Using Xara images in Word?

[tikka]

I am doing illustrations for a document that I am producing in Word 2000. My problem comes when deciding how to get my images created in CorelXara (& now Xara X) in to Word.

A straight copy paste obviously just produces a bitmap (even if paste as Xara object).

Enhanced metafile (EMF) isn't interpreted correctly by Word (not sure if Xara or Word is at fault).

Xara EPS is not recognized by Word as valid EPS (although Ghostscript interprets it fine).

Adobe Illustrator or Artworks EPS are recognized by Word (but crash Ghostscript) & are not as nice as working with a format that you can see on screen as well (bitmap preview is just not the same).

That leaves me with WMF which does a pretty good job - interpreted correctly, can view & resize in Word, prints cleanly. The only down size is that it doesn't allow for curves - so any curves are turned into a whole lot of short straight lines.

I was hoping that maybe Xara X would sort out the problems with EMF, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Does anyone have any bright ideas about what the problem is, if there is a workaround or a better solution?

Cheers,
Tikka

[Ross Macintosh]

Tikka - the easy solution is to export your graphic as a tif, jpeg, or gif. These days almost every program is capable of inserting these formats.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[tikka]

Thanks for the suggestion Ross, but exporting as a bitmap (whether gif, jpeg or tif) means I lose the ability to conveniently resize the image within Word & retain image quality, text suffers especially. Also to get the same quality for set image dimensions, the file size is much bigger as a bitmap.

The crux of it is, if I can I'd prefer to retain the image in a vector based format. Currently wmf is a better solution for me than any of the bitmap options.

Thanks again for the suggestion though,

Tikka

[diniel]

You can embed a xara document into Word if you go to Insert -> Object -> XaraX Document

This opens XX on a blank drawing. Either import, paste or draw what you're doing and then close XX, the file will open into Word.

If you want to edit the document, from word just double click on it.

I just tried this method with a shape with a rainbow fill and another with a graduated transparency. Both work, but are subject to a grainy appearance - both on screen and when printed.

That's quite disappointing for me, I thought Xara said they had improved OLE. Maybe this is a limitation in Word (but it can still show perfectally well a TIFF or a JPEG photo quality?) or Xara need to do more work.

[This message was edited by Daniel on October 01, 2000 at 11:39 PM.]

[Sean Sedwards]

WMF already has the ability to be much more efficient and use Beziers and ellipses (like AI or EPS files), however most programs choose a 'join the dots' approach. The enhancements in EMF are largely unrelated to that choice, so it's unlikely to be better.

OLE support in Xara is pretty grim and does little more than insert a 256 colour screen shot of the object. The dithering worsens the already poor 96 dpi, however you can improve matters by enlarging the drawing in Xara and reducing it by a corresponding amount in Word. The on screen appearance will be less good but the printed quality will be better. An alternative approach is to export as CMX and paste it as an OLE object from CorelDRAW. DRAW's OLE works seamlessly.

Regards - Sean

[Clements]

Tikka,

I am faced with exactly the same is issues you are. I hate what Word does to my artwork made in Xara. Sean's suggestion is a good one (you would want to test various affects and see how they translate to CMX ... not sure if Version X's filter has any improvements over CorelXara 2).

The other method I use most often, especially when I have time restrictions (ie., last minute changes made by engineers which cause text flow issues relative to associated graphic frames)is this. GET THE PRECISE SIZE OF THE WORD FRAME (our word processing person inserts blank Text Frames as place holders during the preliminary stages of the document) then, in Xara, size the vector shape to that exact size and then export the file. I often use the PNG format to conserve disk space as I also use the same images latter in Power Point presentations. One other "trick" to keep Word happy. I often find that images "bleed" into the graphic or text frame so what I do is add a white rectangle in Xara which is on a layer behind all other images. Then I make sure that spread of the top images is slightly less than the size of the white rectangle .... this causes a small white "margin" around the top objects and serves as a buffer so that artwork will not bump into Word's frame. This will also allow you to set the margins of the frame in Word to zero, hopefully, allowing you to optimize the layout area of your Word document.

If you have any Word formatting questions ... you can email me at Jclements@Brwncald.com and I will ask our word processing person to get a hold of you.

Regards, Jo

[michele]

Try exporting to to .wpg format. In Word go Insert -> Picture -> From File and point it to the .wpg file. It looks good on the screen and you can resize without image quality loss. Just don't double click it or try to edit it.. because it will lose it's quality for some reason. It prints pretty good and keeps all your curves.

[michele]

I was wrong... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img] If you have a small graphic and try to strech it too much it will lose it's image quality.

-Michele

[jamesc]

Try PNG If the one you make is reasonably big you can shrink it to fit.

James



<font face="dom casual, verdana>James</font>

[tikka]

Thanks for all the suggestions people. I think the idea of using CMX has the most promise so I'll see if I can get my hands on a copy of CorelDraw & do some experimenting. Having said that it seems crazy that it has to be this hard to do something as potentially simple as this!!!

It would seem to me that the potential market for Xara would increase substantially if there was a simple way to reuse Xara created vector images in Office applications, either by improving OLE support or by providing a good export to a vector based file format supported by MS Office.

Thanks again,
Tikka