No Synthetic BOLD in Extreme Pro - I need two Xara versions!

I've searched and read others discussing the removal of synthesised bold on fonts used in Pro 4.

Can I just say this now makes my life a nightmare unless I run version 3 as well, which I now have to do! I frequently have to return to older jobs for either snippets or to do another printjob - and of course they don't look the same in 4.

I'm sure there is a reason for it, maybe bold variants were'nt being used at all in the first place and it was all synthetic, and the change was needed to get in-check with the standard.

But please Xara, at least an option to use the feature!!! You've effectively bodged alot of my portfolio.

At very least I want to get away from having to load up an old version of Xara to open my docs correctly - that's just...niggly...and poor.

Pro 4 is awesome by the way, I'm very impressed - bar this minor issue.

Xtreme 4 is more in line now with how Adobe products handle type, which also makes it more compatible with Adobe products.

Synthesized bold and italics are not supported by many applications and there is a big different between simply slanting text and a true italic font.

I know that for a lot of us who have gotten used to this option, it is a pain not to have it, but it is really better and more professional in the long run.

True italics are usually a very different design and can be very elegant.

Gary

-strike my post... misread-

While were on the subject.

If the font highlighted in Xpro is Zapf & you use the pull down. It always defaults to A & you have to scroll down - annoying. Shouldn't the pull down auto scroll to the selected font? Common sense say's it should.

The Xara Programers did this nice work with the font pull down only to stop short of something truly spectacular. If only the Font Gallery worked like the pull down...

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Xtreme 4 is more in line now with how Adobe products handle type, which also makes it more compatible with Adobe products.

Synthesized bold and italics are not supported by many applications and there is a big different between simply slanting text and a true italic font.

I know that for a lot of us who have gotten used to this option, it is a pain not to have it, but it is really better and more professional in the long run.

True italics are usually a very different design and can be very elegant.

Gary

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Yeah I thought as much, and I know it is the 'proper' and 'pro' way to do it. Infact all new jobs are done in Pro4 now, but this still poses problems for all my previous works.

It's not the complete end of the world - but it's close too it bar the big meteor and the boiling sea.

I still think a backward compatibility mode, or maybe to load but not being able to save synthesised?

Until then I'll run both versions but try to redesign older affected jobs in Pro4, and start new jobs in Pro4 only.

there are various other changes as well - eg to the way bitmaps/fills operate - that mean I keep three versions of xara in my current windows build - at least you can do this with xara, and its backwards compatibility up to a point - not ideal but workable I find

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If the font highlighted in Xpro is Zapf & you use the pull down. It always defaults to A & you have to scroll down - annoying. Shouldn't the pull down auto scroll to the selected font? Common sense say's it should.

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I agree, it is a pain.

I would like to see it work so formatted text returns to the applied font but unformatted text starts at the top of the list with the fonts used in the document. It's a mixed bag. I can see why they have done this but I agree it is not the most efficient way.

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Originally Posted by wW

If the font highlighted in Xpro is Zapf & you use the pull down. It always defaults to A & you have to scroll down - annoying. Shouldn't the pull down auto scroll to the selected font? Common sense say's it should.

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I´m unsure if i understand what you said but when you highlight a word or a paragraph, wathever in Xara, the drop down list shows the font used and picks it at the top of the list (in the used document fonts area).
Where´s the problem? Maybe i´m missing something here...

Correct for me too.
Selecting a line of text in Xtreme 4 automatically shows the selected font face in the dropdown menu.

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Originally Posted by wW

While were on the subject.

If the font highlighted in Xpro is Zapf & you use the pull down. It always defaults to A & you have to scroll down - annoying. Shouldn't the pull down auto scroll to the selected font? Common sense say's it should.

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Yes, definitely, and in principle, this is how it works, but we also introduced the "used fonts" section at the top, so if the font is in there (which it usually is), then the list scrolls to the entry in the top section, not to the main entry down the list.

It took a lot of experiments to get the font dropdown to its current state and I think most of it is pretty much as good as it can get but the initial scroll position is one thing I am still unhappy with. Partly, this is caused by Windows limitations. It proved impossible to open the list fully at the top while not displaying the topmost item in the field. Opening at the top would at least enable you to see the complete "used fonts" section. Now, you always see half of it (from the selected font downwards).

