list of brushes.
- Applying Painterly brushstrokes to a symmetry group now works as expected.
Other improvements
- CorelDRAW no longer stops responding after you launch the application, sign in, choose a template, edit credentials on the Global tab of the Preferences (macOS) or Options (Windows) dialog box (Global > User ID > Edit Credentials), and sign out.
- In CorelDRAW, adjusting the color and tone of a bitmap (Edit > Adjust) which has been modified with one of the Effect tools or the Transparency tool works as expected.
- In Corel PHOTO-PAINT on Windows, specifying a network location for fills in the Options dialog box (Options > Global > File Locations) functions as expected.
- In the Assets docker (Window > Dockers > Assets), sorting assets by name (Options button > Sort by name) works as expected.
- After you restart CorelDRAW following a system error and choose not to recover auto-backup files, the backup copies of files are erased upon quitting the application, as intended.
- When you add multiple circles and rotate them in CorelDRAW on Windows, the circles now appear correctly.
- CorelDRAW on Windows now includes all necessary WebView2Loader tools within its executable, eliminating the need to ship a separate WebView2Loader.dll file along with the application. If the WebView2 control, which is used in the Welcome Screen and the Learn docker, fails to create, a dialog will appear, guiding you to install it from Microsoft.
- When deploying CorelDRAW Graphics Suite (Windows) to a network, the public property REMOVE_GPL=1 removes Ghostscript 10.01.2 as expected.