February 2014 - Tips and Tricks - Seven Things You Might Have Overlooked in Xara Desi

Seven Things You Might Have Overlooked in Xara Designer

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This month, Gary has written about 7, no make that 8 features and/or things you can do to make your work go faster. These “tricks” (Gary hates that term, BTW) can also make playtime stretch out because you’ll learn how to separate text from a multi-tone background, duplicate, mirror, and connect two lines to make a shape you can fill, and that’s only two of the eight pearls you’ll learn and work through mini-tutorial style this month. Check these time savers out now!

Gare thanks that is really good summary, reading through several times I learnt from each 7+1 something, so yes can say that around 7+1 were overlooked :D Had alternative way for these scenarios but slightly different ones and also often slower.

The most I like the Number Four, the Options used to open with CTRL-SHIFT-O so not through button, but never thought setting the Nudge size wider than the photo and then with one arrow press all traced shapes stay aligned.

Now Gary I have been using Xara in some form or other since Xara Xtreme or X1, I can't remember what came first, too, too many years ago. Ctrl + Right clicking on the control handles and dragging gets you a reflected and duplicated shape that's new to me. Ctrl+drag+right clicking on a object, yes, done it for years.

If you don't want to do all the exercises that's fine but read the page I will bet you you will learn something new, I did!

Thanks for the affirmations, guys.

It was a hard call to make, because I believe the term "trick" which we all use to describe something that hasn't been discovered yet, is sort of pandering to a collectively sophisticated and sensitive audience here on tg.

One one hand, I was encouraged by several members to make a "secrets list" because of the casual way I seem to drop them in video tutorials. Hey, everyone bootstrapped themselves into Xara, so it stands to reason I know something someone else doesn't and definitely vice-versa.

So how do your write something like this, when on one hand, you might face blowback like, "Oh, Bouton thinks he's so smart...", and on the other side, "Oh, what a waste. I already knew that!"

So I'm happy to have walked the fine line so far. Let's see what others think.

And BTW, the tutorial pieces are not mandatory to benefit from what I wrote. I threw them in because I thought there was some interesting design work to draw people in (we have about 100 lurkers for every active member here!), and that's about it.

My Best,

Gary

Thing number two: Didn't know about that one. I seem to have done it accidentally some time back, but didn't know what I had done?!
But, for me, it only zooms in, till the whole shape fills the screen. Not as far as the two points I had selected.
So, for example: If I draw a small shape and a larger one, with the small shape the zoom might be 464%, and with the larger shape, the zoom might be 196%.
But, in both cases, the zoomed shape fills the screen. It does not zoom in as far as the two points I had selected.
Is that, what's supposed to happen?

Thing number five: Pressing the 'Escape' key, I learned from one of your previous tutorials! And I now use that a lot.

Thing number seven: Definitely didn't know about that one.
I normally clone the shape, then flip horizontally, and move the shape into place.

Cool stuff, Gary. :-bd

@ Rik, thanks, buddy!

As far as the zoom goes, it's an unpredictable thing, but it will indeed get you zoomed in to where you want to draw or edit a lot faster than using the scroll wheel, or stopping drawing and editing to choose the Zoom tool.

I will not say my machine is power or fast, but Xara is so responsive that I sometimes auto-pan clear off the page when attempting to marquee select two control points, for example, on a rectangle that's been simplified to a shape. In this case, pressing Ctrl+Shift+Z gets me not only back on the page, but back to my intended editing area.

It might not be the best of my 7+1 "tricks", but Barbara saw me doing it once, and halted me to explain what I'd just done.

I'm glad we can have a discussion about the article, because it's not the video tutorial of the month, which I'm desperately trying to find the time to finish.

Stay tuned!

Cheers!

Gary

The Ctrl+shift+z trick was something new to me too! I've often had the autopan clear off the page happen this will be a time saver!

The escape key trick reminded me of before Xara added a sketch mode to the freehand tool I used to place a small rock on my escape key while drawing with the freehand tool.

Putting the options button on the toolbar is a great suggestion it's one of the first things I do with a fresh install. It gives you quick access to so much the nudge size is just a small part of the handiness of that button.

Yes, having Options on the Toolbar is a time-saver for a lot of Xara features and I cannot for the life of my remember Ctrl+Shift+O, not because it's hard, but because my brain is full, from other program shortcuts that I need. I wonder how much effort it would take to put a Nudge box on the Standard Bar...that's what CorelDRAW has had for years now.

Ctrl+Shift+Z when working with control points is an absolute blessing with those of us who run Xara Designer on machines with better memory and screens with ore resolution than this:

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That's my old machine...

-g

Thanks for those tips Gare, I learned a thing or two.
One thing I might add which all of you probably know is when selecting a shape such as a text letter and you cannot get the control points to show. Zoom way in and somewhere on the letter create a small rectangle or circle, with that selected, shift select the other object and press Ctrl 1(add shapes) and bingo all the control points now show and you can alter to your hearts content.

EDIT: I am amazed by the etch-a-sketch drawing. I knew someone who drew a fantastic automobile on one of those, and I remember being duly impressed then also.

I have Options on the tool bar but didn't know Ctrl+shift+O. The tip by Larry is a good one if anyone didn't know this one, I use it a lot. My favourite one is from one of the Retouch tuts. by Gary. When slicing from an image and you have left a white space showing, select the image and with the shape editor tool marquee the sliced area, press backspace and you have your image whole again.

Stygg