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High-end Windows illustration programs such as CorelDraw, Micrografx Designer, and Arts & Letters are the mainstay of many graphic artists. Although these packages produce striking output, they still require a good deal of time and training to use, even in the hands of professionals.
Software Publishing Corp. has employed the philosophy of its easy-to-use Harvard Graphics to Harvard Draw for Windows. Its intuitive interface and clip-art collection should meet the needs of everyday business communicators who need to produce reports, publications, and presentations. At the same time, Harvard Draw fulfills high-end illustration requirements with easy Bezier curve editing, a blend tool, multiple layers, auto-trace, and such special effects as unusual gradient fills.
There are a few things Harvard Draw cannot do, however. For example, it does not let you extrude three-dimensional objects or twist a symbol around another shape. But oversights are few and quickly offset by Harvard Draw's speed, which makes it appropriate for large or complex illustrations.
We used the same scoring criteria from our last product comparison of drawing software (June 17, 1991, page 57).
FEATURES:
Harvard Draw runs in preview mode, so you see line and color changes immediately. You can open six windows simultaneously--each with an outline or preview version of the same drawing. The separate symbol window shows objects from other files for quick placement. And last, a pattern window displays 130 predefined fill patterns.
Harvard Draw's tool palette offers 18 options, including selection, drawing, modification, and viewing tools. Because several tools perform more than one function, you can switch drawing actions without leaving the active page.
The on-screen color palette bar displays one of 12 preset color palettes, each containing 150 colors. Although Harvard Draw does not ship with Pantone colors, it does support the CMYK and RGB color models, so you can simulate virtually any color from more than 16 million possibilities. It is possible to change patterns or modify gradients and add them to personal color palettes; the number of palettes is unlimited.
Harvard Draw's blend command merges two objects by varying intermediate colors and shapes. Additional copy options let you duplicate objects along lines, rows, columns, or curves.
The program includes 47 Bitstream scalable fonts and works with any other Bitstream Speedo font. You...