I have been trying to do some electrical control circuit plans with CDT12.

What really would be usefull is a proper, user editable, preset shapes window a la MS Visio where you can drag and drop objects to create preset shapes, or pull out existing objects for further use, then the option to save a shape set and decide which ones to have preloaded when starting a new project. At the moment I have resorted to  having a blank projekt with frame and a few pages at the end full with different objects like switches fuses, or relais... but, it gets tiresome over time having to switch pages and using copy+paste all of the time.

Corel DESIGNER 12 already provides even more than that:

The Symbol Manager (Ctrl+F2) provides a view to libraries with ~4000 symbols (including electrical symbols for various types of plans and diagrams).

With drag&drop you can use any of these symbols in your illustrations. You can create your own symbols just by right click on the graphic object / group in the drawing and then create a new symbol from there.

Symbol libraries can be created by saving a file with all symbols as *.csl (Corel Symbol Library). Saving to a network drive and making the folder with that libraries available in the Symbol Manager (there's the "Add Library" feature in the Symbol Manager docker) gives the option to link such symbols as external reference to a Corel DESIGNER file.
Whenever you have to update a default symbol you can do that from the central library and then update all entities in the files using this symbol with one click in the "Link Manager" (in the Window menu).

The same update option for symbols you have within a file (with symbols that are defined within the *.des file).

Have fun with exploring this feature!

Hi, was wondering if you could help. I am new to Coreldraw X3 and have started using in an educational environment. Where can I find the symbol libraries? This may appear to be a stupid question but I can not locate any *.csl libraries. Also I thought this would be something available on the internet but have yet to find many. Does Corel have any for download or are they included on the install disk? I have tried searching the corel website but to no avail.

Thanks,

Bill.

That's one of the differences between CorelDRAW Graphics Suite and Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite.

Only the technical illustration suite comes with ~80 symbol libraries (*.csl files) with predefined symbols in it that you can link to drawings.

In addition Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4 provides another 30 symbol libraries for those who register the software with Corel.
In CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3 and X4 you can create your own symbols and you can also save symbol libraries with those custom symbols.

Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4 adds the ability to link network locations for symbol libraries so that you can access libraries from a central place in the network (and can also update from that central location to make sure the standard drawing objects are really standard across the organization).

Best regards,
Klaus.