Xara like program for web page mockup?

[feklee]

For doing mockups of web pages, Xara Xtreme (Pro) appears to be almost perfect. However, there's one very important feature missing: The possibility to underline text.

Can this feature somehow be simulated? Note that manually positioning lines is extremely cumbersome, since there are often multitudes of links on a web page.

If the feature cannot be easily simulated, what other tools do you recommend for free form web page mockup?

[pauland]

Well, it's a bit of a nuisance about the underlines and a few of us have moaned about that.

If you really see underlined text as a problem with mocking up web pages, then you're doing something wrong.

You are probably either:

Still using text underlined links in the main navigation for the site - something that is pretty unfashionable. If you look at the talkgraphics pages - they do have underlined links but not that many, it would only take a couple of minutes to add the underlines to a talkgraphics page mockup.

Including large amounts of content with underlined text links in the mockups - something you shouldn't really need to do for a mockup.

Paul

[feklee]

Well, it's a bit of a nuisance about the underlines and a few of us have moaned about that.

If you really see underlined text as a problem with mocking up web pages, then you're doing something wrong.

Depends on the site. Look at, say, Youtube: It's a popular site (due to its UI!) and it does use quite a number of underlines. Actually, I just counted underlines in a not so large Youtube video page. There were almost 100.

Now, adding 100 underlines manually will take at least 15 min, and then they're not even positioned precisely.

What's the trick of manually positioning underlines precisely and quickly?

[pauland]

Yes, but for a page mockup, you aren't icluding real content or pretending that it's fully operational page - at least that's not what my mockups are about).

On Youtube, you just don't need 100 underlines to show a mockup. You can reat content and show repeated underlined text as placeholders. Even if you want to make it with 100 underlines, OK 15 minutes should have them looking pretty reasonable. Use guides to snap the underlines to and put the underlines on a different layer..

[Daniel]

If you have a PDF printer application installed (I use pdfFactory) you can 'print' your text to a PDF - either from Word or a webpage itself.

Import the PDF into Xtreme and the underlines are carried through (albeit, still as lines) in the right place.

I find it invaluable, and well worth the price the whole Xtreme package alone, to be able to 'print' a website to PDF, import to Xara, and do page mockups for redesigns. It isn't always perfect but it usually only takes a couple of minutes to smarten things up - it has saved me literally days' of work.

(I'm using the latest Pro versions of both Fineprint pdfFactory and Xara Xtreme. I speak from my own experiences, so don't know if the 'Standard' editions do the same things or not)

[Mike Bailey]

Can this feature somehow be simulated?

Its easy to underline text.

1. Enter the text.
2. draw a line.
3. select both the text and line.
4. In the arrange menu, select fit text to curve.

I don't know if this will work for your web page.

[feklee]

Its easy to underline text.

1. Enter the text.
2. draw a line.
3. select both the text and line.
4. In the arrange menu, select fit text to curve.

Thanks for the hint. However, this seems to move the line to the baseline of the text which looks different from ordinary underlined text in web pages. Also, when you have a sentence and you only want to underline certain words, then the method becomes cumbersome.

I guess, I'll just add the lines manually with the help of rulers, just as pauland recommended. I currently don't have the time to try out another graphics tool where underlining is easier to accomplish (and other things may, in turn, be more cumbersome ...).

[feklee]

Import the PDF into Xtreme and the underlines are carried through (albeit, still as lines) in the right place.

Interesting, thanks for the hint. However, I don't know if it will really safe work in the given case.

I find it invaluable, and well worth the price the whole Xtreme package alone, to be able to 'print' a website to PDF, import to Xara, and do page mockups for redesigns. It isn't always perfect but it usually only takes a couple of minutes to smarten things up - it has saved me literally days' of work.

Also an interesting approach.

[Xhris]

You could also try:

[feklee]

You could also try ...

Thanks for the suggestion. However, the method is targeted to situations where one has to underline an entire text object on one line. Often, however, the situation is different: For example, one needs to underline a single word in a sentence, or one needs to underline a text of two lines, etc.. I guess for now, I'll just use free positioning aided by rulers. It's simple but unprecise. However, for mockups, that may be OK.