Questions. Exporting From XaraX1 to CorelDraw

First I hope I am in the right spot for this, as today is my first day looking at the forums, I am not sure if I am doing this right.

I have used several graphics programs in the past including Adobe Products, other Corel Products, Meta Creations and many others. I have never seen any other program that comes close to Xara in raw power and ease of use. I received the x1 special for $20 and thought what the heck, it can't be much for $20 bucks, but it is cheap enough. (Understatement of all time) It isn't a cheap program; it is merely an inexpensive program. I am shocked at the value versus the price. It is definitely incredible.

In my work, we use CorelDraw to create the cutter files for a foam cutting machine. (A giant 3D plotter) The files must be done this way because none of the other graphics programs will export to the cutter. This is my problem, because CorelDraw is so slow at screen refreshing and such I decided to try Xara for the customer artwork. Because Xara is so fast, I can actually do the design work and artist sketches while I am talking with the customer. This gives the customer a chance to make some changes at design time.

At first I thought I might be able to use the design images directly in CorelDraw, but have not found this to be the case. To give the customer a sample of the finished product, it is necessary to use shading, feathering, and transparencies. When trying to convert this to CorelDraw, Xara gives warnings and refused to do the complex parts sending only the basic shapes and shading. When importing into CorelDraw, any shading that Xara did send over, comes out with white masks around the shadows, bad colors, hard edges, and bitmap pixilation.

What I am trying to find out is, is there a way to convert Xara to CorelDraw in a more useable manner. It isn't as critical for the foam cutter since that is just lines anyway, but we also use CorelDraw to send files to the printer. The files must be in vector format as they print in large format. That is to say by the foot. Our last print was 35 ft by 30 ft, and bitmap just doesn't work at that size. My current project is just shy of 60 feet long. On it, I did the artwork in Xara in small scale, converted it to CorelDraw as a background image and then must trace the image in CorelDraw for the final to send to the printer. Lots more work than I think should be needed. Especially when the Xara image has over 2000 separate shapes, plus shading and transparency.

Right now it takes about a day to create the Artwork for the customer, and about two to three weeks to transfer that to CorelDraw. Any help I could get would be appreciated greatly.

Hi Magicfly,

Welcome to Talkgraphics.

CorelDraw does not support many of the advanced features of Xara X versions (X, X¹, and Xtreme). That is why there are warnings when you try to export to a Corel format and the cause of the white masks you mentioned.

Sally Bode is our resident CorelDraw expert, perhaps she will some advice that can help you.

Will CorelDraw import a PDF? If so you could export to PDF right from within Xara.

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Originally Posted by magicfly

The files must be in vector format as they print in large format. That is to say by the foot. Our last print was 35 ft by 30 ft, and bitmap just doesn't work at that size. My current project is just shy of 60 feet long.

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Xara X1 will let you specify several different units of measure: pixels, millimeters,centimeters, meters, kilometers, milipoints, points, picas, inches feet, yards,miles.

To do so, right click on the page and choose 'page options'. Now click on the units tab. Go down to the 'page units' drop down window and choose 'feet' (if that's what you want) and all measurements will be in fractions of a foot. Note that you can also use feet to specify font units. Also, You can define your own units. (How cool is that? :-)

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Any help I could get would be appreciated greatly.

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Hopefully someone else can answer your other questions.


Cheers

Doug

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Originally Posted by magicfly

What I am trying to find out is, is there a way to convert Xara to CorelDraw in a more useable manner.

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I assume you have tried exporting the file vs. save as? There doesn't seem to be an option to export as a pdf in X1. In Xara Xtreme, you can specify 'export' as .pdf . In the dialog that comes up, go to the Objects tab and specify 'Preserve Groups'. This is according to the Xtreme manual, and it would seem to preserve the parts that are not getting exported into Corel Draw right now. Perhaps soemone can elaborate and verify this?

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Originally Posted by Big Frank

Will CorelDraw import a PDF? If so you could export to PDF right from within Xara.

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It doesn't look like Xara X1 will export pdf. For that he needs Xara Xtreme. ;)

Xara X1 does not export to .pdf and whereas you can import a .pdf into CorelDRAW, it isn't going to recognize much of what is done as far as transparencies, etc.

I would suggest since you find that Xara is faster, do your designs first, save as a .cmx file which opens in DRAW easily, and then add your effects such as tranparency, vector feather, etc.

That way you will be able to use the cutter and you have the benefits of both programs without the conflicts.

If you're interested in PDF export:
There is a offer this week, to safe 30% on upgrades from Xara X1 to Xara Xtreme... :)