why should i buy xara instead of illustrator?

[ss-kalm]

Welcome.

A lot depends on what you are doing.

Do you need industry standard printing from a business, or are you just going to use the software for your own pleasure.

Do you really need to part with lots of cash.

As far as I am aware, I don't use Illustrator as I can't afford it, but if it's just for drawing, Xara can draw anything that Illustrator can draw (albeit sometimes using workarounds) and is supposedly much quicker (did I also mention much cheaper).

If I were you, I'd buy Xara, and if I found that I needed functions that only Illustrator could provide, I'd buy Illustrator too. If you can afford Illustrator in the first place, the nominal outlay to have Xara as well is not even pocket change and well worth the investment. If you can't really afford Illustrator in the first place ...

[Clear80]

i can afford both xara and illustrator. but i find illustrator hard to use. and more like work. xara is fun. yes ill be just doing drawing. can xara utilize a quad core? for drawing in realtime or is that only for rendering? i hear cs4 also utilizes quadcores. illustrator certainly is a lot harder to use. xaras faster how? in what ways?

[steve.ledger]

Have a look & listen to the Xara Introduction Video beautifully narrated by Kate (from Xara)

[michaelbuddy]

I have both xara xtreme pro and the entire creative suite master collection. I prefer to draw shapes and play around in Xara to generate designs more than I do in flash or illustrator. If I have a flash project, I'll consider what I can do in xara design-wise that I can eventually import just to do minimal work in flash. The reason? Things like the way paths work and simplicity and just flow of my mouse work is just easier for me in Xara. The simpler toolbar, the faster gradients and fills, there are also flash bugs and the interface in flash I dont' like as much as Xara.

With Illustrator, I mostly use it as a convertor program and nothing else, unless I have to. Things like gradients and swatches and things are annoying. I can see strict print requirements such as making metallic beer bottle labels definitely requiring illustrator, but even so, drawing with it seems a little tedious. Also I absolutely hate the way Illsutrator has confusing paths, groups, and masking. I think it sucks because when you open a design from somebody else, you never know what arrangement they have used. I don't know if I need to modify the logo if part of it is being masked. Also with the pathfinder and path tools, again is it really cutting away the foreground or is it masking it?

I like being able to link original images inside a document, so that's where Xara kinda bugs me. I wish I could import a linked PSD file into xara and work with it, but Xara actually embeds everything. That's not my favorite thing. On the other hand, I can see people preferring that.

If I could change Xara, I would do the following off the top of my head:

*allow image / object linking
*Improve documentation and understanding of use of Photoshop filters, what it can do and wont' do. Narrow it down for me.
*give it an actual flash timeline, basically give it interactivity so I can create a full fledged flash website creation kit.
*Improve it's color management as much as possible to synch with printers and adobe (for sharing with others)
*Make the Xar format openable so you can extract linked images or objects from it and view Xar files on other OS's. (like open document is actually a zip file)
*Make a mac version
*Give it inkscapes follow tool and it's random wiggly tools
*Allow custom start and end points and sizes, like custom arrows. Instead of locking just to a couple and less sizes.
*improve image slicing process a little bit.

[gwpriester]

It's really simple. If you are working in a professional environment, such as an advertising agency art director or as a graphic designers in a graphic design, you are going to need to know how to use Illustrator. It is the industry standard and you are going to have a really hard time if you don't know how it works.

But if you are an illustrator, independent designer or serious hobbyist, then Xtreme is a really excellent alternative. You can do things in Xtreme that you cannot do in Illustrator. Gradient transparency in a variety of types is a great example. Illustrator is more robust in terms of features. But Xtreme is fast and not as hard to learn and master.

[PixelDust]

i can afford both xara and illustrator. but i find illustrator hard to use. and more like work. xara is fun. yes ill be just doing drawing. can xara utilize a quad core? for drawing in realtime or is that only for rendering? i hear cs4 also utilizes quadcores. illustrator certainly is a lot harder to use. xaras faster how? in what ways?

Xara Xtreme Pro 4 can utilize multi-core processors, but Xara Xtreme 4 doesn't. I'm not sure about the realtime vs. rendering part, but I did notice the Pro version was faster when using Live Effects and manipulating 3D extrudes.

Also, Illustrator CS4 can now do elliptical gradients, and you can set alpha values on individual gradient stops. However, it only has linear or radial/elliptical gradients, and Xara has more types of fills.

I'd recommend downloading and trying out the Xara Xtreme and Pro trials.

Finally, Xara's running a sale till October 7th where you can get Xara X1 (an older version of Xara) for $19. It has a lot of what the newer versions have, but doesn't do multi core or have the live effects or 3D extrude tool. It also doesn't let you have multiple pages per document like the new versions do. Here's the link.

[Regular]

I'm a Xara Xtreme convert from Illustrator.

I suppose if I had to some up from a non-artist perspective is that Xtreme makes it very easy for me to get into and do something artistically (opinions may vary )

Working in an University environment, I prefer to leave the techno-geeky power of Illustrator to the professional graphic artists of our graphics department that do this for a living.

I too own the Creative Suit from Adobe and am finding I seldom open up Illustrator to do anything other than file conversion.

[Clear80]

Finally, Xara's running a sale till October 7th where you can get Xara X1 (an older version of Xara) for $19. It has a lot of what the newer versions have, but doesn't do multi core or have the live effects or 3D extrude tool. It also doesn't let you have multiple pages per document like the new versions do. Here's the link.

im tempted to buy xarax1 for 19 usd question though, if i do buy xarax1, ill be getting my paycheck this friday. will i still be able to buy xtreme4 pro upgrade, with a included 'boxed' upgrade with cd? or when you buy a download version you can only upgrade to another download version?

[raynerj1]

I think if you pay for the upgrade, you can get whatever you paid for. The last I checked, the video files where broken with the latest deal. (I bought X1 for my bride) I couldn't get the Videos to download at work or at home. Something goofy with the site I guess.

If you grab the X1 deal, I do have the movies and I can upload to my server if you want... I just tested it with my version of x1 and it seems to be working now... Will have to see if I can get it to work on the wifes version...

[ss-kalm]

....... or when you buy a download version you can only upgrade to another download version?

As far as I am aware, Xara always comes as a CD. If you pay to activate a download, Xara always send you original CD's. The download is just to get you going until the CD's arrive.

Once you own X1 if you decide to upgrade to Xara Xtreme Pro it will cost you US$199 + US$19 (for X1) = US$218 if you just buy Xtreme Pro without something to upgrade from, It will cost you US$249 - Seems like a no brainer to me!

Quoted costs are from Xara's Website and do not include shipping and handling (which is usually very reasonable - Certainly as compared to some of Ebay's shipping costs), or applicable taxes.

NOTE: You may already own a competitors product in which case the upgrade us only US$159 - However, I'm not sure what competitors products are ..... You may need to contact Xara.