Xara Designer Pro X update July 2017

[Egg Bramhill]

I've just updated XDPX. Had problems but eventually managed to get it to update.

Here are the latest updates (save others from wading through the updates page):

[gwpriester]

Thanks for that Egg.

[MarcT]

I wonder what this one means?



Transparency already are supported in PDF, is it concerning the gradated transparencies ?

Marc

[gwpriester]

Hi Mark - The last iteration of PDF/X supported was PDF/X3 2003 so this is a more recent filter.

This link might help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/X

I suspect that prior to this version transparency was handled by converting the transparent object to bitmap where as this new version may actually maintain the transparency. Mike Wenzloff knows a lot more about this stuff maybe he will clarify when he sees this.

[gwpriester]

I had to look up the support for multi-weight fonts. Here is what it says:

Improved support for multi-weight fonts (July 2017)

We’ve made some significant changes to the way that Designer handles multi-weight fonts. Prior to this update if a font was updated so that its multiple weights were presented in a different structure, this could cause Designer to show missing font warnings for documents that had been created using the previous version of the font. Now any such changes to a font should be transparent, so you can update to a newer version of the font without encountering any problems with existing documents that use that font.

This update also has improved handling of the Bold button with multi-weight fonts. Prior to this update, Designer would not allow bold to be turned on if the selected text used anything but the regular variant of a font. Now it will work with any variant, automatically choosing the most appropriate heavier weight variant of the same font. For example if you have some Open Sans Light text selected and you press the Bold button, the text will appear as Open Sans Regular.

This is helpful. Many of the Google fonts get updated frequently which in the past would trigger those font not found messages even though the font was already installed.

And the smart shape arrows provide hours of fun for the bored and/or easily amused.

[handrawn]

Transparency already are supported in PDF...

but not in the PDF/X series up to now

here is a link to PDFA.org description, and a quote:

https://www.pdfa.org/wp-content/uplo...a-Nutshell.pdf

In addition, PDF/X-4 allows the use of transparency, a PDF 1.4 feature forbidden in PDF/X until PDF/X-4.

[mwenz]

The main premise for PDF/X-4 has little to do with transparency, it is for the allowance of mixed color-space tagged content. So for instance, one could have a tagged Adobe RGB image in an otherwise CMYK document color space and the tagged Adobe RGB would remain so in the produced CMYK PDF. This is late-binding.

In early-binding, all content would be converted to the destination color space for the PDF. This is what Xara products have always done—and still do with the new PDF/X-4 PDF filter. Until such time as there is both a document, color-managed space AND that the Native format actually works properly, this early-binding process is all Xara is going to manage.

As regards transparency, it took not using a PDF/X type of PDF export to maintain transparency in the past. And for print services requiring a PDF/X-4 pdf with transparency, I would need to run an action in Acrobat to ensure compliance when needed.

But the main thing, to me, is the fuller premise of PDF/X-4 is not met.

(And the bug of CMYK-defined elements turning black when outputting an RGB PDF version still happens.)

[handrawn]

thanks MIke - I don't really need transparency in PDF/X - what you say about the rest is interesting, and I don't see me renewing just for that when I can use other programs for that sort of work if necessary that do it better

nothing else there for me this time

@egg - thanks for the info

[mwenz]

As far as I know, only Adobe products truly realize the fuller potential of PDF/X-4. Mixed content is still converted to a destination space in everything else. Not that I have tried in every application, just the ones I use. But I am unaware of others.

I would be remiss to mention that the PDF/X-4 file that XDP now produces (and the other applications I use that support PDF/X-4) is still a valid PDF/X-4 file.

[MarcT]

but not in the PDF/X series up to now

Ok, thanks for the clarification.