Manual Seperations In Xara

[wW]

I've posted quite a few times lately about the print issues Im dealing with with Xara. I apologize for the redundancy, poor grammer & spelling. I've listed a few items that I deal with every day in the hopes that Xara Ltd can fix or improve the program.


I think one thing that would make printing seperations easier is the tag tool that could be more specific in what it grabs. Ex- White fills & no outlines; white fills w/ red outlines; white fills & Arial text etc.. There needs to be a more specific way to grab items (grouped or not) heck, that could be an option too. Grouping tag options. Selecting items in groups or turning it off so grouped items can't be selected.

Also When I have black & white image & want the white printed, Good luck. In the print dialoge If I select "reverse image", anything that has a solid area of color(black or white objects), will be printed as one big black object. Xara does not differentiate between black or white space. It see's white & black objects as fills over the page to be printed as black.
I shouldn't have to subtract my shapes when I want to print individual colors from an image. Xara is poor in this area. I'm not talking complex images either.

Some Spot color help would be nice. I draged spot colors into a xara file & deleted the other colors. Set up a template & started working. When in print dialog & select print spot colors. Every single color is a added on the list & I have to manually de-select all of them ONE AT A TIME. A Xara Bug perhaps? This should be fixed. Xara Print seperation spot color dialog should only show me the colors I have on the current working or selected layers. Not every spot color on the color bar.

Another issue, If I go thru the trouble of putting each color on a seperate layer & making each layer various shades of black. I Still have problems... (the main one printing white on black) ex- a white print on a black object (a shirt in my case).
Can't seperations be made easier. Can't we use bevels & transparency tools without the fear of work arounds when printing? It's nice to see that postscript will be getting better for the next Xara release.

A way to preview seperations would be helpful. To edit or cut&paste them in preview mode would be way cool. To be able to get something out of a print preview such as all specific colors & paste as vector to a new layer. Wishing now...

Outlines need to have more contol. A way to convert them to editable shapes. Once converted, Nodes so they can be edited & or sliced as individual objects.
While on the subject of lines. Needed is A way for Tapered lines to export tapered or converted to curves & or editable shapes. So they retain their shapes.

Embedding fonts. nuff said

I could go on but for now the print issues are getting better as my print experience expands in Xara, but the workarounds are many and complex. I wish I could create like I use to without worring about printing or working in Draw. Hoping the next release will address some of these issues so I can stay out of Draw 11. Yikes!

Ww

[wW]

I've posted quite a few times lately about the print issues Im dealing with with Xara. I apologize for the redundancy, poor grammer & spelling. I've listed a few items that I deal with every day in the hopes that Xara Ltd can fix or improve the program.


I think one thing that would make printing seperations easier is the tag tool that could be more specific in what it grabs. Ex- White fills & no outlines; white fills w/ red outlines; white fills & Arial text etc.. There needs to be a more specific way to grab items (grouped or not) heck, that could be an option too. Grouping tag options. Selecting items in groups or turning it off so grouped items can't be selected.

Also When I have black & white image & want the white printed, Good luck. In the print dialoge If I select "reverse image", anything that has a solid area of color(black or white objects), will be printed as one big black object. Xara does not differentiate between black or white space. It see's white & black objects as fills over the page to be printed as black.
I shouldn't have to subtract my shapes when I want to print individual colors from an image. Xara is poor in this area. I'm not talking complex images either.

Some Spot color help would be nice. I draged spot colors into a xara file & deleted the other colors. Set up a template & started working. When in print dialog & select print spot colors. Every single color is a added on the list & I have to manually de-select all of them ONE AT A TIME. A Xara Bug perhaps? This should be fixed. Xara Print seperation spot color dialog should only show me the colors I have on the current working or selected layers. Not every spot color on the color bar.

Another issue, If I go thru the trouble of putting each color on a seperate layer & making each layer various shades of black. I Still have problems... (the main one printing white on black) ex- a white print on a black object (a shirt in my case).
Can't seperations be made easier. Can't we use bevels & transparency tools without the fear of work arounds when printing? It's nice to see that postscript will be getting better for the next Xara release.

A way to preview seperations would be helpful. To edit or cut&paste them in preview mode would be way cool. To be able to get something out of a print preview such as all specific colors & paste as vector to a new layer. Wishing now...

Outlines need to have more contol. A way to convert them to editable shapes. Once converted, Nodes so they can be edited & or sliced as individual objects.
While on the subject of lines. Needed is A way for Tapered lines to export tapered or converted to curves & or editable shapes. So they retain their shapes.

Embedding fonts. nuff said

I could go on but for now the print issues are getting better as my print experience expands in Xara, but the workarounds are many and complex. I wish I could create like I use to without worring about printing or working in Draw. Hoping the next release will address some of these issues so I can stay out of Draw 11. Yikes!

Ww

[jclements]

1. Outlines can already be converted to objects

2. You can select objects by color ... use the Name Gallery. Only deficiency there is there is no way to distinguish the same color in an OUTLINE v.s. those in a FILL and there are issues with identify objects which use a color in a multi-gradient fill.

[wW]

John, Are you saying that if I have text with an 8 point outline behind. When I convert it to curves & ungroup it becomes a fill equaling the 8 point thick outline. I don't think it works this way. This is what is needed.
WYSIWYG kind of outline conversions to editable shapes. Basically the outline becomes a fill with the option of having it's own outline.

The name Gallery would be helpful if it were upgraded. You cannot get specific enough in what you want to grab. That's what I was trying to explain in my post above. Sure it's an awesome tool but it is incomplete in it's current state as a working tool in Xara. More options needed so as to specifically pick certain items for editing.

Example. If I grab all the red objects by selecting the red circle beside it in the name gallery. Xara will not distinguish between outlined objects or fills. It grabs only the red items. This is nice but not practical enough. There needs to be a way to grab just red fills; or combinations of items as needed. A checklist so to speak.

Ww

[jclements]

I totally agree with your statement above about the Name Gallery. "... deficiency is there is no way to distinguish the same color of an OUTLINE v.s. those in a FILL"

As shown below you can use Convert Line To Shape. Just copy the text object to the clip board as the first step, then after converting line to shape, do a Ctrl-Shift-V to place the original text object ontop of the fillable "outline". Hope this is what you want.