CorelDRAW can do so many things that I often find users wanting to create really long documents such as magazines and books with it. I don’t feel it is the best tool for the job, but I certainly can’t convince users of this.
If you are going to create that type of documents, break it into multiple files with no file having more than 10-12 pages. Should something go wrong, you will only have to re-create those pages and not the entire document. When you have all the pieces done, you can import each of them into a single document with all pages.
While it still isn’t the ideal tool for these jobs, you’ll have a much better experience if you break up the file into this much smaller pieces.
I must admit to having created a few large multi-page documents, and even though it worked, I agree, CorelDRAW is not really the best tool for this application.
Since I do these multipage projects perhaps once per year I’d like a simple page layout program with a short learning curve.
Do you have any recommendations?
I think it is an oxymoron to have a good page layout program that is also simple with a short learning curve. They are complex programs that do amazing things in the hands of a user who knows how best to use them.
Since your project is only once a year, you would most likely have to re-learn some of the program each time you use it.
I have always loved Corel Ventura. I definitely wouldn’t call it simple and it takes time to learn. Being from Corel, it does have some commonality with CorelDRAW. I currently use Adobe InDesign for most of my long projects. I don’t find it simple either and I invested the time necessary to understand it well.
I have Adobe inDesign, but as you mention, I end up spending too much time re-learning everything. As a result, I end up doing the project in CorelDRAW just to get it finished. Many years ago I used Aldus Pagemaker and found it simple and easy to use. I’d really like to find something comparable, something fairly basic without all the bells and whistles of InDesign. And Microsoft Word is *not* an option. Ha!
I’ll try Corel Ventura and see how it goes.
Thanks!