I'd like to announce the forthcoming release of a new version of Xara Xtreme, called Xara Xtreme Pro. Aimed at the more professional or advanced user, this release broadens the capabilities of Xara Xtreme into completely new areas.

These are the key features;
• Flash animation
• Multi-page support
• Enhanced Text tool
• Photoshop PSD import and export
• PDF/X support and many PDF export improvements
• Color Separations
• Pantone spot and process colors
• Levels control for XPE
• Short-cut key configuration utility
• A host of other smaller fixes and enhancements (listed in another post)

You can find out more about these features here http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/whatsnewpro.asp

Xara Xtreme Pro is NOT available yet - this is an early announcement to the TalkGraphics Forum of our intentions. We expect it to be available for purchase within a few weeks.

Xara Xtreme Pro will be priced at $199 + tax and shipping. Xara Xtreme owners will be able to upgrade for $120 - the difference in price between the two versions.

Xara Xtreme will continue to be sold alongside Xara Xtreme Pro - so the product line now has two versions. The low cost 'consumer' version that's proven to be so successful, and now a more up-market Pro version.

Finally, as is traditional we are making a beta preview release available for download for TalkGraphics users. This is a time limited, but fully functional 30-day trial version. Be aware this is a Beta version and not a final version - so we hope you will test it and report any problems you find. You can download it from http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/whatsnewpro.asp

Xara Xtreme Pro can be installed alongside Xara Xtreme - the two can live side-by-side.

The feature set for this release of Xara Xtreme Pro is now fixed. That does not of course mean there will never be any updates, just that for this release we expect only to fix bugs. So please report them to us here on the forum. In particular any area that generates unexpected errors or crashes - we want to know about it. You guys can help us make this a solid, stable and reliable release - that's why we're making this Beta available.

I'm sure this set of improvements will delight some, hopefully many. But there will always be people whose favourite feature request has not been implemented - we can't satisfy everyone, all the time!

But we continue to monitor TG discussions for feature requests of course, and will continue to develop both Xara Xtreme and Xara Xtreme Pro into the future.

Finally - if you like the new logo and splash screen design (as everyone who has seen it does) you have to thank Miro, known as Minimiro on TalkGraphics. A much more slick and professional design, as suits this new release. He does some great work.

Charles