Interaction of Software Can Cause Glitches

When something doesn't work as expected in CorelDRAW, users tend to immediately point their finger and say unprintable things about CorelDRAW. There are times when that frustrated may be directed in the right direction. Yet I'm guessing the majority of the time it is misdirected as something else on the computer system can be the problem. Let me explain by telling you of a recent support question.

This user had CorelDRAW X5 and claimed that Artistic Text was being changed to Paragraph Text when it was copied from one document and pasted into another document. A number of things had been tested, such as resetting the workspace and the problem persisted. With the information provided, it sure seems like CorelDRAW is doing something weird to the clipboard.

Move forward a few hours and the user noticed the same exact problem in Adobe Illustrator. At that point the user starting inspecting what had changed on the system since things were working normally. The culprit was an update to the Skype software that had been installed a few days earlier. As part of the install, it had included the "Click to Call" feature. For those not familiar, it converts anything that looks like a phone number into something you can click to initiate a call in Skype. After removing the Skype feature, the clipboard returned to normal in CorelDRAW.

I just can't stress enough that it is important to provide as many details as possible when problems arise. As this example shows, other software on your computer can cause problems. Should you run into an issue, save the screaming for a few minutes and try to investigate what might have changed since things last worked.