CDR

There is no publicly published specification, and the underlying vector, bitmap, and text data remains proprietary to Corel, with each major version defining its own type identifier, such as CDR5, CDR7, or CDRG for X6, inside a RIFF envelope.

No. Both tools import CDR through libcdr, the same reverse-engineered parser: Inkscape covers versions 7 through X4, LibreOffice Draw only 7 through X3. That ceiling lines up with CorelDRAW's structural shift at X4, when the format moved from a raw RIFF chunk layout to a ZIP archive wrapping a riffData.cdr file. For a DAM, automated thumbnailing through either tool will quietly fail on newer CDR assets, so check the source version before batch conversion.

SVG or PDF, generated at export time from CorelDRAW itself rather than reconstructed later, since no third-party tool reliably parses every CDR version. PDF preserves vector paths, embedded bitmaps, and font outlines in a documented, ISO-standardized format (PDF/A where long-term preservation matters), while SVG works better for web delivery and browser preview. Keep the original CDR alongside the derivative rather than discarding it, since export flattens some CorelDRAW-specific effects and layer structures that only the native format retains for re-editing.

CDR has gone through three structural generations. Versions 1 and 2 use a fully proprietary layout, identifiable early on by a "WL" byte signature. CorelDRAW 3 through X3 switch to a RIFF chunk container, identifiable by the leading "RIFF" bytes and a CDR-plus-version tag. Starting with X4, CorelDRAW files become ZIP archives holding the drawing data internally (riffData.cdr, later content/root.dat). A DAM can sniff these signature bytes at ingest to route each file to the right parser rather than trusting the extension alone.

With limitations. Illustrator's native CDR import tops out at CorelDRAW version 10, released in 2000, well before CorelDRAW adopted its ZIP-wrapped file format starting with X4. Files from any later CorelDRAW release fail to open in Illustrator, since its parser has no logic for unwrapping that newer container. For a DAM handling recent CorelDRAW assets, this rules out Illustrator as a fallback converter; ingest pipelines need a licensed CorelDRAW instance or a dedicated conversion service instead.

January 1989, with CorelDRAW 1.0, developed by Corel Corporation in Ottawa and written by Michel Bouillon and Pat Beirne — one of the first vector illustration programs built specifically for the Windows graphical interface. That earliest format was a proprietary structure, identifiable by leading "WL" bytes; the RIFF-based container familiar from later versions didn't arrive until CorelDRAW 3, roughly three years afterward. For DAM archival purposes, this means pre-1992 CDR files need separate signature handling from every later CorelDRAW generation.

CorelDRAW itself, since it's the only application whose parser is updated alongside every internal format revision. Inkscape and LibreOffice Draw cover CorelDRAW versions 7 through X4 and X3 respectively via the reverse-engineered libcdr library, Illustrator caps out at version 10, and none of them handle the pre-1992 proprietary files or the ZIP-wrapped structure Corel introduced with X4. For a DAM needing guaranteed access to any CDR asset, that gap argues for keeping a licensed CorelDRAW instance, or a conversion service built on one, in the ingest pipeline.

It is proprietary and undocumented, no third-party tool reliably opens the newest CorelDRAW releases, and even open-source import support caps out at older versions, all reasons to export a durable SVG or PDF copy.