Xara Designer Pro as a Professional app for Pro work?

[angelize]

let's focus on XDP.

Sounds good to me too. Lets get back to the original topic of Designer Pro's suitablility as a professional tool.

My Husband and I own a small publication and I use Designer Pro for 95% of what I do. As the Publication is small I can do my page layout in designer Pro, I design advertising, and offer my clients a full design service. I send Xara PDF/X files for printing, and I do websites with Xara as well. Am I a professional? I make my living using Xara software for 95% of what I do. I try to provide my clients with a professional service so I'd say I am.

[WilliamHere]

Sounds good to me too. Lets get back to the original topic of Designer Pro's suitablility as a professional tool.

My Husband and I own a small publication and I use Designer Pro for 95% of what I do. As the Publication is small I can do my page layout in designer Pro, I design advertising, and offer my clients a full design service. I send Xara PDF/X files for printing, and I do websites with Xara as well. Am I a professional? I make my living using Xara software for 95% of what I do. I try to provide my clients with a professional service so I'd say I am.

Hi Angelize,
I would definitely say that you are a professional. Thanks for sharing your experiences with XDP.
How long have you been using XDP in your business?
What do you like most about XDP? What do you like the least?
Why can't you use XDP for the other 5% of what you do in your business?

Cheers

[angelize]

My husband and I have used Xara for our business since 2007, before that we used outdated versions of Illustrator and PageMaker (when I say outdated I mean outdated )

One of the things I love about XDP is the fact that I can do almost everything in one program from page layout to graphics to webdesign. What I like least is the brushes! Xara's brushes really need attention.

What I do outside of Xara is things like texture creation and 3D work. And for online distribution I use MailChimp to provide a subscription service. I can bring my Xara graphics into Mail Chimp and I create a newsletter with a download button and sign up forms and manage my subscription list in MC. I'm not saying Xara is perfect but it works well for me. I recently had a client dump a last minute ad change on me and I was able to make the changes quickly send a pdf proof to the client and drop the ad onto the page layout all in the same program. The longest thing in the whole process was waiting for the client to approve the proof.

Here is a Sample of our publication in pdf format http://gallery.mailchimp.com/3d8de2d...2013_05_16.pdf

[WilliamHere]

Nice publication Angelize. Thanks for sharing.
It's nice to see good work created using XDP.

[JET]

At the risk of offending probably everyone (despite its not being my intent) here goes:

I'm actually glad that Adobe has decided to jump headlong into that big pipedream-in-the-sky of all software vendors: software licence rental. Hopefully, it will serve to help to at long last break Adobe's stranglehold on the vector drawing market.

I've been at this since the early days of the "desktop publishing revolution," have been a professional illustrator since long before that and, for one, am simply not interested in renting graphics software from Adobe or anyone else. I won't do it. Period. And I know I'm not alone. For me in particular, Adobe's move has effectively freed up about $1200 every 18 months or so with which I can keep other softwares up-to-date and explore a few new ones, and still come out on top. At this point, I couldn't care less what happens to Illustrator.

I keep licenses of current versions of most of the mainstream general-purpose vector drawing software, have maintained at least working familiarity with them, and can lateral to any of them whenever I want (and do). Functionally, they're all pretty much the same re-hashed kind of thing. A 2D drawing software actually deserving of being characterized as "professional quality" would exceed all of them, including Illustrator, and by my book is yet to be seen.

How long will users continue being suckered into this myth that Adobe Illustrator is "the professional drawing program"? What rubbish! What is so dang "professional" about Illustrator? Do you guys know that Illustrator:

Cannot be set to draw to scale?
Took over two decades to acquire the ability to have more than one page in a file?
Still doesn't have something as bare-bones basic as shape primitive objects with live geometric attributes (rounded rectangles, stars, polygons, arcs)?
Still lacks connector lines?
Still lacks dimension tools?
Still provides only basic linear and radial gradient fills?
Is still comparitively slow as Christmas to open or close?
Can't do anything even remotely acceptable in the way of exporting a finished web page?
Has the most convoluted, scattered, confused, cluttered, and unintuitive interface scheme of the entire 2D drawing software category?
Provides no straightforward 2D vector-based bevel feature?
Can't even touch Designer Pro's speed in exploiting graduated transparency and blur (feathering) on hundreds of vector paths in a drawing?

The above isn't even the tip of the iceberg. The list goes on and on. In short, Illustrator is the most over-rated 2D drawing program on the planet.

Look....First off, a skilled illustrator can do work that qualifies as "professional" with a freakin' crayon and a sidewalk if he's so inclined.

Second, it is ridiculous to compare Designer Pro with any of the entire multi-software bundles that Adobe sells. Designer Pro and Illusrator are first and foremost drawing programs. That's the legitimate comparison, not XDP vs. any of the so-called Creative Suite bundles. And in several important ways, XDP blows the antequated doors off Illustrator.

Third, do you think Illustrator users don't complain about color inconsistency problems between AI and Acrobat and Photoshop? Visit the AI forum and you'll find such complaints almost daily. The Adobe programs are not nearly as "seamlessly integrated" as they would have you believe.

Fourth, what is the supposed functional advantage of a CMYK-or-RGB-only document model? FreeHand, for example, can do anything Illustrator can do in terms of reliable process color and yet its interface has never limited the user to CMYK objects. Postscript devices since the early days been quite capable of doing perfectly acceptable CMYK conversions of RGB images for most practical purposes. The fact is, not everything destined for print is as hair-splitting color-critical as many are led to believe by the runaway over-emphasis on device calibration (so-called color management). For example, I routinely do technical documents intentionally containing RGB images for the simple expediency of multi-purposing the same image files for print, web, and database application delivery. Such projects are certainly "professional", but they're not coffee-table books featuring glamour shots of highly-paid models. And face it; most projects aren't.

