FACT: Xara has a crippled, out-of-date type-engine.

[mwenz]

Geez. Everything that is factually stated is, well, factual. The rest is marketing speak. Separate what the marketing dweebs say from what an application actually does.

The exact same comparison between marketing speak and reality can be written about Adobe's so-called "Suite" and their ability to seamlessly integrate with each other. And the marketing speak for CC? Much is over the top and some is actually not true.

Back in the early days of composing/publishing on a computer, these OTF features being discussed were not even possible with the font formats and their capabilities of the day.

However, it is true Xara needs to flesh out this area. And from Gary's contact at Xara it seems they will be moving forward to whatever degree of OTF support.

[mwenz]

OK. You posted while I was.

CorelDraw--nor any other application--is not compatible in any fuller sense with Adobe products. If you want "compatibility," then you are going to have to buy and use Adobe products as has been stated in this thread.

It is true that many use XDP, CD, etc., in our professional lives. But I am not going to go out of my way to force some sort of ad hoc, poor workflow to shoehorn these applications into an Adobe workflow. If I have a customer using Adobe products and they require working files in return in the respective Adobe formats, I may begin certain work in XDP and take it into Illy for finishing off. But I would never begin something in PagePlus that eventually needs to go into InDesign or QuarkXpress. I will do all my image editing in PhotoLine, but if I need to return a composition in PhotoShop format and/or use filters and features in PhotoShop, I'll do all the work in PS. The same can be said about other formats, applications and processes.

In my work-a-day world, I cannot imagine owning one vector application, one layout application, one ... whatever. I have flexibility for most work and I take advantage of that whereas if I worked for an ad agency, I likely would only be using Adobe products at work.

I personally think this topic is beat to death.

[MyCoalescen]

The beating will stop when moral improves...?

I agree. The only 100% compatibility is when you make it and open it in the same program. There is still value in being able to import/export to other programs especially to adobe. As you said using multiple applications if you could not even open that file in the other program that would seriously limit you. That is why I only consider those who can import/export adobe as even possible alternatives to adobe.

Sounds like I wont be using page and layout designer for my DTP. They sound good except for lack of advanced text tools which for many will be fine but just not for graphic designers. Many who need to make simpler projects may not even notice or care. The other 2 main xara products sounds pretty good though.

The best way for companies to stand up to adobe would be to join forces and/or merge. There is almost no way they could be called a monopoly compared to adobe.

[humblenations]

Glad that this topic has spurned a lot of debate and agreement. It's really the alternative letters as well which type designers seem to be really fond of throwing in these days into a single font rather than having the Expert / Alternative / Swashes / Ligatures in different fonts. What it really reminds me of is the whole graphic design thing where PNG with alpha channel where supported with the major browsers except for IE 6 and as a graphic designer would forgo this nice ability to make their websites prettier. And then at a certain point ... they / we all just turned around as designers and said stuff it. IE 6 not supported any more lets jump ship and use those lovely PNGs with transparencies. Making our sites way more beautiful. Now. I think the same thing has been happening over the last three to four years. I see a lot more type designers saying to themselves - right, most graphics apps support full open type features ... let's build beautiful type systems in a single font. And here we are with a so-called PRO version of a piece of graphic design software that has come out in 2013 and it's still not supported.

To put this into perspective we not have Xara putting time and effort into silly thing that don't really work and over cook the pudding ... like that 'remove background' ... I still hand cookie-cutter my bitmaps (or Stain Glass with white background if I want to keep shadows), because it's the only way to get good results, or that mask layer; talk about over complicating something, the beauty of Xara is that you don't have to have stuff on any layers if you don't want to - that's what a good vector app is all about. And still it longer supports the tools of any designer's trade: the fonts.

Any way, thanks Gerry for getting in touch with Xara and getting them told.

[angelize]

Here is another reason why full support for open type glyphs should come to Xara's full line of products sooner rather than later.
http://opentype.info/blog/2010/08/14...type-features/

If Xara could make Open type fonts with full support for all the extra features auto embed the way that TT web fonts currently do now that would be nice.

[MyCoalescen]

Agreed. For graphic design your most important tools are fonts. If you dont have fonts you dont have anything. A mark of a great graphic designer is how they handle type. For that they need advanced type tools and full open type.

[gwpriester]

Agreed. For graphic design your most important tools are fonts. If you dont have fonts you dont have anything. A mark of a great graphic designer is how they handle type. For that they need advanced type tools and full open type.

And Designer Pro X is the flagship Xara product. If they hope to compete with the likes of Illustrator, InDesign, or even CorelDRAW then they best focus on bringing the text tool functions up to par with the industry leaders.

[MyCoalescen]

I might add Serif Pages Plus to that list of text heavy contenders. It is very similar feel to Indesign but probably like cs3-4 with a face lift. CorelDraw is a vector program that in there current edition added text heavy tools. Its sort of sad having a drawing program that just decided to add DTP beat out a dedicated DTP.

I can understand some if Page and Layout designer is not perfect but I would hope that when combined into their flagship Designer x9 it they would bring more text tools to the table. Currently im not even sure why Xara Designer exists. Is there some bonus features im not aware of in the bundle. It is actually slightly more expensive than the 3 separate parts. Bundles generally reduce total price and give a few bonuses. Xaras bundle costs more and with no bonuses? I would expect it to cost less for the shear fact of repeated functions from 1 program to an other and for them saving the time of processing/shipping 3 products instead of 1. Designer should offer some kind of incentive.

[zaphodeist]

http://www.xara.com/uk/designer-pro/compare/

[Sheff]

I think Xara's mentality of pursuing the hobbyist market rather than the professional market still kind of lingers. I'm not just talking about ligature control and type engines. Improvements there would be welcome, especially in font management. DP is being left behind by other apps, like Mischief and Sketchbook Designer.