DrawPlus 7

By Dale Farris, Secretary Golden Triangle PC Club June 2005 General Overview Completely re-engineered from the ground up, using state of the art development tools, processes and the latest technical innovations, DrawPlus 7 really is the ultimate software solution for all of your drawing and graphics requirements. Better, easier and more powerful than ever, there's no limit to the creative possibilities! If you've used Serif products in the past, you'll know that their award winning software products have always offered high-end features and total ease-of-use at unbelievable prices. With the release of their latest version of DrawPlus, Serif has added a raft of new features and enhancements to its multi award winning formula, as well as making it easier than ever to use! DrawPlus 7 makes it even easier than ever for anyone to create stunning results. It's perfect for any drawing or graphics task, from simple logos for your school, club or church, to designer artwork that the pro's would be proud of. It's packed full of help, so even if DrawPlus 7 is your first drawing application you won't be out of your depth and if you're already an experienced graphic artist, you'll appreciate the incredible design & drawing power of DrawPlus 7. Serif has also created an amazing Design CD packed with Wizards, Tutorials and Chain Lines. With over 100 brand new professionally-designed documents, there’s a Wizard for every occasion. Plus, the comprehensive collection of exclusive step-by-step Tutorials, covering a wide range of subjects will help anyone achieve outstanding results and enhance their range of drawing and animation skills. And, with a great selection of over 100 new Instant Effects, there really is no limit to the creative possibilities. The Design CD is the perfect and essential companion to DrawPlus 7! What's New in v. 7? PDF Export With the incredible DrawPlus 7, you can now create industry standard Portable Document Format (PDF) files in an instant. Now you can share your work with other computers, anywhere in the world. A universally recognized format, PDF technology means that everyone gets to see your creation exactly as you intend it to look. Document Types A major innovation added for the first time in this completely re-engineered version, DrawPlus 7 now allows you to create amazing multi-page documents. With DrawPlus 7 there's no longer the restriction of working with a single page at a time, allowing you to easily create stunning booklets, greetings cards, or any other multi-page design. Professional Color In addition to the standard RGB color mode used on screen, DrawPlus now also supports fantastic CMYK color fills. You can specify the exact color you desire by selecting the precise amount of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black ink for the perfect results when professionally printing all your documents. 3D Shapes The amazing new DrawPlus 7 makes it a snap to convert flat, boring 2D artwork into eye catching 3D masterpieces. With just a few simple mouse clicks, you can create a beautifully rendered 3D shape - it really couldn't be easier! DrawPlus 7 allows all your artwork to take on a whole new dimension - no experience required! Filter Effects With a host of stunning new Filter Effects, you can easily add that extra special sparkle to everything you create! DrawPlus 7 boasts an impressive array of 3D surface texture effects, an astonishing pattern generator & much more amongst its dazzling array of design options. It really couldn't be simpler to make all your designs stand out. Curve Drawing The outstanding new Smart Curve Drawing functionality means you can create any type of curve, in an instant! DrawPlus 7 makes it easier than ever to create truly outstanding graphics. Simply select a few points on your page & watch in amazement as DrawPlus automatically draws your curve as you go. You can even select multiple points – it really couldn't be simpler! Text In A Shape With DrawPlus 7 you can create a shape, any shape and simply start typing. It really couldn't be easier! With the amazing new Instant Text in a shape, your text will automatically flow inside the shape you've created. Whether you’re using a QuickShape or a shape you've created yourself, DrawPlus will make sure your text fits it perfectly. Fantastic Feathering If you ever wondered how to get that fancy, fluffy cloud effect, then DrawPlus 7 is the answer! Its amazing new functionality allows you to instantly give any shape a soft edge with just a couple of mouse clicks. Now you can easily eliminate jagged edges from your designs and give all your drawings and graphics a more subtle finish. Features Great Display, Performance, and Output With anti-aliased screen display and smooth color blending, jaggies and banding are a thing of the past. You'll get superior printed results, with smooth color blending. And DrawPlus supports Transparent GIF, Animated GIF, and PNG for forward-looking Web page design. Total Ease-of-Use DrawPlus makes powerful features available to anyone with a host of ease-of-use features designed to zap that learning curve. You'll find accelerated learning tools like ToolTips, context-sensitive Hints & Tips and colorful QuickTours. The tabbed Studio storing hundreds of preset lines, fills, transparencies, fonts, and design elements is always convenient and ready to use. Especially for working at high zoom levels, the Navigator tab affords a thumbnail of your entire drawing with the visible area shown as a draggable view box. And the Library tab adds scores of pre-built elements so you can take advantage of new tools and features. QuickShapes Can't draw? Won't draw? QuickShapes are the answer! They work like intelligent clipart or the most powerful set of drawing