Xara Xtreme 4 promotional material is punishing us long-term users

[wW]

- I like your point about arrows Ship. They could add a slider which adjust the size & or location on the line similar to the blend & contours sub menu or tool options. They should have fixed the arrow problem eons ago! The fact that it's better to make your own arrows than use those in the line gallery speaks volumes!
- Speaking of the Line Gallery. What about dash line spacing? If your lucky & can find one that works you have to Alt+R+L, so when you scale, it stays the same. Much room for improvement with the line gallery! Dash spacing - Please fix.

I'll be purchasing X4 soon. I hope they fixed the bitmap galleries to the way they worked in all versions prior to X3. By far, this has been my biggest disappointment with Xara's usability thus far. Broken record, I know...

-What sounds good is the "text to shape". Hope this allows us to put blocks of text inside shapes. Hate having to use CorelDraw for this.
-When using multiple colors on a color line. The ability to see what color each block on the line represents will be helpful. Sounds nice! A timely fix I might add.
-The font gallery sounds promising. To see more than AaBbCc... will be helpful.

Looking forward to the new release.

Anyone know if X4 can import AI files or AI PDF's? I see PDF has been upgraded, this should be helpful.

Unfortunately, AI is the industry standard PERIOD. I recently did a business card in Xpro3 & I had to send the output to an Illustrator dominated-Print Shop. Keep in mind, I'm the Art Director at a textile print shop. (A Xara dominated shop & I've touted Xara as the industry secret)
-I converted every line to shape, No transparency's, All fills linear or flat, shapes subtracted etc... I went back & forth with them, to many times to count. Fixing & re-exporting the PDF at least 10 times. All this for a simple 2 color design using Black & A Metallic Spot. What a nightmare, I was jumping through every hoop imaginable to get them something they could use! In the end I had to use a bitmap for the art portions of the card & they had to hack that up. I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone! One of the biggest issues I had is with Xara turning gradients of a solid spot color into another color upon import to AI.

In the future, I hope things will improve with the communication & or usability between Illustrator & Xara files. I can only hope & pray so... At least better import options for AI files. Might be a pipe dream

wW

[raynerj1]

Hi Waldo...

I just had to do some updates on a .pdf full color catalog. I had a few issues with bitmaps importing properly, but it was still easier to edit it in Xpro 4.0 then reprint it. I ended up using both ai and xpro to do the edits.

I would say that Xpro 4.0 is worth the full price, and you would not be happy if you missed the upgrade price.

There is still color shifting, but there is also a color shift between PS and AI.

I have printed out very nice looking photos from Xara... The key is a good printer.

[wW]

John, I just ordered the Xpro4 but he Activation code isn't working. Once I get it figured out or resolved I can begin using the new version. Heck, I might have to wait for the CD.... Not a biggie though.

The name is wALDO! Get it right man! ;o)

[wW]

The key is a good printer.

Yea John, Literally! I think I was dealing with a newby at that shop.

Or,

I'm an idiot!

Quite possibly both...

[DanDaBear]

John, I just ordered the Xpro4 but he Activation code isn't working.

Make sure you are using the TRIAL activation key. There should be two. One for the downloaded trial and one for the CD version.

[ss-kalm]

Ship,

To get back to the thread ........

The Xara website shows the following quite clearly, I'm sorry you missed it.

Reading your last post, I understand now what you were intending with this thread. I missed the point entirely with your earlier posts.

However, it's not too difficult to find this overview on the site.