I work in the technical publications department for a manufacturing company in Ohio and we are looking into Corel. Our IT person, downloaded the newest "pre-release" version of the software X4. Now, my question is this, we only want the Designer part of Corel, is Corel Desinger 12 the version  that is packaged with the X4 pre-release software or is version 12 an old version? Should we wait for Designer X4 or should we order version 12?

Thanks for the help.

"Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite 12" is the version of DESIGNER currently available for purchase. "Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4" is the next version of Corel DESIGNER (X4 = 14). Two options for you. Either get 12 now and upgrade to X4 when available (if the features you see are of interest for you) or wait until X4 is released (sorry, I cannot provide a date), using the pre-release version for now.

Gérard

 Thanks Gérard for the information. We have believe that X4 offers exactly what we need and as we are finding out as we use the pre-release software is that is true.  The biggest thing we are looking for is more compatibility with Pro-E, since our Engineering department uses that for our models.

-Jeramy

Technical Illustrator

Klaus posted an article about this subject in his blog recently. In summary, Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X4 will come with support for AutoCAD 3D DWG and DXF, 3DS, VRML, U3D, SketchUp files and a few other file formats. There will be an add-on package to DESIGNER that will include support for CATIA®, Inventor®, Pro/ENGINEER®, SolidWorks®, and Unigraphics® NX, and 3D exchange formats such as IGES, STEP, SAT (to name a few). The add-on is actually included with the pre-release version. More details will be available with the official availability announcement of DESIGNER X4. 

Gérard