tools you've ever envisaged. Even extremely complex shapes like spirals, petals, and webs are simple to draw and customize using QuickShapes. Professional-Standard Drawing Features Features like converting text to curves, defining custom envelopes, fully customizable drop shadows, layers, and scalable vector graphics give complete creative power. Plus special commands like Contour for outlining and edge effects. Add to composite two shapes into one... Subtract for cropping and masking. Intersect to carve out unique shapes and regions. Advanced Fill Support Apply high-end conical, ellipse, 3-Color, 4-Color, Square, and Plasma fills to any text or shape for exciting, professional results. Simply drag solid colors from the Studio's Color tab onto a fill path to add or replace colors for more subtle gradients. Use Bitmap fills with over 200 supplied bitmap images in a range of categories for textures and backgrounds. Even import your own bitmaps and use them as fills on DrawPlus objects! Plus Mesh Fills for impressively varied gradients using a path-node network-easy to customize with the special toolbar. Transparency Effects Transparency can make the difference between flat, ordinary visuals and sparkling realism! And DrawPlus provides it all-a full range of transparencies for shading, shadows, reflections, depth effects, and more. Achieve multi-level transparency effects just by dragging grayscale tones to set levels. Color Schemes Whether you're starting with a Design Wizard or creating new designs from scratch, interchangeable color schemes let you recolor everything in a flash! Simply tag objects with numbers. Colors update instantly when the scheme changes. Chain Lines Here's the ultimate in decorative line effects: easy to apply from the scores of pre-supplied choices, just as easy to edit or create from scratch! Chains take drawn objects and links them in sequence along a designated line, for marching footprints, themed borders-uniquely patterned, endlessly variable effects anywhere you want to apply them. Dimension Lines and Scale Setting Click a couple of times to take linear or angular measurements of any object on the page-DrawPlus displays the dimension using your choice of ruler units, at your specified scale (say, one inch to two feet). Dimensions update when objects are moved or resized! Design room layouts, make maps, draw scale models. The choice is yours. Connectors For drawing dynamic flow diagrams, schematics, family trees, and org charts, connector objects let you link your boxes and symbols and then rearrange at will. Connection points stay put on each object keeping connections intact. Auto Connectors intelligently display bridges at line crossings, and even route themselves around obstructive objects. Natural Curve Editing No need to fumble with Bezier nodes. Simply click and drag to break and redraw a curve at any point. Apply smoothing selectively to freeform curves to eliminate that "shaky hand" appearance. Who says you can't draw like a pro? Animation Mode Tap the power of QuickShapes and Wizards to turn out Web animations in no time-using advanced features like onion skinning, backgrounds, overlays, and frame management. Use the time you save to make more movies! Web Image Slices and Image Maps Beat the pros at their own game by using these techniques to add links to your Web graphics! With a few clicks, divide images into segments - each with its own hyperlink and popup text-or add hotspots to specific regions. Of course, DrawPlus outputs all the necessary HTML code to wrap the segments together. Rollover States for Web Buttons Take image slicing even further - let DrawPlus create interactive Web graphics that highlight or change state when users mouse over or click! Just create your variant graphics on the special layers, then export as usual. Web Browser Preview One click lets you see how your graphics will display in a Web browser, so you can quickly check quality, transparency, hyperlinks, and rollover behavior prior to final export. Perspective Effects Get a new slant on things. With a flyout full of presets plus a built in tool for freeform adjustments, the 3D Perspective option lets you tilt and skew text (or any other object) for truly "spatial" results! Filter Effects Drop shadows starting to wear a bit thin? Enliven your text with fully adjustable Inner Shadow, Glow, Bevel, and Emboss filters, easy to apply and sure to impress. Plus easy access presets and a toolbar button that lets you apply instant drop shadows. Cropping Any object can serve as a "cookie cutter" for trimming one or more other objects into a single shape and the effect is reversible so you won't lose your originals. Great for creating "reflections" of complex scenes! Roughen Tool For jagged, jaunty edges on text, lines, or QuickShapes, just drag the tool up or down for subtle or bold results. Backdrop and Watermark Elements Adding abstract or themed backgrounds, for dazzling presentations or space-styled scenes, is easy with Backdrop elements. And Watermark elements make a notoriously difficult effect a snap to create with a wide range of customizable watermark designs on hand. Access both Wizards via the Studio's Library tab. Border Wizard Vastly flexible Border Wizard instantly adds borders to the page or to individual objects. Choose a border from the extensive library, or be creative and let Border Wizard guide you through building a unique design. Image Export Optimizer The Export Optimizer lets you see how your image will look (and how much space it will take up) before you save it! Its multi-window display provides side-by-side WYSIWYG previews of image quality at various output settings, so you can make the best choice every time. Professional Print Output Now your artwork can be prepared for professional printing straight from DrawPlus. Whether you're creating color-separated PostScript® output or printing from your desktop, process color (CMYK) separations for full color printing will save money and time, every time. DrawPlus 7 Design CD Get even more from the amazing DrawPlus 7 with its power packed add on. The DrawPlus 7 Design CD is packed with Wizards, Chain Lines, Special Effects, Tutorials & Samples, making it the essential companion to DrawPlus 7. The DrawPlus 7 Design CD is included with your purchase of DrawPlus 7. 