Xara photo and graphic designer 2013 - trimming

[learnMinion]

Hello. I just bought this program and when ever I go to save or export, image automatically trims itself. How do I turn off the auto trimming, so to leave open page space around images like how it shows in the work area?

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics

Are you editing your photo on a white page or on a dark gray background?

And please elaborate a bit more on what you mean as trimming.

[Gamerprinter]

What gwpriester means, if you're using a white background setup before creating the graphic, the defined edge of the paper is the white background itself. So if you have any graphics that extend past the edges of the white background, those will get cut off when exporting. Ideally, you need to set the background width and height to the dimensions you intend to export at as your first step, before even creating the art.

If you've, instead, imported the photo directly, and not as a .XAR file, only the photo appears and the background is gray. In this mode, the imported photo determines the dimensions of the document.

I'd advise starting with a preset page size with a white background that you import your photo into and work from there. In this mode do not create graphics outside the edge of the white background or it will get cut off at export. You can always go to Edit/Page Options and change the dimensions of the background.

[wizard509]

Gamerprinter is right, make sure your graphic or image fits inside the page or it will be trimmed. If you have the page color set to the same color as the surrounding area and cannot see where it is, you can change the surrounding area by dragging a different from the color bar onto somewhere not on the page itself and it will then surround the page thus showing the page location. If your page fills the entire screen you may have to zoom out to something like 50% to accomplish this.

[learnMinion]

Okay, so I'm new to this program. My work area is a gray window area, but in that is the white document (page) area that I go about drawing in. I can set the white page to any default size I like. The problem lies in that I will go about creating stuff entirely inside the boundaries of this white page, but the program automatically trims any empty white page area that isn't used when saving or exporting. So I'm wondering how do I keep the extra page area?

[learnMinion]

Uuuuugh. Okay found what I had to do, for anyone who would have a similar problem.

What I did was click File in the main menu bar. Clicked "Export JPG...". I then needed to create a file name. Then click "Settings...". Click "Bitmap Size". In the middle column called "Area To Save", located below the image preview windows, select "Page". Then click "Export".

I wish they didn't do it like this.

Oh, BTW, thanks peeps for replying