PLD Export to Print Service Bureaus?

[SuperDave]

In the past, all my XARA Design products had difficulty exporting anything for printing by a commercial printing service bureau. I was hoping to see some tutorials or videos of how PLD9 now accomplishes this. Instead, all the video tutorials appear to be a rehash of shared features with current design products... not how PLD9 is different (NEW) and accomplishes what we actually need in the way of real-world printing.

I know that $69 is not a lot, but I don't need redundancy, I need something NEW that deserves a purchase. As it stands now, I can accomplish what I need for printing, in CorelDraw and export print ready PDF files to any print service in the world. Yes, I know I can play with the trial version but I don't want to spend the time downloading, installing and eventually uninstalling a program with redundant features, just to find answers to basic questions that should be clearly stated in a real New Program Launch. XARA historically offers amazing design flexibility in their programs. With a program titled as Page Layout and Designer, with all the typical print media templates, one would expect to be able to design and export to a commercial print shop.

Perhaps PLD 9 does this and it isn't clearly stated (which is the case when XARA posts rehashed videos of shared features...). If so, I would love to know and it should be seriously highlighted. At that point, I would have a huge increase in design flexibility and printing; and would gladly purchase PLD9. Please feel free to set me on the straight and narrow if I am off base... kindly

Hoping for good news,

Dave

[gwpriester]

Just ask your printing professional which version he/she prefers.

[SuperDave]

Mr. Moderator Emeritus Dude, Sir,

Thank you... as always, you have your finger on the pulse!

I will take a run at the trial now...

SD

[mwenz]

Why would you believe/think that a "new" (really, a subset of Xara Designer Pro) would be any better at print ready output than what other Xara application you have? BTW, what applications do you have? If you have one of the Designer Pro versions, print ready is something it does well.

Don't think for a minute that PLD is half as flexible or extensible as even a word processor for layout. It isn't. A one version back copy of PagePlus for laying out designs is likely less cost and 1000 times better. You can call Serif's toll free number and haggle over an acceptable price.

I have never had issues with Designer Pro's output for commercial printing. As I think you use Xara's web application, consider simply upgrading to Pro and be done with it. All the web stuff, all the graphic design capabilities and the features of PLD are included.

Mike

[SuperDave]

Hi Mike,

I have DP already. CorelDraw is great for almost all of my print design work. What I was hoping for was the speed and simplicity of what XARA programs do (fewer moves to accomplish design elements) with improved quality. PLD9 may just be another flavor of the same programs to generate additional revenue (like Crest adding a new flavor of toothpaste rather that actually creating a totally new and better toothpaste). When they have a disclaimer on their videos stating that they are only showing shared features... well, it doesn't sound like something NEW.

My output from XARA programs for printing has always been poor. Colors are always way off, design elements transfer over in various altered states, etc. I just toss in the towel and, rather than exporting whole "documents", I export individual design elements as BMP and then use CorelDraw to actually design and export for printing.

SD

[Albacore]

Why are people always looking for something new. If your happy with what you do now stick with it, use CD, but if you think it could be better then try the Pro version of Xara. For 5 years I tried to teach students how to use CD and got average results. Then we changed to Xara and my students workfllow increased as well as their grades as they found the Xara product are more intuitive way to produce graphics over CD.

I really believe if you get comfortable with software stick with it don't chop & change as then you develop less skills overall as each programme do things slightly differently. You would expect people here to think that they use the best programme and they think same at the Adobe forums. You mention colour as your main concern about using Xara products, the difference between the screen and the actual wet copy here are a few things to try:

1. Try turning on Simulate Printing Colours
2. Use a restricted colour palette, till you get experience with the output
3. Use Pantone Colours from their books and use the book as a reference
4. Buy a cheap laser printer to see the output at your desktop

Hope that helps to make your mind up.

[Big Frank]

I really believe if you get comfortable with software stick with it, don't chop & change as then you develop less skills overall as each programme do things slightly differently.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

You would expect people here to think that they use the best programme and they think same at the Adobe forums.

Yes, but everybody(ish) here knows the Adobe products. Over at the Adobe forums how many are aware of Xara?

[SuperDave]

Again, it wasn't just the color outputs. I wanted the flexibility XARA offers which leads to the "increased productivity" mentioned. However, any increases in productivity are lost when the output does not render well at the commercial printer. We tried every iteration on color rendering and finally went back to CD, which takes a lot more steps to achieve the design results, but has accurate print controls. In the past, I was told that XARA design products were not developed for print media, just for web graphics development. I was hoping PLD9 was a truly new program that was engineered for print media and electronic web graphic design.

In the current technology driven world we live in, it is all about making programs do more with less human effort. When these results are not achieved, users will be disappointed... there's no getting away from that. People have been conditioned to Better, Faster, Easier and Cheaper... it's the benchmark we have become accustomed to (If you take a Poll to see how many people pay for Adobe Acrobat X1 at $200 or use a free PDF Utility or buy one for $9.95, I suspect few people actually pay for X1.) If XARA ever made a product that focused on print media and electronic, with all the attributes of their current electronic focused programs, they would have a truly amazing program. But when they promote the shared features ("These movies were recorded using Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, but show features shared by Page & Layout Designer. Some minor aspects of the the icons, tool set and menus may differ from what you see in Page & Layout Designer.") rather than sell the NEW program on it's own merits, it leaves a lot of questions.

I, like a lot of people, tend to be a software junkie. If I can justify a purchase, I will buy it. Also, like many people, many times I use more than one program to achieve the end result I need (that's why so many programs have an "import" feature). In order to do that, these programs need to play well together. When they don't we stop using one and try to find an alternative program that cooperates better. Those of us that rely on programs for our business would dearly love a program that does exactly what we want without having to resort to multiple programs. But that is not reality... just think Windows... which ultimately resulted in Firefox.

I use XARA products and always will. But I need to measure my expectations against reality. Harry Callahan once said: "A man's GOT to know his limitations." The same goes for software.

Dave has left the thread.

[gwpriester]

I have produced 4 color magazine ads and brochures with Xara using PDF/X. I even was instructed by one magazine that all ads had to be submitted in QuarkXPress file fomat created on a Mac.

I sent them the PDF file and said, let me know if you have any problems.

The did not and I was happy with the results.

The capabilities are there.

[Albacore]

Well in my opinion it is just the colour difference between the screen render and the wet print. If you get a bit of experience in the difference as I mentioned above the PDF output is fine. To be honest I can't remember using CD what you did to change the render of a transparent object but let's say it is the same as Illy and you flatten the area (bitmap) well that is the same as Xara but it happens automatically. I can think of nothing else which would cause you problems I published 12 newsletter/week in a NHS region in the UK along with posters and info brochure, I was suppose to only use Adobe Illy but most time used Xara.

Rules to follow are:

Use layers
Have text on the top most layer
Know your printer
In complex graphical areas convert area to bitmap before export
And use the rules stated above in my last post.

Hope this helps and have confidence in the product. Yes I am the same when it comes to software as I have Xara Design Pro 6, Freehand MX, Illy CS 6 for vector - InDesign Serif PagePlus X6 and Xara for DTP. The reason for having 3 programmes to do the same work is that some are better at doing certain jobs. I would never use Word to publish a book, but I have seen it done many times, so that is why would use ID and maybe P/Plus but never Xara. But I would use Xara for 4 page newsletters and brochures every day of the week.