How to exceed the 9ft Page Size Limit !

[steve.ledger]

I think we've all come across the 2.75m (9ft) page size limit at one time or another right?
I cannot think of any good reason for this imposed limit when other Vector software can easily exceed this if required. Maybe legacy code that still thinks we only have 4mb ram installed??

We work with to-scale images in Signlab all the time. We photograph vehicles with a 500mm magnetic rule stuck to them for scale, then use this to scale the photo inside Signlab. Same for shop windows, awnings and so on. So you can image, we work with large 'real' dimensions. I prefer to draw in Xara but........... that page size limit!

Well I found a way

If you really need a large art board (page) and cannot use scaling, then there is a way to force Xara's page to any size you like..
Well I only tried up to 10 metres wide by 2 metres high, also a 4m x 4m page worked fine. Not sure if it would go to a Kilometre??
But anyway, this is how I did it.

I created a 10metre x 2metre page in CorelDraw. Added a shape and selected File->Publish to web. Chose PDF for editing and saved the file.
(You need to add a shape or something to the page or the Publish to PDF is greyed out)..

Drop the PDF you just created into XaraXtreme and Viola! You have a 10 metre wide page to draw on..

Check your page options and you will see that it definately is TEN METRES wide...

Of course as soon as you try to change any other setting in Xaras option box, it pops up the familiar 'Can't be bigger than 2.75m' alert.

Well, rubbish.. It obviously can

[ivan louette]

Very interesting ! I tried it with Inkscape instead of Corel Draw and it works too.

But the problem is that you cannot zoom onto the whole page or onto any drawing if it exceeds the 2,75m limit ...

kindly,
ivan

[pauland]

Well done Sledger. The whole thing is rather bizarre though!

Paul

[PhilM]

The reason for the 2.75m limit is to avoid overflow errors during coordinate manipulation. Xtreme needs "headroom" to be able to multiply, add, divide, (etc.) coordinates within signed 32-bit integers at all zoom factors and the maximum zoom factor can multiply coordinates by 256 times.

We have allowed a safety margin so you might get away with loading larger drawings but you run the risk of your document being rendered incorrectly at extreme zoom factors and it may become corrupted if you try to edit it.

Phil

[steve.ledger]

ivan: I've not had that problem in my testing of say a 4m x 4m page.
I can still zoom in to 25601% and out to 10% which shows the entire page on my monitor.

PhilM: I don't really understand what you mean about "headroom", or why there is a built in limiting factor/safety margin at a small 2.75m. There's still plenty of Xara crashes and corrupt files while performing other actions to worry to much about another 'possible' problem. For example, exporting PDF's at the 2.75m page limit is fraught with errors, where CorelDraw hardly flinches even at 10 metres. Signlab can handle a building sized page, with mock-up illustrations and photos all over the place without any problems at all.
FREEHAND is another Vector app that will handle whatever page size you want.
Is Xara is just being lazy?

[steve.ledger]

We have allowed a safety margin so you might get away with loading larger drawings but you run the risk of your document being rendered incorrectly at extreme zoom factors and it may become corrupted if you try to edit it.

OK to be fair, I gave it a test to see if I could make XXP crash or corrupt a file using a 4m x 2m page.
Into the opened blank 4m x 2m page I dropped in a dozen or so other drawings I'd created in XXP, some simple others very complex. The Fender Guitar I drew last year for example, as well as the Toyota Treuno - both very detailed with many feathers, transparencies, live effects and hundreds of shapes. I even dropped in a couple of the vector drawings I'd converted to vector dots with accessD's RASTER program. I'd guess several thousand dots in that one!

I dragged all drawings around, resized and cloned, duplicated and so on. Edited one or two, generally played around as you would. I saved the file & exited XXP.
After restarting XXP I opened the file without any dramas and then repeated the fiddling around a second and then a third time. Zooming in to objects and back out to Page View was also fine.
This was all on a page size of 4meters wide by 2 metres high!
OK, for most work I do, 4m is probably enough and I'm convinced so far that XXP can handle this. But is 2.75m a reasonable limit?

[PhilM]

I was simply explaining the technical reasons for the limit because your original guesses were incorrect.

Phil

[BQ]

Interesting. I created a 20 foot X 20 foot page in Inkscape, saved in as a PDF and then opened the PDF in Xara.

I now have a 20 foot X 20 foot page in Xara, but when I set the page magnification to 10% I can NOT see the entire page.

[steve.ledger]

I was simply explaining the technical reasons for the limit because your original guesses were incorrect.

Thanks PhilM, of course, that much at least I understood.
What I didn't understand were the technical reasons you gave or why they exist at a seemingly arbitrary 2.75m (9ft)

BQ: I now have a 20 foot X 20 foot page in Xara, but when I set the page magnification to 10% I can NOT see the entire page

Another apparent limit of Xara's page sizing & zoom factors. Inkscape of course zooms out to a 1% page view, where Xara stops at 10% window view (CoreldDraw adjusts the window accordingly, zooming out to a ratio depending on page size.)
Perhaps this will be attended to if technical reasoning allows.

[colin_e]

Thanks PhilM, of course, that much at least I understood.
What I didn't understand were the technical reasons you gave or why they exist at a seemingly arbitrary 2.75m (9ft)

2.75m only sounds arbitrary. The engine will not be working in metres (or ft), so it's unlikely the dimension limit will be a nice round number in "human" units. In fact this will be a 32bit (signed or unsigned?) binary multiple of the smallest unit of measure in Xara.

Given Xara's roots, I suspect the drawing engine was designed for speed and efficiency at a time when floating point maths hardware was not ubiquitous, hence the use of integer arithmetic.

Other applications, whose engine was redesigned more recently, are probably using floating point. This can give a much larger available range of sizes, but it's not without it's own problems.