Export from XPGD 6, Import to Flash CS4, Problems With Every Format

[ToddS]

What do you expect from a programme made by a different company! Flash does things to Illustrator even with Smart Objects. In that drawing you have circular fills and transparencies all don't export into Flash. Flash treats outlines as vector shapes and that is why you are having problems. I would try cutting & pasting you will get far better results so long as it is plain vectors.

I only expect it to work as well as it did a few years ago. Xara X worked better for me. I expect that Xara wants their software to work with other programs. If they didn't, they wouldn't have so many export/import options. Copy and paste does not work, even for simple objects with flat fills. Nothing pastes. I know very well that Flash and Xara both work with Vector shapes, and I know the stated limitations (complex fills, complex pen shapes, etc). That drawing (Plan.xar) has very little that should cause trouble.

Years ago we used to export from Xara X to SWF, and import the SWF into Flash, and everything was great. Apparently Xara has changed their SWF output so that it's no longer appropriate for graphics transfer. It may be better for final output, but it's worse as an intermediary.

So I'm asking the community for help. Surely I'm not the only one who wants to draw with Xara and animate with Flash. What works best for everyone else?

[tovokas]

One roundabout solution is to:

1) Export the file as a pdf
2) Open the file in Illustrator CS4, release the clipping path and ungroup to taste.

At this point you can either save the file as .ai to import to flash, or copy and paste from within Illustrator.

I haven't rigorously tested this... but is seems to work.

Tovokas

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi ToddS,

Your quite correct, something got broke in XX5 and lines and shapes mysteriously turned white and/or very thick.

Here's and example of that drawing exported from XX4 via swf into Flash

And the same but from XWD6. White lines & missing shapes and ugly black blobs.

Arrow heads have never imported. You'll need to change these lines to editable shapes to get them to import with their arrow heads.

In fairness though the swf is fine as exported from Xara, it's just the importing into Flash that's now messed up.

[ToddS]

There are many nice features in the newest Xara that I'd love to use, but it would be better for my workflow to use the older version since it exports to Flash more cleanly. Is it available?

[handrawn]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&k...l_4lfocwggby_b

[ToddS]

Actually I meant "will Xara sell it to me?" I need to buy enough seats for a whole department. That's going to be hard to find by going the eBay/Amazon route.

[Soquili]

Todd you will need to contact Xara Sales for information about purchasing any version. Members here at TG are not representative of Xara.

[Egg Bramhill]

Don't know about that ToddS, you'll need to ask Xara. What you must remember is swf is Flashes animation export file type for browser display etc. It's not Flashes native authoring file type which is .fla. For example you can't import a Flash generated swf into Flash and guarantee the results will be exactly those of the .fla authoring environment.

[Karateed]

Has this been posted to 'Dear Xara' yet?

[ToddS]

Thanks everyone. I submitted a ticket so I'll wait for a reply on that before I contact sales. I'm still hopeful someone has a better way to export/import that doesn't involve Illustrator or fixing things after import. I do realize that SWF is an output format and not a source format, but the Xara X swf exports worked perfectly as a Flash import. Flash can import simple SWFs back into the authoring environment.