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Hello all,
I am not a new user but due to ilness I haven't touched Xara for a long, long time, so I guess I'll have to restart from scratch.
I just bought the upgrade to XaraXtreme 32 and whilst opening it, I noticed that all fonts are indicated as TrueType. Many I have installed are actually OpenType fonts with lots of extra's like ligatures etc etc.
Can anyone tell me please how I can get access within Xara to some kind of Glyph Manager?
When I re-read the above, I find it a bit confusing. I'll try to make it more clear:
- I know that within windows Open Type uses the TrueType contours but I would like to see an Open Type font indicated as Open Type because of its options like swash, ligatures,...
- What I call a glyph panel here is in fact like one finds in InDesign (Insert special characters pallette): you can call it up with a shortcut and simply add or replace a character by an alternative version , use small caps etc.
If this isn't implemented, then it might be a good idea to do so.
BTW: I don't have InDesign, but I saw this pallette in action and it's much handier than the Windows character map.
The Glyphs window is common to Adobe programs, and yes it is quite handy. Not present in Xara... yet.
Type in Xara has seen many great improvements lately, I hope this continues in the future as well.
Unfortunately it is lacking in Photoshop CS2. ( And no, I won't upgrade.:) )
I really hope it will be added very soon in an update to Xara but I can imagine that other people have other wishes.
You're right, but it's not in PS CS3 either. I've never touched the type tool in PS, didn't occur to me that ther even should be one.
It's not a 'Glyph manager', but try Character Map Pro-It displays the characters much larger than the MS version.
http://www.xaraxone.com/html/tip_of_the_week_4.html
Scroll down to bottom of the page.
HTH
Thanks. I'"ve been looking around all over the Internet and it looks like, to get full support of Open Type options I do will need to go the Adobe way and get InDesign.
I haven't found one application that is even able to show the alternative letters, let alone allow one to use them.
Bummer. I could have saved the money I spent on Xtreme 3.2.
Well, I've been to fast and too confident.
Price paid, lesson learned.
I'm not sure why you think that you wasted your money on Xara Xtreme just because it doesn't have a glyph manager? And if the solution is going and buying Indesign, then you really did buy the wrong package. Xara is a drawing package, Indesign is Desktop publishing. It's like saying I wasted my money buying a motorcycle, because it doesn't have an MP3 player. I should have bought a car instead. The two are not related in any way. If you really wanted a desktop publishing package, then you really did waste your money foolishly.
Using Windows character map you can copy a vast range of open type font characters and paste them into Xara Xtreme. Although Xara shows all the fonts as true type, Windows Character Map shows the fonts as both Open Type and True Type. There doesn't appear to be a problem pasting Open Type fonts into Xara.
Can you give a clear example of what you are trying to do. Even if it means posting a picture of what you want to achieve.
Thanks for the answer.
Thing is, like I wrote earlier, I have been using Xara since Xara X, and it has always been my favourite vector application.
I'm not interested in manipulating photographs with it as to me it is vector drawing. For photographs I use Bibble Raw and CS2? But that could also be PSP, theGimp or Elements. I personally wonder why Xara added those options, but I can understand other people like them.
But Xara has always been ahead of the others in options (think of transparancy,...) so I was convinced that, seen the years OpenType now has been around, it would be one of the applications that has full OT support. Text and fonts are more linked with vectors than photography and red-eye removal. Unfortunately it hasn't. Hence my disappointment.
I work a lot with texts, but not for magazines, so: no, I don't *need* InDesign. You are right in that. But Illustrator and InDesign do have that Glyph palette that I miss in Xara. As Illustrator is not what I need, having Xara, ID was the choice that would extend my tools better. But, indeed: extend them too far. And also too much to invest in.
Now, to focus more on your answer: Someone has already suggested an alternative for the character palette, but it is not what I need/ had hoped to find. Several typefaces I use have variant forms of uppercase and lowercase letters, for example several variants on the "M". These are not shown in the Character map. So I cannot get access to them in Xara.
What I asked for was an application or a method to be able to use them.
I tried a serach myself, and as far as I now found, only InDesign and Illustrator offer full support for OT. Hence my disappointment as InDesign is quiite an investment and I could have done with Xara what I need to do in a previous version.
I'm still trying to find an application. I wrote a letter to Ergonis
http://www.ergonis.com/products/popcharwin/
and wait for an answer.
