CeledyDraw 2

Type of Program: Graphic Design and Desktop Publishing
Supported platforms: Win 95/98/ME/XP/NT/2000
Company Name: Celedy Software Inc.
Price: $64.99 U.S.
Installed Size: 60 MB

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I have always found Graphic Design and Desktop Publishing software to be a bit intimidating. You run the program and are faced with a bewildering array of meaningless buttons and usually a help file that is full of jargon and might as well have been written in another language. Not so with CeledyDraw 2.

The first thing that impressed me was the product's website, (http://www.celedy.com/productoverview.html), containing clear and informative details about the program and good graphical details. Almost everything you need to know about the program is on the site and not just glossed over, it is well worth a visit. The program itself is awesome and simple to use thus making it easy for beginners and more than powerful enough for professionals.

The user interface is well designed with nice touches like all the different shape drawing tools being aligned along the bottom of the screen, no more clicking on tiny spinners to bring up a 4 tool submenu, this has 24 of them! 14 alignment and distribution buttons on the left of your screen! Yet the screen still stays amazingly uncluttered. Major effort has been placed in making the CeledyDraw 2 interface as simple and intuitive as possible.

Included is the Symbol Gallery, this is an extremely powerful feature that allows users to browse by thumbnail and insert over 3000 fun and attractive vector symbols in more than 100 diverse themes, symbols can be resized, filled with textures and multicolor gradients, and even have special effects applied!. You also get a Template Gallery, where users can quickly browse and open hundred's of attractive templates in categories such as Flowcharts, Greeting Cards, Business cards, Flyers, and much more. Other features include Artistic Text, multicolor gradients, vector graphic operations such as Trim, Weld, Intersect, and Node-Editing to quickly forge complicated shapes from basic shapes, professional-grade Typesetting control over Leading, Tracking, Baseline Shift, and Kerning, special effects such as Contour, Blend, and Multi-color gradients to create stunning complex artwork. CeledyDraw 2 also offers PDF, Adobe Illustrator and EPS export, with the option of exporting text as curves and gradients as images to ensure that the exact layout is preserved. This makes CeledyDraw 2 excellent for designing projects for file-sharing and commercial printing as well. There are many many more features which are too numerous to mention here. Take my earlier advice and visit their website for full information.

Possible uses are: Logo and Ad Design, Web Graphics, Flyers and Signs, Newsletters and Magazines, Catalogs and Brochures, Labels and Signs, Greeting Cards and Postcards, Business Cards and Stationeries, Presentations, Flowcharts and Diagrams, Floor plans and Schematics, School Projects, Resumes and Cover Letters, Home Office Documents and much more. There is also a range of excellent easy to follow tutorials on the website on top of the included clear and concise help file.

It doesn't take weeks to learn, and years to master. It is a simple to use 2-in-1 graphic design AND publishing software that lets you quickly create impressive graphics, and then conveniently place them directly into your publication projects (DTP or Web) without having to switch between several different applications!

Highly recommended.

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Reviewed by Simon Baillie

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