Whatever happened to the xar viewer?

[Rodzo]

StevenWWinters wrote

I really wouldn't want to see Xara invest alot of their limited resources on it. If it was an easy thing to provide, sure, but they're unlikely to set a new industry standard.,

Steven has a proficiency with words that I lack, and went straight to the essence of what I was trying so clumsily to say, for which I offer my thanks.

I try again:

"Why hello there, Mr Dyson. I understand you make pretty good hoovers."
.
.

[Xhris]

StevenWWinters wrote



Steven has a proficiency with words that I lack, and went straight to the essence of what I was trying so clumsily to say, for which I offer my thanks.

I try again:

"Why hello there, Mr Dyson. I understand you make pretty good hoovers."
.
.

Yes, but Dyson was the underdog at one point, and Hoover rejected his "crazy" idea of a bagless vacuum. And now look where he is. So that argument works both ways.

...but their unlikely to set a new industry standard, IMO. Their efforts would be better spent providing improved import/export capability for the existing standards.

That plugin seems outdated, but is interesting. I've always seen Xara as a company that aspires to being better than its competition rather than just meeting the status quo. In other words, while I think it would be good to continue improving their compatibility (which they are), I'm sure it would also be beneficial to push their own format which is so much better after all and offers much more, and if for no other reason than to continue to strive toward being better.

[steve.ledger]

I will use .pdf when I upgrade to the/a next version (I'm currently only using X1 )
It should be better than using .swf

No need to wait for your upgrade, just install a PDF Print Driver:

Printing from SignLab to PDF we use:

http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator

It does the job precisely.

Additionally, there's no need to install Adober Reader!
Simply use the 655k standalone CutePDF viewer (carry it on a USB drive!), or even convert your PDF Prninted artwork to a distributable .exe with PDF2EXE :

http://www.pdf2exe.com/

All suggested software is freeware.

[The Alien]

No need to wait for your upgrade, just install a PDF Print Driver:

Printing from SignLab to PDF we use:

http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator

It does the job precisely.

Additionally, there's no need to install Adober Reader!
Simply use the 655k standalone CutePDF viewer (carry it on a USB drive!), or even convert your PDF Prninted artwork to a distributable .exe with PDF2EXE :

http://www.pdf2exe.com/

All suggested software is freeware.

I've used pdfcreator and primopdf. The .pdf that's created contains many of the vector shapes converted to a raster image
Even an .swf export did a better job at this :S

[steve.ledger]

I've used pdfcreator and primopdf. The .pdf that's created contains many of the vector shapes converted to a raster image

Never had this occurr for me unless the job actually had raster elements in the first place .
Make certain your print output options are Postscript and not Bitmap

[sculptex]

Sorry to dig this old one up, but better than starting a new thread. Anyone have any idea if this is in the wings? The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. not as a competitor to the big boys, but as a medium for us to share our works. I bet that Xara would get loads of purchases as a result.
(ps. If the tech guys are too busy, email me the source and I will endeavour to do a conditional build that takes all the drawing elements out. )

[steve.ledger]

I made a suggestion sometime ago that it could make sense (and money) if the thirty day trial would on expiration leave Xtreme unable to save, edit, export or print .xar files. This in effect would make it a XAR viewer and could induce more sales.

CorelDRAW X4 works precisely this way.

[hamishmacd]

I have to echo StevenWWiniter's comments. Even with the weight of Microsoft behind it, I still don't know anyone who uses either Silverlight or XPS. If the tipping point ever comes for either I'd much rather that Xara concentrates its efforts upon ensuring compatibility than waste a single second in starting a fight it could simply never win.

The PDF import has been hugely improved in v.4. In my recent experience of 3.2, I was frustrated because Xara couldn’t cope at all with EPS files created by the later versions of Abode CS and fails completely to recognise PDFs containing Adode brushes. Both are industry standard file types. Considering that these programs are made by totally different companies, Xara does an impressive job. Improvements in the current level of integration should surely however take presidence.

I have to keep hooky versions of Adobe products available in order that I can take design elements from other designers and where possible, export them from Adobe into something I can use in my favourite program; Xara. I haven’t had to try this in v.4 yet but in the case of XXP 3.2 and Illustrator/Photoshop brushes, which are everywhere it seems, this was something I found to be quite impossible.

With respect, this is a daft idea.

[steve.ledger]

Not really sure what you said there - with respect.
But what I said, or suggested was not an attempt by Xara to compete with PDF or XPS for common portable document formats, but merely as a way a designer can show clients their original designs in a way that would ensure 100% viewing accuracy.
Converting to PDF is great, but as we have seen in many threads where colour accuracy is concerned, not everything can be relied apon to transfer across with accuracy. Whether this is a fault of the designer not fully understanding export settings, a fault of the client not using the correct version of the PDF viewer of a fault of some incompatibility between Xara and Adobe, it is apparent that some kind of uniformity would be welcomed.
Therefore a XAR viewer would be a suitable answer.
A 'read only' version of Xtreme could easily be supplied to clients on CD along with their artwork for draft approval. It's no big deal, and certainly not daft.

[hamishmacd]

I’m sorry Sledger. I didn’t mean to cause offence. I’m a relative newcomer to this forum having mainly used it previously for the excellent support it provides. I’ll have to moderate my tone when posting in future. I don’t mean to flame. I didn’t mean to comment on your idea. Actually I quite like the idea you suggest of a save disabled Xara. If more people got the chance to play around with this simple yet surprisingly powerful application then that could only be a good thing. What I meant to say was that to me, dedicating resources to creating a specific xar reader is dedicating resources away from something that could be more useful.

On reflection, I can see that there could be merit in showing a client one’s work as-is, perhaps as you suggest as early drafts of a work in progress. However whatever work one does create, something will eventually have to be done with it, whether it’s put on the web, printed or whatever. I for one have certainly never used a printer who has ever even heard of Xara. So what use would this reader be other than to show what the artwork should look like but doesn’t? In my opinion that’s the designer’s job to sort, not the printer’s. If the user is unable to export to a workable pdf then it doesn’t matter how their work looks in Xara or a Xara reader it’ll never be outputted correctly anyway. A nice surprise for the client when the artwork comes back looking quite different to what the Xara reader lead them to believe it would. An expensive surprise for the designer too.

My comments were really directed to Xhris who suggested in his original posting , “promoting the xar format as a superior successor to Adobe and MS’s “equivalents”. To me it is this notion that is simply not sensible.

I didn’t mean the ‘with respect’ to sound sarcastic. What I really meant was, well, I’ve seen Xhris’s tutorials.