I’ve always been told the weekend is when you are supposed to get a break from work. While I try to do that, it always amazes me that questions from users never stop coming. It could be at night, it could be over the weekend and sometimes it is at night on a weekend (and even holidays). So I thought I’d share just a few of the questions I got this past weekend along with links to previous posts where these questions have been answered and some of the problems could have been avoided.

There are some questions that frustrate me to no end. Not because I have to answer the question, but rather because users fail to take proper precautions. It always starts with “My hard drive crashed and I need to get…” You know backing up your hard drive is important. Yet so few people do it. Whatever you have planned right now, stop! If your data isn’t backed up, do it! Yes, now!!!

Remember the story I told you a few months ago in A Failed Hard Drive and the Important of Backup? That user had to spend thousands of dollars to recover their data. So whatever you think is an important enough reason to not do it now is probably nothing more than an excuse. Backup now!

Someone else was describing problems getting quality GIF and JPG files out of CorelDRAW. After asking a couple of questions, the real problem was getting DXF files into CorelDRAW. If you use the DXF import filter in CorelDRAW, you are fighting a losing battle. I wrote Importing AutoCAD Files Into CorelDRAW last year to address this exact problem. There are a variety of methods to test to determine which gives you the best results.

One user had heard of others having problems with CorelDRAW X5 and X6 running on Windows 8 and wondered my experience. I have heard people having problems with every single version of CorelDRAW on every single version of Windows for years. There are legitimate compatibility issues if your version of CorelDRAW is much older than your version of Windows. Many of the times, there is something else involved. In short, I rarely have problems but I also take care to avoid things that can cause problems.

How do you install it? Read Using a Custom Install When Installing CorelDRAW and Other Software for some basic suggestions. Want specific step-by-step instructions for CorelDRAW? I have a lesson dedicated to that in CorelDRAW X5 Unleashed and CorelDRAW X6 Unleashed. Each of those DVDs took a year of my life to complete so that is only one of the hundreds of things you’ll learn! One thing is to Never Import Workspaces From a Previous Version!

A user who had purchased some CorelDRAW Brush Packs wondered how to install them. We’ve got a free video titled Installing Brushes in CorelDRAW showing exactly how to do it. Of course you’ll find several more hours of free videos showing you why you need to have CorelDRAW Brush Packs in your design arsenal.

A task that many users need to complete is bringing in variable data and merging it with their designs. This is something you can do with the stock features in CorelDRAW. I’ve written about Including Variable Data with Print Merge before and you’ll also find it detailed in CorelDRAW X5 Unleashed Advanced Topics. Users often tell me something just can’t be done and then I show them how to do it.

The best message I received this weekend is from someone who watched Cave Creek Geek Removes Dust From a Computer in Ventura, CA. In fact, it was the “hand model” from the video. He had brought a couple of other machines home from his office and blew out the dust as demonstrated in the video. I got a big smile knowing that my video had helped him out!