What do you use xara for? PLEASE NOTE THIS THREAD HAS BEEN SPLIT

[raynerj1]

Templates are good for many things. I have found that different companies create their papers slightly different. So... there is no "standard" template for business cards or CD labels. Once you have the print media in you hands, then you can design a template for that media.

I have done business cards, flyers, pamplets, CD/DVD inserts, CD/DVD labels, CD/DVD Covers, postcards, maps, Video Titles, web graphics, fine Art Graphics, Training aids. Just about any visual graphics Xara works great. Like I said previously. You can use xara for everything except doing radio spots...

[gnurf]

Almost all non-photo stuff goes through Xara at some moment, especially after the pdf/x export was implemented. Most of my stuff is meant for print but I also make my web graphics in Xara.

Text stuff like brochures and manuals are made in Indesign or OpenOffice (as you can export directly as PDF from both): Indesign for advanced things and OOo for simple things. Some short manuals with mostly graphics are made in Xara.

Mentioning OpenOffice, in Calc I do a lot of tables and graphs which I copy and paste into Xara to improve graphically (usually just changing colors, fonts and adding gradient fills).

But wait, there's more (sorry, couldn't resist! TV-shop was on the telly in the next room)! I add the text in my cartoons in xara.

[DGehman]

Recreation, occasional (semi)technical drawings & graphics for freelance writing.

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Folks,

This thread was covering 2 completely different subjects.

If your looking for Suunotos problems with his lost xar files please click HERE

[David O'Neil]

I'm finishing a book that reintegrates religion and science, by showing how they are intimately tied to ancient astronomical observations. As part of it, the astronomy behind the biblical story of Samson is illuminated.

All but one of the interior black and white drawings were created with the help of Xara, and the cover has also been extensively massaged with Xara tools, although I had a professional do the artwork on it, as my skills are not that great. Next stop--redo my site, and you know what program I'll be using for that...

[RTK]

Everything drawn goes through Xara -

850+ quickie drawings and text lines on ristoons.com

600+ caricatures (not drawn in Xara, but composed with the copyright and tag added, and re-exported from Xara) on webtures.com

And that in time... Very little. Granted not all great art... but time-wise: a time saver.

My main drawings too - they are all relatively simple, but Xara is lighning fast in comparison to anything else when it comes to moving around a lot of shapes.

To sum up my personal reason: SPEED (workflow and app. redraw time).

Risto

[a4hire]

I use Xara for graphics design, and illustration for print and the web.

[Purrfeck]

Re: What do you use xara for?

I use it mainly for internet advertising including logo's, & flyers. I also use it to create simple kids activities, as well as some recreational use.
I used to use Corel but the more I use Xara the less I rely on Corel.
I enjoy using Xara Xtreme Pro and it does a great job for what I need.

[BONES]

When I first bought Xara2.0, my expectations were modest next to Illustrator v7 and CorelDraw v7, however it only took a few months before I foudn both of those things useless [especially Illustrator, which never worked very well for me]. So it is basically my go-to application for everything creative. Here is a summary of some of the work I have done with it:

- Still images for Powerpoint and video - technical and creative

- Web graphics - every image at www.novakill.com came from Xara, as did the roll-over code

- CD artwork

- T-Shirt design

- Logo design

- Business cards

- GUI design for plug-in virtual instruments and effects [VSTi]

- Word processing - writing lyrics, letters, taking notes in meetings, etc

- General noodling - working out layouts, designing racks/stands, thinking things through "on paper"

- Lately I've been using it to edit PDFs to combine disparate info into a single document [I love using it for this, although it can get messy if I want the result to look nice]

Overall, Xara has replaced both Illustrator/Draw and Photoshop/Photopaint for me. There is still the occasional thing I cannot use it for, pixel-pushing wise, but I have Autodesk Combustion to take up that slack [and to do my Flash animations in a fraction of the time]. Realistically though, Xara does about 95% of all of the still graphics work [and play] that I do and everything I do for print. I would be completely at a loss without it. When I got my new laptop on Tuesday, Xara was the very first thing I loaded onto it, closely followed by my music software.

[handrawn]

I draw cartoons of the political kind mostly - usually scanning the line-work in, and doing the coloring, lettering and paste-up digitally.

Whereas politics is a very touchy subject on TG, xaraX doesn't mind a bit she's very broadminded