Perhaps you have another idea?
That is why I started this thread after all...
If you can give me a specific font face, that contains these swaths or ligatures that you need to use (and if possible the specific characters), I will have a better idea what software will use them or not. I'm curious now and would like to investigate this further for my own interest. As far as I am aware Xara has the ability to use all 255 characters of any given font. You just have to know the character number.
Here is an example. Someone chose the Alchemy font from typographic.net for a website and cover artwork for CD etc
You can download the pdf with all characters here:
http://www.typography.net/info/fonts/Alchemy_Sample.pdf
As you can see there are several variants on many letters.
Here he explains, and shows how that Adobe glyph palette works:
http://www.typography.net/info/How_to_use_OT.pdf
And what I want is to be able to use those in Xara without having to follow the expensive Adobe way.
As I wrote before: I have been away from Xara for a long period and it may be something easy, or it may not. I do hope there's an easy way.
Thanks for your interest and help!
Well I can't experiment with the Alchemy font as it's a $250.00 font (and I don't have it)
If possible I need to get hold of a font that you need so that I can see what software can use it. I'm assuming that I don't have a suitable fonts on my system, so I need a freeware font or the name of a font, so that I can try and find one. Without a useable example it's going to be nearly impossible to find suitable software.
I don't have the Alchemy font either as I will only buy it if the ones who want it also pay for it. But I have several others, yet none of the "complete" Open Type fonts I know are free. I'll try to find one, but it will be difficult.
Meanwhile I got home and found the Xtreme 3.2 cd's in my letterbox, installed it and the updater to 3.4.
Once again: it's not that I'm not happy with Xara or want to whine about some missing fluffy and highly personal detail.
Xara does have a lot of features InDesign also has (or should I write this vice-versa?) like text in columns, text areas with overflow, ... and a superb anti-alias. Seen the list of fonts that come with it and all the text tools I can't see why this has been overlooked. I'll contact Xara and ask what to do. As you probably saw in that pdf, there are far more than the 25§ ANSI characters.
If I do find a free font, I'll contact you.
Babel Map (Freeware) - See below - Will read all the unicode characters, and will paste them into Xara. You have to make sure Xara is on the right font (or choose paste in line). You can try if free. Character Map and Character Map Pro will only do 255 Characters. Babel Map will read all the characters I believe, Just have to find an extended free open type font now ......... OR you can try some of yours in BabelMap.
If anyone knows of a freeware open type font that I can experiment with I would be grateful.
OK - I found a Freeware OTF font (akaArcade) here. This font has 375 Glyphs. BabelMap seems to be able to read all these glyphs and copy them to the clipboard for pasting into Xara without any problems. It may not be as good as you would like, but it works and it's free.
The standard Windows XP Character map program (*) will deal with full Unicode fonts okay. This was assembled in Character Map (using a Unicode font - in this case Arial) and cut and pasted as a string as rich text into Xara:Quote:
Originally Posted by ss-kalm
http://www.timhines.com/Temp/charmap.jpg
* If it's not somewhere under Start|Programs|Accessories, you can do Start|Run and type charmap into the box and click OK.
I tried it, and it is certainly a very useful tool.
II've read some webpages on fontforge and it looks like ligatures and variant (alternate) versions are in the so-called "private user" area of the font. I haven't been able to see the glyphs in this area in Babelpro (I only get a rectangular glyph) .
You're right Tim - Thank You, The Windows Character map will do all the characters. I tried the Character Map Pro and that only did 255. With the Arial font the standard Character Map views ay least 650 glyphs. There is no reason to assume that it cannot read all open type fonts.
Aeneas: Try the standard Windows Character Map with some of your open type fonts. It should work well with Xara.
I tried an Adobe Open Type that came with CS2 and indeed, way down at the bottom I can see the extra characters in the private use department.
Then I tried some of the fonts I bought separately and many of the characters that should be there seem to be missing. So it may well be that I have been looking for things that were advertized but that aren't there.
Which means that I'll have to contact the font-creators and ask them why they aren't or how I can get access to them.
But before that, I'll ask someone I know who has Illustrator whether he wants to show me what variants there are.
Many thanks!
And I will certainly finisnh this thread with a conclusion.
You may be intersted in this link for free open font downloads.
Saludos,
Bob.