120+ Extra Wizards make Professional Results Incredibly Easy DrawPlus 7's categorized Wizards bring you instant professionally designed documents for any occasion. With everything from Animations to Video Labels, this massive collection offers something for everyone. 100+ Instant Effects The amazing Design CD contains additional stunning new Instant Effects, spice up all your work in seconds. 60+ Stunning Chain Lines Extend your arsenal of artistic Chain Lines. These impressive design elements let you transform lines and borders into stunning graphics with a single click! Extra Exclusive Tutorials This informative library of tutorials introduces new and interesting techniques, to help anyone achieve outstanding results and enhance their range of drawing and animation skills. Extra Professional Samples Gain creative inspiration from these professionally drawn masterpieces, even deconstruct them to gain useful insights into artistic techniques. Target Customers Serif's DrawPlus 7 has steadily evolved from a small, barely usable drawing tool bundled with PagePlus into a credible alternative to even the most sophisticated drawing program. It is suitable for every level of user because it has both wizards and templates to get the beginner started and some powerful tools for the expert. Its design wizard will walk you through the production of standard graphics documents, such as cards, notices, bookmarks and menus. When you work on a document hints pop up to tell you how things work. Once you move beyond the wizards and templates, the program's quality drawing tools will really come in handy. All the basic tools you need are supplied, and freehand drawing is very easy. While there are no bitmap brush effects, there is a roughen tool that can give the look of a freehand sketch to something that you have drawn. There are a large number of smart shapes, from rectangles to smiley faces. Special effects include a blend tool and an interactive transparency tool, which can be applied no matter what type of fill is used. The range of fills provided is amazingly sophisticated and includes a linear, radial, conical and mesh fill. DrawPlus is the only budget package to provide a mesh fill, which makes sophisticated shading and coloring relatively easy. It also provides bitmap texture fills. In each case you can avoid the complexities by selecting from the many preset fills offered in the gallery palette. If you need 3D tools, DrawPlus has some of the best. You can create an instant 3D extrusion and add a number of separate 3D effects, such as beveled edges and bump maps. The bump map gives a surface the look of true 3D texture complete with lighting effects. The only problem is that you can’t use a bump map with a 3D extrusion, though you can apply a gradient fill or a bitmap texture and have this wrapped around the resulting 3D object. This isn’t quite fast enough to give you instant feedback, but the changes you make are previewed in the drawing. In addition to the creative tools, there are also dimensioning and connector tools, making DrawPlus suitable for a certain amount of technical drawing. It also supports web graphics and animation. New in this version is PDF export and improved prepress facilities, such as spot and process color separation. DrawPlus has so many features that it is really impressive at this very reasonable price. DrawPlus is a professional quality drawing program wrapped up in wizards and templates and sold at a budget price. System Requirements IBM compatible Pentium PC Windows 98, 98 SE, ME, 2000, NT4, XP 32MB RAM 160MB free hard disk space CD-ROM drive Mouse (or other Microsoft compatible pointing device) SAGA (800x600, 16-bit color) display or higher Additional disk resources and memory are required when editing large or complex documents. Optional Windows-compatible printer TWAIN-compatible scanner and/or digital camera Stylus or other input device Internet account and connection required for accessing online resources List Price $99.99 Check with Serif for pricing information for multiple licenses. About Serif Serif is the leading independent developer and publisher of desktop publishing, design and graphics software for the PC. Privately owned and with operations in Europe and North America, Serif has an award-winning software range for desktop publishing, digital imaging, drawing and graphics, 3D effects and animations, and Web publishing. Founded in 1987 with the aim to develop low-cost alternatives to high-end publishing and graphics packages, Serif has consistently been praised for its powerful yet easy-to-use software which has put professional effects and demanding publishing tasks within the reach of ordinary PC users around the world. Providing best-selling titles and associated products direct to customers through its contact centers in the UK and US, and through traditional retail channels and the Web, Serif has over 230 employees at its head office, development and European sales centre in Nottingham, UK and its Internet development and North American sales operation in Hudson, New Hampshire. Contact Serif, Inc. 13 Columbia Drive, Suite 5 Amherst, New Hampshire 03031 603-889-8650 FAX 603-889-1127 www.serif.com