Not a day goes by without someone asking me questions about CorelDRAW X5. I’m going to try and answer as many as possible in this post. Many of them have been answered in previous posts so I will link to them where applicable.

The most common has to be “where is my box?”. Corel stated in the beginning that boxes would not ship until March 24th (2010). I know everyone wants to get their box now, but there aren’t shipping to anyone from any vendor. If you purchased from Corel, you were given a serial number so that you can work with CorelDRAW X5 immediately.

Will my computer run CorelDRAW X5? I did a long post on the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 Hardware Requirements a few weeks ago. I’ve also seen a number of people ask why the memory settings and scratch disk options were removed. That was also answered in the same post.

Color management is quite a bit different than in previous versions. Corel did provide some videos that help to explain it. You’ll also find some information in the help files. But if you want answers now, you want the Color Management: CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5 book.

I’ve always said that import/export filters were one of the main reasons to upgrade to each new version. The improvements in AI, EPS and PDF filters provide that reason in X5. I’ve also seen questions about how Ghostscript is used by CorelDRAW X5 and you’ll find the answer in that post.

If you buy the download version, you don’t get all the “extra stuff” that comes on the DVD. That includes the premium fonts, vehicle templates and utilities. For those wondering how to find the PhotoZoom Pro 2 plug-in, you’ll also find the answer in the post on utilities.

Is everything in CorelDRAW X5 wonderful? No, it isn’t. There are some bugs that I’m sure Corel will address in a service pack. What is unknown is when that service pack will be available. Corel also dropped the ball with the Corel CONNECT utility. It is underpowered and unstable. Personally, I just don’t even attempt to use it so it doesn’t bother me. If you need to find artwork, try the ROMCat utility. The included Bitstream Font Navigator utility doesn’t work very well on Windows Vista and Windows 7. My recommendation is the FontExpert 2009 utility. It does many things that Bitstream Font Navigator doesn’t do, including work properly on the newer operating systems. The only missing feature is auto-loading of missing fonts and my fingers are crossed that the developer can solve that someday.

Of course I also get asked the release date of the CorelDRAW X5 Unleashed books. Believe me, when I know the exact date, I’ll be shouting it from the mountain tops. I want to have it done more than any of you! But I also want to make it as valuable as possible so I won’t release it until it is ready. You can keep up on the release dates at the CorelDRAW X5 Unleashed home page.

When will EZ Metrics and Unleashed FX be updated for X5? This answer is quite simple. I don’t know. Again, I want to have the updates released as soon as possible but I am reliant on developers to get the updates complete. I think you’ll see that the Unleashed FX update will be worth the wait.

Has anything cool been released for CorelDRAW X5 yet? Sure! There are three custom Dockers that are available now. Brian Davies Layers macro makes working with layers much easier. Lastly, Sancho Text Docker makes it much easier to format text.

Whew, I think that covers the most common questions.