Acouple of questions about Photo & Graphic Designer 9

[steven2440]

Hi Folks,

I am pretty sure this is the right place as I would hate to experience the moderators wrath on my first post (just kidding....I think).

I heard of Xara a month or so ago from another forum. Seems that Xara was giving away xtreme 5 for free with the possibility of upgrading to Photo & Graphic Designer 9 for a fair price. So much for a little background so onto my questions.

Actually the questions I have are from my wife. She has been using an old beat up program called print shop to make business cards, brochures, and greeting cards. She was watching me update our logo using xtreme and was impressed and was hoping to be able to use Photo & Graphic Designer 9 to combine our interests as I am trying to lessen my dependence on photoshop as xara for basic photo correction and removing objects seems much more faster (at least in the videos) coupled with the fact that I could import PSD files from cs5 with layers intact. Anyway I digress.

She would like to know how she would print a business card on a sheet that has 12 cards to it, or the front and back of a brochure. I know that there are more expensive programs that xara has that may be able to do this but there is a little thing called the economy that is holding us back so we are trying to get the best of both worlds.

Thank You,
Steven

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics Steven

You could probably do what you need to do in Xtreme 5 though Photo and Graphic Designer has progressed a bit beyond in terms of text handling and photo editing. And Photo and Graphic Designer can also create websites.

[jon404]

P&GD is wonderful. All you need, and a lot more! Last I looked, an incredible bargain at $69... for me, an irresistable price point.

But -- most of the people here are waiting for the upcoming new version of XDP. Any day real soon now, they say. Will apparently have new text features. And if you are doing a mix of graphics and web design for a living, XDP might be the better buy... I think most people here would agree with that.

[tonylondon]

Hi Folks,

She would like to know how she would print a business card on a sheet that has 12 cards to it, or the front and back of a brochure. I know that there are more expensive programs that xara has that may be able to do this but there is a little thing called the economy that is holding us back so we are trying to get the best of both worlds.

It is a long time since I have used Xtreme 5, however I believe she ought to be able to do the following to print business cards:
If she has a blank business card sheet to print on, then create a template for the business cards that has guides to match the layout of the cards (drag in guides from the ruler onto the guide layer)
If she is using plain card do the same by dragging in 3 x 2 guides to divide the space on the card equally. Save as a template for future use.
On the main layer, home in one one card space and create the card there using text, images etc. to fit the space. Then group these.
Finally duplicate (Ctrl K) the card and drag until it snaps in place in the next card space, and repeat to fill each space.
There may be clip art to use as a basis for the cards; I'm not sure.

[pauland]

Stephen, it's quite easy to do what you require - you just need to set up a page to match the template.

Design one of the cards and group all of the elements of the card together.

On the page set up guidelines to match the positions where the cards will be (display the rulers and drag guides from there, make the units match the physical units of the page - cms, perhaps). For a 3x4 layout, you need three vertical lines for the left edge, four horizontal ones fro the top edge.

Now you can copy and paste - moving the card against the guidelines are.

Pretty easy. Harder to explain than do.

[Just looked up and saw Tony has said virtually the same thing]

[steven2440]

Hi,
Sorry I did not get back here sooner.
Thank you for the welcome and reply's. I printed out a couple of them for when she is ready for more items as they are needed.
We opted to go ahead and purchase Photo & Graphic Designer 9. The only disappointment I found so far was that only XDP will handle 16 bit PSD files that contain layers so I will not be bringing them into PG&D9 as I do not want to bring in 8 bit layered files. This is not a deal breaker for me because the program has so much more to offer.
We just could not afford the XDP but trust me, PG&D9 will certainly keep me busy.

Thank You,
Steven

[gwpriester]

Steven

If you have access to Photoshop, then after you have edited your photos/graphics, flatten the image and export as PNG, or any file format you want and import this file into Photo & Graphic Designer. Unless there is a specific reason to work with these separate layers in Xara. And if there is a reason, can you share it so we can see if there is a workaround?