Still, I thought this would be more useful than opening the list at the font's entry in the main list because I thought that users would be most interested in the "used fonts" section rather than the other fonts with similar names. The main reason for wanting the font menu to open scrolled to the actual font would be to get access to its variants, but you get that from the top entry as well - except of course for fonts that come as several families. So, I cannot think of a good solution really. Maybe I could add a hidden option to always open the font menu scrolled to the main entry instead of that in the "used fonts" section. Would that improve things for you?

Martin (Xtreme text developer)

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Originally Posted by wuerthne

So, I cannot think of a good solution really. Maybe I could add a hidden option to always open the font menu scrolled to the main entry instead of that in the "used fonts" section. Would that improve things for you?

Martin (Xtreme text developer)

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I see your problem from a developers perspective, but I don't think it should be a hidden option. Sometimes being in the used font section is what is needed, other times, like when you want to audition what font to use in a document, you want to return where you left off in the main font list.

How about using the Home and End keys? Home to go to the top of the used fonts and End to go in the main list for the last used font. (And maybe End press twice to go to the bottom of the main font list.)

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Originally Posted by Robert H

How about using the Home and End keys? Home to go to the top of the used fonts and End to go in the main list for the last used font. (And maybe End press twice to go to the bottom of the main font list.)

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Home and End do go to the first/last entry in the overall list, so at least Home does what you suggested. We should not really redefine End to mean anything else than it usually does in a dropdown list (go to the very last entry), but maybe we can use some other keystroke to go to the current entry in the main list. That should not be too difficult.

Martin

How about a-z to go to the relevant alphabetical sections - Oh yeah, It already does that. Doesn't that get you near enough to scroll a bit? Page down and page up, Oh yeah, they work too.

I must admit, perhaps I'm being a bit dense, but I can't see the problem. If you use 25 fonts in a document they are shown at the top and aren't too hard to navigate.

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Originally Posted by Merlinski

I've searched and read others discussing the removal of synthesised bold on fonts used in Pro 4.

Can I just say this now makes my life a nightmare unless I run version 3 as well, which I now have to do! I frequently have to return to older jobs for either snippets or to do another printjob - and of course they don't look the same in 4.

I'm sure there is a reason for it, maybe bold variants were'nt being used at all in the first place and it was all synthetic, and the change was needed to get in-check with the standard.

But please Xara, at least an option to use the feature!!! You've effectively bodged alot of my portfolio.

At very least I want to get away from having to load up an old version of Xara to open my docs correctly - that's just...niggly...and poor.

Pro 4 is awesome by the way, I'm very impressed - bar this minor issue.

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I agree with you other than it is NOT a minor issue for me. It's a HUGE issue. I cancelled 2 upgrades to v4 because of this. Some of us are not font purists, we don't care about "real" or "synthed" font styles.

I keep seeing the following as the reasoning behind this decision: "Xtreme 4 is more in line now with how Adobe products handle type, which also makes it more compatible with Adobe products." Depends on which Adobe product you are referring to. Yes, illustrator works this way but one of the reasons I used xara was that it didn't work like illustrator. In adobe CS3, photoshop allows both synthed bold and italic (there they call it "faux" bold/italic) and indesign allows synthed italic (there it's called "false" italic). Inkscape also adds an italic option to all fonts.

If xara wants to keep the new font handling, fine. But they need to add being able to use synth bold and italic back in or I can no longer continue to upgrade the app and will have to stay with the last v3.

I could have been useful to Xara to have conducted a poll before making the decision (rather than the poll asking who owns a DVD drive?)

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Originally Posted by standay

If xara wants to keep the new font handling, fine. But they need to add being able to use synth bold and italic back in

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Not necessarily *be able to use*, but *still be able to display*, even in a read-only state, would be very useful.

It's a real bore when opening old artwork, not being able to see what the original looked like.

If it's mainly bold that's your problem I find that adding an outline usually does the job if bold is not available. of course that only really works assuming that you weren't intending to have an oultine of a different colour to the text anyway.

I'm not really concerned about the Adobe compatibility either personally. Even though anything I prepare for print these days tends to require a PDF export, I have to convert all the fonts to curves anyway so my vote would have been to keep it the old way.

My problem, and I suspect the problem many others face too, is not *how* to work without the synthetic fonts: I understand why they are not acceptable and can substitute with replacement fonts or techniques. My problem is *what* I should be aiming for.

I open a file from a year ago, needing to amend my original .xar and export an image for a client's website... get an error to say the original used a synthesised font, then what? The new object being exported needs to fit in with the old stuff, so I need to know how heavy the synth-bold was: I've no way of knowing without maintaining v3.2.

Outline - fine, if a little cumbersome. A replacement font - probably better. To look like what? That's the problem.