CDR files are created with CorelDRAW, a vector editor created and sold by the Canadian Corel Corporation headquartered in Ottawa. The latest version of the program (X6) was released in March 2012 and runs only on Microsoft Windows.

The CDR file format is proprietary (there is no CDR file format specification publicly available) and it's used by Corel as the default for saving images. It can store simple drawings and vector images. Can also store data used by CorelDraw such as nodes, layers or segments.

In 2012 the LibreOffice and Re-Lab teams have created the libcdr library for reading any type of CDR files, from the first version to the current, X6 version. The library features enhanced support for shapes and their attributes as well as support for simple text, spot colors and color management. Libcdr was initially implemented in version 3.6 of LibreOffice.

How to open CDR files

Since CDR is a proprietary format, CDR files can be opened with a limited number of applications. However, once opened in CorelDraw they can be exported to other non-proprietary image formats compatible with a larger number of programs. CDR files can also be converted to other formats using online convertors.