Hi infoCentral—

Perhaps it's the fact that there are two things being covered that is delaying your learning this thing.

First, when you have two open paths, like the embellishment example I provided, and you want to make a single closed path out of it,you select both paths, and then with either the Selector tool, or the Shape Editor tool, you drag the start point of one open path to the start point of the other, and your cursor gives you a visual indicator—a tiny + symbol, that your cursor is in position to make these two start points into one path segment.

Now the path is still open, so you need to drag the endpoints together. And when I mention start and end points, I'm simply referring to one end or the other of an open path—as I mention in the book, Xara could care less about PostScript fill rules—so you just need to be fairly zoomed into two points on the two paths, and then drag 'em together.

The second question is about joining shapes, not path. Me, I don't have the head space to remember all the Boolean operations on the Arrange>Combine Shapes menu. Do this to make your learning a little easier:

Go to Window>Control Bars, put a check in the Arrange checkbox, and the Arrange button bar will dock itself (or it should up near the Standard Bar. Hover for the ToolTips and find the Subtract Shapes command button.

A word of caution here: Don't go doing path subtraction or intersections with a shape that has a bevel on it. I only put a bevel on the shape in the book for the sake of cosmetics: IOW, the publisher told me to make fancy screen captures because it was a color book.

If you subtract a shape from a shape that has a bevel on it, the bevel shape becomes a low-resolution bitmap and the result shape can't be easily edited for its bevel properties anymore.

If this doesn't solve your problem, please post it on the Xara Xone forum. I'd appreciate it, I live there now.

My Best,

Gary