Moreover, though, programs like Designer Pro and Illustrator (and Draw and Canvas, and Serif Draw Plus, and..., and...) are primarily about vector-based illustration. That's essentially artist-conception artwork. The kind of hair-splitting variances that calibration-devotees sweat blood over are not nearly as important in the end as simply good color choices and decisions. In other words, good use of color. Not one of your end viewers is going to call the illustration "wrong" because the shade of a color is 3% more cyan than you expected when you drew it. In most origininal vector drawing projects, your time is far better spent considering basic principles of overall dynamic range, contrast, and shading than tediously fretting over embedded calibration profiles. And even in photographic raster images, your time is better spent thinking on color correction than on mere color calibration. So much of that stuff is over-hyped myth.

So don't be the least bit intimidated about using Designer Pro for "professional" work. At the same time, don't fall into the same falacy as do those who only have experience with Illustrator. In other words, don't think that XDP is the end-all, do-all 2D drawing solution, either.

Consider: XDP should be one of the first alternatives which AI users less than happy with Adobe's take-it-or-leave-it subscription scheme should flock to as they begin to investigate the real-world potential of competing programs. Sadly, one of the biggest deal-breaking shortfalls that will hinder adoption is XDP's primary path drawing tool. An elegant and full-featured implementation of the now defacto-standard Bezier pen tool behavior (click for corner; clickDrag for curve, with a carefully thought-out set of one-hand-convenient momentary adjustment shortcuts) is sorely needed by this program. The Shape Edit Tool is somewhat innovative and is serviceable, but it is not the way to efficiently draw Bezier paths.

For this reason alone, either Draw or Canvas--or even InkScape, for that matter--will be seen as more serious alternatives to most serious Illustrator users, once they start dinking with it.

Don't get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoy using XDP. It's arguably the tidiest interface among them all. It is downright refreshing to use compared to the bloated grab-bag of Illustrator. But it lacks the power-just-beneath-the-surface elegance of, for example, FreeHand. Throughout their competitive history, FreeHand was hands-down superior to Illustrator. Yet it couldn't, for example, define a single-segment straight path in terms of numerical length and angle (as can Illustrator). Fact is, none of the current offerings are really worthy of the "professional-quality" glorification.

So of course Xara Designer Pro can be just as easily considered a "professional" drawing tool as can Illustrator. Show me one Designer Pro shortcoming, and I'll show you two in Illustrator. And we can go on for hours like that.

But the bottom line is, this entire segment of the graphics software market has been far too long held back by the market-share dominance of Adobe Illustrator's mediocrity. I'm ready to see some serious-business, truly industrial-strength development in 2D drawing in the wake of Adobe's blunder. Which of the several competitors decides to step up to that plate will be interesting to see.

JET

[WilliamHere]

But the bottom line is, this entire segment of the graphics software market has been far too long held back by the market-share dominance of Adobe Illustrator's mediocrity. I'm ready to see some serious-business, truly industrial-strength development in 2D drawing in the wake of Adobe's blunder. Which of the several competitors decides to step up to that plate will be interesting to see.

JET

Hi JET,
I totally agree with this. Adobe software is way over rated at times. As a pro illustrator myself, I do have a lot of the same issues with AI. This is why I started looking at XDP. Like you and many other people that I have talked to, I will never rent software by the month. Ever!

Getting back to XDP. Even thought I am new to XDP, I am really enjoying it so far and I m hoping for good things to come with the next version which will hopefully be released soon. We'll see how I feel about XDP after a few months. I am hoping for the best. So far, so good.

This is a great opportunity and challenge for many software developers to step up their game, be more innovative, and grab more market share. I predict a lot of good coming from this. We are going to see a lot of innovation and better products in the next few months and years to come. This is good for us as creatives in business.

What illustration work have you done using XDP that you are very happy with? What are your favorite XDP features?

Thanks for the post.

[Rik]

Xara have posted this on their Facebook:

Adobe’s recent announcement that they’re moving to a subscription model for future versions of Creative Suite hasn’t gone down too well with many users, so we’ve devised a special Xara Welcome Offer on Designer Pro for owners of Adobe products who don’t like the idea or the cost of a subscription – find out more @ http://bit.ly/15WHri3

[pauland]

Despite all the time I spend on TG, the offer is REALLY CONFUSING.

It says: Switch to Designer Pro: $100 off and a free upgrade to v9!

The current version is Xara Designer Pro X (v8) so it looks as though the software is at version TEN, but has this odd (v8) tucked in.

The offer goes on to say we'll include a completely free upgrade to the next version, Designer Pro X9!

It almost feels as though they're offering a free downgrade.

I hadn't thought how confusing this is until now. Xara really messed up on their product designation.

[jon404]

But at least they're trying. I totally agree with JET's post... pretty much same as my experience as well, over the years.

@angelize -- how many pages is your newsletter? And... to everybody else as well, is there a pagecount where XDP starts choking? Or, fall on your knees and pray, do we have a reasonable alternative here to Adobe Indesign? Please, God, please!!! This one's my fault -- I never thought of XDP as a desktop publishing program. But... could I make a 200-page 6" x 9" PDF for a trade paperback with it? I'm already making my book covers with XDP... could I also use it for the interior block?

[mwenz]

Jon--XDP is not a substitute for a page layout application no matter how many pages it can do. If you want a dang good page layout application that doesn't break the bank, get PagePlus.

@Jet, nice to see you here (back here, that is). Points well taken and agreed on the FH comparison (sorry for the lame pun...)

Take care, Mike