In Praise of Pro

**Colin Carpenter** · 04 January 2007, 05:26 PM

I am so amazed by the extra features in Pro, that I felt that I should put something on here about how these features have made my life so much easier.

I'm a self employed Control Systems engineer, and have been using the various versions of Xara for about 10 years now for creating mimics etc, but recently, we developed a new piece of equipment which we wanted to market, and the way to do that is to create a booklet (which can be sent to customers) and a web site (which hopefully customers will want to go to).

Creating a booklet before Pro was a right pain, because it meant creating graphics in Xara Extreme, exporting them as JPEGS or GIFs, then importing them into a Word Processor or DTP package, then writing to PDF, then printing from PDF to the printer. Of course, any scaling of images in the Word Processor resulted in strange effects, then printing to PDF was another can of worms. I used to get really fed up of continually resizing the graphics, exporting and going through the whole process again.

But now, thankfully,I can use Pro as my DTP / Word Processor, thanks to the multiple page options, the stunningly good export to PDF option and the greatly improved text handling capabilities. If I need to alter the graphics, they just scale perfectly being vector graphics, the text flows from box to box and the PDF graphics look as beautifully crisp and clear as they do in Pro.

Magic!!!

As for the web site, well I've always created the graphics in Xara, but now, I've twigged that I can just set up multiple pages in Xara which are the same pixel size as the web pages I want to create .... which means I can create the text and the graphics in Xara first, then when I export the images, they're exactly the right size for the Web Page and everything just looks right. In fact, in these days of broadband access, I even cheat and export the web page as a JPEG in some instances. Naughty, I know, but for brochure pages, I reckon it's OK.

And then there's the Flash export facility. Wow!!

Best value for money upgrade I've ever done .... no question.

If you'd like to see the results, the address is www.tcsautomation.plus.com, but please remember that I'm an engineer, not an artist, so where an artist sees perspective and reflections, an engineer just sees isometrics and flat surfaces. Go easy ... please.

**ankhor** · 04 January 2007, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by Colin Carpenter

If you'd like to see the results, the address is www.tcsautomation.plus.com, but please remember that I'm an engineer, not an artist, so where an artist sees perspective and reflections, an engineer just sees isometrics and flat surfaces. Go easy ... please.

Okay, we let it slide this time, but only once, okay.

But seriously, looks very professional, easy on te eyes
and nice small flashanim`s.

Here one for a new product, the "e-turnall eXturnall" mixer ,
Don`t thank me, just send me money

**David O'Neil** · 04 January 2007, 06:47 PM

You have two problems with your web page. There is a link to download a PDF, and that link is covering up text. The bottom text box is also split into two frames or something, and the words "philosophy, the pr..." start the bottom frame. Makes no sense, and when you try to highlight the words, there is a weird artifact where if you move the mouse over to the other half of the box while highlighting, all of a sudden you are highlighting text only in the bottom box, and not the top. Using FireFox. Nice colors, though.

**parahandy** · 04 January 2007, 07:01 PM

Colin, perhaps an entry in your website saying that it was created using XaraPro would be a nice gesture.

**Colin Carpenter** · 04 January 2007, 08:14 PM

Thanks to all of you ... I try to be artistic rather than an engineer, but some people just "have what it takes" ... they tell me Leonardo da Vinci could draw a perfect circle freehand. An draughtsman once told me that the only difference between his drawings and an architect's drawings was that on the architect's drawings, the lines didn't join up

I've re-arranged the text on the Home Page so hopefully it appears a bit clearer now (I couldn't see anything on my FireFox), and will incorporate a Xara Link in the Links page which I'm currently working on. I've also just found out that IE seems to have a problem displaying animated gifs, so I've just had to convert one of those to a flash file.

Creating the look and feel of a Web Site drives me crazy ... I don't want it too corporate and boring, but then I want it to look professional and friendly at the same time, if that's possible.

**jclements** · 04 January 2007, 09:47 PM

Colin:

Overall a very good job.

And ohhhhh, nice isometric! :-}

**amoore** · 04 January 2007, 10:25 PM

Very nice work, Colin.

You might want to include a copyright statement in both your website and your pdf. I would also consider putting your business phone number on each web page. Looks like you may have room in the lower part of the blue rectangle on the left. That way, it wouldn't interfere with the rest of your layout. For one thing, people often feel that a site without prominent contact info isn't real. For another, you're less likely to lose potential customers. And it's especially important since the only link to the Contact page is on your Home page.

Since your brochure is over 2mb, it might be a good idea to note the size either in the link or in parens beside it. Even on a fast connection, it takes a while to download the file. People may think the download isn't working. Telling them it's a big file may encourage them to wait for it.

Allison

**David O'Neil** · 05 January 2007, 03:44 AM

The first of the problems I mentioned is still there in FF. In IE, your text boxes do additional terrible things (like write over each other). They really need fixed in order for visitors to take you seriously. Here's a shot: (Also note that some of the text is writing itself underneath the graphics.)