Illustration/Design Software

[jorgen.bergfors at idg.se]

Corel Draw is the clear choice. I use it for front panels, schematics, circuit 
boards and a lot of other things as well. An exellent and incredibly versatile 
program.
I test software (and hardware) at work and right now I happen to test drawing 
programs. I have Corel Draw 8, Adobe Illustrator 7, Macromedia Freehand 8 and 
Micrografx Designer 7 installed on my computer at work. 
Illustrator is the most difficult one to learn. Freehand is similar, but a bit 
easier. Both lack several useful features that Corel Draw has. Freehand crashes 
occasionally. The new version of Designer is quite good for this kind of work. 
It has the best dimensioning tool of the lot but lack some of the more fancy 
features in Corel Draw, like interactive transparence. If you can get it 
considerably cheaper than Corel Draw it might be a good buy though. 
A CAD program (like Autocad LT) is geneally a lot more difficult to learn and 
not as versatile as a draw program. I prefer to use as few different programs 
as possible and instead really learn how to use them to their fullest. Even if 
a CAD program has some features that you don't find in draw program, it is 
probably not worth the effort of learning another program. The same goes for 
specialised PCB design programs, unless you are going to do a lot of really 
complex designs of course.
/Jorgen





MIME:jitter at fortwayne.infi.net on 98-04-24 06.07.05
To: synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl @ SMTP 
cc:  (bcc: Jorgen Bergfors/IDGSE)
Subject: Illustration/Design Software

Y'ello All!

I'm on the very long and slow road of doing this diy stuff and am giving
consideration to getting some software to help design a front panel layout
(for use with silk screening panel markings) since I have the opportunity
to get some software at an academic discount.

My illustration software choices are Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw.
I've tried a demo of Illustrator but didn't make much headway with it
(maybe I just didn't spend enough time with it).  It just didn't seem very
useful for drawing circles , crosshairs, pot ticks, or lines.

I could also try and go with something like Autocad LT (or maybe it's
TurboCad LT). But I've never used an actual cad program before.

As far as the illustration programs go, I definitely like the idea of
vector drawings, so I can zoom the hell out of anything if need be.

Of course, if anyone knows something that is just perfect for this sort of
thing, I'd love to know.

Any info greatly appreciated. :)
Happy noisemaking to those that actually have the time!


Josh Rowe
------------------------
jitter at fortwayne.infi.net
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Cove/7815/