The biggest limitation to the amount of text in a publication, however, is the fact that Illustrator only supports single pages. This huge restriction is glossed over in the supporting manuals and help files as if it is hardly an issue. At best this is a clumsy workaround and until Illustrator offers true pages it immediately rules itself out from the creation of brochures and short publications. In all the major areas of the creation, control and formatting of objects and text, Illustrator still falls a long way behind Corel Draw. To compete it needs its own particular area of strength, an area in which it excels as Corel Xara does in terms of its realisic output and Fractal Design Expression does in terms of its artistic effects.
Illustrator does have some features that aren t found elsewhere.
The graph tool, for example, allows the creation of a whole range of chart types ranging from pie and bar through to stacked and radar. Since Corel Draw has dropped its charting module this really is an area in which Illustrator could score, but the tool is sadly under-powered with no ability to apply 3D effects, for example. Another introduction Adobe is making much of in this latest release is the new vertical text tool. This allows exactly the same text controls to be applied to vertically orientated text as to horizontal. All new power is appreciated, but unless you do a lot of work in Japanese this definitely falls into the occasional use category.