Is coreldraw is better than illustrator with sign drawings?

[krystler54763305]

is coreldraw is better than illustrator? i work for a sign company and i need to work on a program that i can expand as much canvas space as possible if i'm working on huge signs on buildings, billboards, etc. Every time i used illustrator, it doesn't go as far i wanted to go. it only let me stretch out to 227 inches. If it is better I'll let my boss know so he can purchase it and since i never used it before i can learn it myself by watch tutorials on youtube. i'm at the point that it's getting frustrating to figure out on paper. Thank you.

[Mario Arizmendi]

My advice, both are good programs, with advantages and disadvantages, in terms of sizing you can simply create your artwork at scale, lets say at 50% fo its real size, then when go to print they must print at 200%..

[krystler54763305]

is corel draw good for huge scaling? for example if i'm working on a sign that's 5 foot by 5 foot will it let me set up that size without converting to inches?

[barbara_a · Accepted solution]

Illustrator's maximum artboard (page) size is 227.541 inches and CorelDraw's maximum page size is 1800 inches.  5 feet is only 60 inches so either application would work for you as far as page size.

[Andrei Koziakov]

Hi,

in addition to all answers, for comfortable work with huge layouts in Illustrator I recommend to use 10% scale of real size. It makes  calculations much simpler. And also in this case you have to control Raster effects resolution and resolution of all linked or embedded raster images (Links panel or Document info panel can show the resolution). 

[jane-e]

You can download a trial version of Illustrator for seven days to see if it works for you. You might want to try that.

You might also ask the company who will be printing the billboards if they prefer Illustrator or CorelDRAW files. If they want Illustrator, ask how to deal with the 5' issue. I haven't used DRAW for 20 years, but remember that you could set a scale of, for example, 1 inch equals 1 mile. The printer might be able to do that with Illustrator files.