History

In 1987, Corel hired software engineers Michel Bouillon and Pat Beirne to develop a vector-based illustration program to bundle with their desktop publishing systems. That program, CorelDRAW, was initially released in 1989. CorelDRAW 1.x and 2.x runs under Windows 2.x and 3.0. CorelDRAW 3.0 came into its own with Microsoft's release of Windows 3.1. The inclusion of TrueType in Windows 3.1 transformed CorelDRAW into a serious illustration program capable of using system-installed outline fonts without requiring third-party software such as Adobe Type Manager; paired with a photo editing program (PhotoPaint), a font manager and several other pieces of software, it was also part of the first all-in-one graphics suite.
The first book devoted to CorelDRAW was Mastering CorelDRAW by Chris Dickman, published by Peachpit Press in 1990, with a contribution by Rick Altman. Dickman also founded and published the independent Mastering CorelDRAW Journal publication, and created and ran the first site dedicated to CorelDRAW, CorelNET.com, from 1995 to 1997.