Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 19 Quirks

I've been using Xara Photo & Graphic Designer for years and love it! I just upgraded from v.10 to v.19. I definitely love the magnetic lasso - my new favorite tool!

With all of the fantastic upgrades, I have had a few frustrations:

1. I really enjoy the new look handles, however, I can no longer quickly slant my shapes. I used to quickly turn my rectangle into a parallelogram by clicking on the handle, and moving the <-> to the left or right. I have not yet found a way to quickly do this in Xara 19 :(.

2. At times, some of my text seems to randomly become uneditable. When selecting the text menu, instead of being able to change the text and font, I get a pop up that says, "What type of text do you want to add?" Auto fit inside, fixed inside, on top. I don't want to add text, I just want to edit it!

3. I'm experiencing a bug in v. 19 that I also experienced in v. 10 (hoping it would have been fixed by now). When closing and re-opening Xara, my open documents automatically revert to the last auto-saved version instead of the most recent (manual) saved version. This means that, when opening Xara, I often have to close the auto-saved version and re-open the latest version that I was working on. Please fix this!

Other than those quirks, I really do love the program!

! - right click on the padlock icon [aspect ratio] on the selector tool infobar and then untick smart transform

2 - sounds like you may have created text within an object, that you are now trying to edit - if an object is selected when you type over it the text will now be created within that object rather than seperate - it is easy to do by accident

3 - one of the resons I have xara auto save switched off [I have other third party auto backups running]

ohioandy,

1. The slant control is hidden inside the mid-points - very intuitive to discover.
2. It is possible you have changed your text block to a Shape with a spurious keypress. I don't have your XDA version but there are many ways to do this.
3. I have never seen this. Can you run your XDA as Administrator to see if that one action frees up things?

Acorn

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Originally Posted by handrawn

! - right click on the padlock icon [aspect ratio] on the selector tool infobar and then untick smart transform

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handrawn, you can slant with ST on or off.

Acorn

good point about the slant.. acorn, thanks

Thank you for the great feedback!

1. I had not yet come across the "skew-angle of selection" feature. Your tips directed me to the right place! Thanks so much!
2. My text issue does come when I place text over an object and then copy and paste the object. Is it possible to "unattach the text from the object" (it is not currently grouped)?
3. Not sure how to run XDA as Admin?

2 if you right click on an object that has text inside, the context menu has a text inside with options that include detatch

3 rightclick when you open the program and choose run as administrator

2. My issue seems to be unrelated to the "text inside" feature. I think my text has become a shape when I copy and paste the group containing my objects and text. However, it has not become "text inside" that I can detatch :/. The only option I have is to add "text inside."

3. Thanks so much for the admin tip!

maybe the program is just asking you how to paste into a selected object - have you tried pasting after ensuring nothing at all is selected ?

handrawn, I really appreciate the suggestion, but I don't think that's it. I think maybe I failed to explain my issue well.

For some reason, I still haven't been able to pinpoint why most of my text gets converted to shapes (driving me crazy!) while some appears to be just fine, even after copying and pasting.

To my knowledge, I haven't done anything abnormal to the text that would make it act in that way. I have never had that issue with Photo & Graphic Designer 10, which I have used for years. Any thoughts on why my text might be converting to shapes?

Perhaps, a better question, what actions cause text to convert to shapes?

arrange menu convert to editable shapes or it's assigned keystroke

or

using the text in one of the combine operations [add, subtract, intersect, slice, intersect all]

are the two that I am aware of, there may be others

note the above two will be the case whether you apply directly to the text, or apply to a group that includes the text, but as far as I remember this is no different than it was before

and neither of these senarios explain why you would see

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"What type of text do you want to add?" Auto fit inside, fixed inside, on top. I don't want to add text,

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that does indicate that somewhere in the process 'text inside' is invoked

Ohioandy, could you attach a ewb/xar file showing this behaviour?

Here is a fun hobby file that I was working on. Some of the text remains editable and other text boxes were converted to shapes. Still not sure why.

The only thing I did was (1) copy the template from one photo/object and (2) paste it so that I could change the photo and text info.

I did not overtly change any of the text to shapes and did not add any "text inside" as I did not even know that feature existed (just upgraded from v.10).


I really appreciate you all helping me out with this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ohioandy

Here is a fun hobby file that I was working on. Some of the text remains editable and other text boxes were converted to shapes. Still not sure why.
The only thing I did was (1) copy the template from one photo/object and (2) paste it so that I could change the photo and text info.
I did not overtly change any of the text to shapes and did not add any "text inside" as I did not even know that feature existed (just upgraded from v.10).
I really appreciate you all helping me out with this.

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Thank you for the design file.

At some stage, you have selected the text area(s) and pressed Ctrl+1. This converts text to shapes, grouped twice.
It is endemic so I think you did it once in error when all the text, save bottom right was selected.

If I may suggest, you need to design using layers: Card, Photo, Logo, Name.
When you have finished one layer, lock it.
Far easier to control.

You have a number of Live Effects.
It is possible you selected more than the picture when applying it.

I couldn't even describe how you built up the Rookie stamp.
It should just be a text column with a White Wall Shadow grouped with the Shape.

In itself, how you built it does not matter, it is the number of steps and possible errors that can creep in.

Sorry it is not a full analysis, just a number of guesses where i too have made similar mistakes.

Acorn

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At some stage, you have selected the text area(s) and pressed Ctrl+1. This converts text to shapes, grouped twice

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I thought it would be something like that [well I would say that wouldn't I :D]

Ctrl+1 being the shortcut for add one of the combine functions I mentioned earlier

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not a full analysis, just a number of guesses where i too have made similar mistakes

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we all have started projects that just grew a life of their own no matter how carefully we planned them out...

Thank you so much for your time, recommendations, insights, and careful analysis. You all have been really helpful and I appreciate it. I will try to be even more intentional with my actions in the future and hopefully have better results.

re: Acorn

A couple of P.S. Notes

1. I definitely hear you in regards to working in layers. I'm a self-taught graphic designer so I just never really used layers. Instead, I have primarily used: move to front, back, etc. I agree with your point, though, and know that it would be helpful to use the layer feature more often.

2. I created the Rookie stamp pretty much how you described. It is text, with the white walled shadow, grouped with the shape, then I added a blurred shadow to the background.

Thanks again!