Corel Corporation

I had two non-consecutive work terms at Corel working on the graphics applications team. More specifically, I worked on the text engine of CorelDRAW. This was a very exciting opportunity for me since I have been using DRAW since its early days (Version 3) and enjoy graphics as a hobby.

While at Corel, I worked on bug fixes and new features. Development was done in C++ with Visual Studio. A custom database in Rational ClearQuest was used to track bugs and new feature ideas.

My second work term report at Corel took what was learned in a computer science course, User Interface Architecture, to analyze the usability of DRAW.

During the first work term I spent a lot of time with the RTF import filter. All text imported into Corel eventually passes through this filter before being placed into a drawing. Following are some examples of improvements I made.

First, bulleted lists needed attention. In the following image, on the left side, a list is incorrectly imported before my code changes. The list on the right was imported correctly after the changes.

Another major improvement was to the layout of embedded graphics. In previous versions, the text and graphics imported all together instead of on separate pages as they should have been. Furthermore, the elements of the imported graphics were not grouped together, making them nearly impossible to separate from the other images. The next image shows this situation.

The following image shows the text and graphics laid out across two pages, as they should be, after the code changes.

Other improvements included importing tables and drop caps properly.

The second work term involved better supporting vertical and bidirectional text.