New Business Opportunity converting Xara Files ????

[Lord]

I WISH ME THIS DEBATE BETWEEN ME AND THE Illustrator.world people oooooonly....
Thanks...
And Regards....
Lord(Mohamed)

[xalres]

Lord,

I was speaking purely in terms of converting for the purpose of sending it to a print shop. The harsh reality is there aren't any local print shops that have even heard of Xara, let alone print files from it. So given the choice between not getting my work done and spending 30 minutes converting something to Illustrator I'd rather choose the latter.

This doesn't mean I don't support the program or aren't loyal to it. It's still my first choice for all of my graphic projects but the reality is I'm using a program that not many people here in the states have ever heard of.

Truth be told, I HATE Illustrator, I find it too clunky for what I do, but the sad fact is that I work in print sometimes and Illustrator becomes a necessary tool and we were discussing the best ways and methods we use to convert .xar files to fit another program. This isn't a post about choosing sides or loyalty, so please try to keep it on topic.

All Your Graphic Are Belong To Us

[Lord]

I`m very sorry, but this DEBATE about Xara X and the another Programs make me angry, and then i can not stop my self, sorry again, i understand your point now, and believe me, if i can open Print shop by me here in Graz (Austria)only to print the xar.file i will do it.
Sorry again
Regards
Lord(Mohamed)

[xalres]

It's okay, god knows I've tried to convert as many people as I could over to xara (got all the other developers using it for their graphics http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif ) but I've noticed that the guys at my local print shop aren't nearly as open minded, especially considering my work usually brings in less than $1,000 a year for them.

One happy note, our on-site creative services shop let me print stuff directly to their plotter and the results are fantastic.

All Your Graphic Are Belong To Us

[Jackie]

I've played the game with printers, but with my current guy have reached a happy solution for both of us. I supply him with high-res, font-embedded PDF files.

And the app I use to generate them is only $10 USD (I haven't had the heart to tell him yet - he assumes I'm using Acrobat, which satisfies his Adobe-centric worldview).

I've just used Xara to produce a centenary logo for our local infantry regiment - it's currently on stationery and letterhead in full colour - so I can attest that the result is flawless (bevels, blends and all).

Jackie

[Marius]

that relates to this issue which I forgot to bring up was that some of Xara's unique effects are actually impossible to export into other vector drawing programs because of the way Xara achieves them. Gary pointed out that shadows and bevels are translated into Corel Draw as bitmaps -- that is because they are bitmaps to start with. Xara creates them as bitmap fills but this is not revealed to the user unless you convert them to editable shapes and ungroup them.

In other words, these effects are great if you are for e.g. making web images and plan the final version to be a jpg or animated gif. But they are no use for any application that demands a vectorial file.

So it's another reason for following Mohamed's example and doing more of this stuff by hand!

Sorry to keep ruminating on this topic. It exercises a dull fascination over my decaying old brain (49 next month).

[Sheff]

What is that $10 PDF app? And what are your Xara settings when you export?

Sheffield Abella
www.sheff.com

[Jackie]

PDF995 (although I went wild and spent $20 to get the whole suite): PDF995.

It installs as a virtual printer, so you just go to "File", "Print". Select pdf995 from the printer list and set the properties through the print dialog "Properties" button. Choose the "Advanced" button to set dpi, fonts, etc. I generally use 1200 dpi with "Download as Softfonts" to generate files for my print guy. Works a treat.

The suite apps (pdfedit and signature995) add functionality - pdfedit allows me to combine pdf files, batch produce pdfs from a selected file list, add page numbers, bookmarks, convert pdf files to images, make URLs clickable, etc. Signature995 allows me to digitally sign and encrypt pdfs. The three apps together cost $19.95 USD and are well worth the money.

I'm trying their new product right now - UltraPDF. This is a bit like Microsoft Binder on steroids, and even includes Flash support. You can build multimedia right in, and it makes a nice slideshow app. For another $9.95, I'm almost certain to be registering this one soon.

Both apps work without registering, though - they are adware but not spyware. If you don't register, using the product will open your browser to a ad page. Register, and that doesn't happen any more. Very slick.