The CorelDraw Wow Book, a four-color guide to CorelDraw, helps users of every level of expertise learn how to create superb, unique artwork. The book is divided into basic categories--drawing, coloring, transforming, adding dimension, working with type, and preparing artwork for the Web. Each category contains discrete tasks (broken down into individual steps) that help you with features, design techniques, and shortcuts.

For example, the chapter on color has a number of sections that help you use tools like texture, pattern, and fountain fills, as well as creating shimmering color, building a shine, and using blends. You'll find that this book is more than just a substitute for the CorelDraw manual. Within every individual task explained in the book, the authors use the work of a real artist as an example and show you what this artist did to produce the effect in question, including the combinations of features and techniques that helped produce such unique artwork.

Each chapter ends with a gallery of professional-quality artwork and an explanation of everything the artist did, from beginning scan to final color tweaking. There are dozens of contributing artists, and the appendix contains their contact information should you want to learn more.

The book covers versions 3 through 8 of the CorelDraw software, a smart move since even some of the older versions still have their share of devotees. The companion CD-ROM has demos of multiple versions of CorelDraw, sample artwork, fonts, and stock photos, as well as other third-party graphics software. --Kathleen Caster