Xara Xtreme Pro announced

[Charles Moir]

I'd like to announce the forthcoming release of a new version of Xara Xtreme, called Xara Xtreme Pro. Aimed at the more professional or advanced user, this release broadens the capabilities of Xara Xtreme into completely new areas.

These are the key features;
• Flash animation
• Multi-page support
• Enhanced Text tool
• Photoshop PSD import and export
• PDF/X support and many PDF export improvements
• Color Separations
• Pantone spot and process colors
• Levels control for XPE
• Short-cut key configuration utility
• A host of other smaller fixes and enhancements (listed in another post)

You can find out more about these features here http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/whatsnewpro.asp

Xara Xtreme Pro is NOT available yet - this is an early announcement to the TalkGraphics Forum of our intentions. We expect it to be available for purchase within a few weeks.

Xara Xtreme Pro will be priced at $199 + tax and shipping. Xara Xtreme owners will be able to upgrade for $120 - the difference in price between the two versions.

Xara Xtreme will continue to be sold alongside Xara Xtreme Pro - so the product line now has two versions. The low cost 'consumer' version that's proven to be so successful, and now a more up-market Pro version.

Finally, as is traditional we are making a beta preview release available for download for TalkGraphics users. This is a time limited, but fully functional 30-day trial version. Be aware this is a Beta version and not a final version - so we hope you will test it and report any problems you find. You can download it from http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/whatsnewpro.asp

Xara Xtreme Pro can be installed alongside Xara Xtreme - the two can live side-by-side.

The feature set for this release of Xara Xtreme Pro is now fixed. That does not of course mean there will never be any updates, just that for this release we expect only to fix bugs. So please report them to us here on the forum. In particular any area that generates unexpected errors or crashes - we want to know about it. You guys can help us make this a solid, stable and reliable release - that's why we're making this Beta available.

I'm sure this set of improvements will delight some, hopefully many. But there will always be people whose favourite feature request has not been implemented - we can't satisfy everyone, all the time!

But we continue to monitor TG discussions for feature requests of course, and will continue to develop both Xara Xtreme and Xara Xtreme Pro into the future.

Finally - if you like the new logo and splash screen design (as everyone who has seen it does) you have to thank Miro, known as Minimiro on TalkGraphics. A much more slick and professional design, as suits this new release. He does some great work.

Charles

[Big Frank]

You Will Have My Money By The End Of The Day!!!

[MarkMyWords]

Impressive, looks like xtreme is getting ready to take on the 'big boys', congrats on the improvments.





Still needs an actions palette though.

[a4hire]

Woo Hoo! Looks great!................I guess I'll get the beta until it is released.

[Thatch]

woohoo.. new toy!


Installing it now. This is very much the direction I'd like to see Xara going (as if you are all on pins and needles to see what Joe thinks). While this won't be what everyone wants or needs it certainly seems to make Xara a much more complete solution.

I will most certainly be upgrading.

J

[Availor]

Originally Posted by Charles Moir

• Flash animation

Do you mean like timeline control?

Originally Posted by Charles Moir

• Multi-page support
• Enhanced Text tool
• Pantone spot and process colors
• Levels control for XPE
• Short-cut key configuration utility
• A host of other smaller fixes and enhancements (listed in another post)

Multi-page and enhanced text sounds good, but will it support a better layout and Middle Eastern writing (right to left)? Otherwise this is a too high price.

Originally Posted by Charles Moir

Xara Xtreme Pro will be priced at $199 + tax and shipping.

Now this is not fair It's expensive! That's more than 250$ for me!

I thought the whole advantage of Xara was a small nifty and cheap product, 250$ (maybe even more) is more or less like Adobe packages.

Maybe it's just me whinning for nothing and maybe I will change my mind after seeing the actualy product, but the price stings my pocket! Can't we be little more reasonable here? Please?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that buying additional plug-ins cost additional money, so if you take away the speed of Xara, it's price will be as much as Adobe Illustrator's.

[joroho]

Exciting stuff, Charles! You'll be getting my $120.

.joroho.

[Tallis]

"Installing it now." ???



edit: I was do discombobulated, all the words started mushing into each other when I was reading... I guess it's like a temporary blackout...

[akubbeng]

Thanks Charles (and the rest of the team),

that'll put a smile on a lot of faces! Excellent news.

The download is already running.

All the best, Albert

[Xhris]

Let's celebrate with a Xara-produced flash firework.