August 2015 Video Tutorial -- Typesetting With Xara

August 2015 Video Tutorial -- Typesetting With Xara

Attachment 109621

Gary’s tutorial has nothing to do with typography, and everything to do with the art of making words look terrific on the printed and electronic pages! Come explore some little-known features on the Text Tool’s Infobar, learn how to tap into the power of Text Styles (say that quickly and it sounds like “textiles”!), and use Xara like the desktop publishing program it always could be! Read more…

Then come on back here and show us some outstanding typesetting!

That's a neat trick with the customized bullet points, Gare. Definitely one to use in the future.
Bob.

I'm glad that's of some use to you, Bob!

Attachment 109635

I might have missed it, but I felt I gave Xara Designer 11’s help file a decent shake-down, and there was nothing to be said about saving Text Styles in a template.

For those of you who have downloaded and opened the resource files this month, I have a XAR file in there that explains what I’m about to redundantly explain. And did I say ‘redundant’?

1.In a new document, set up your styles using any font you like, any font size, colour, paragraph settings, indents, and so on.

2. Delete all the text after you’re done defining Text Styles.

3. Choose File> Save Template.

4. Save the document as a template to the folder with all the other templates.

5. The next time you need to format a document so the text is a specific way, use a copy of the temple, under File> (all the template names).

6. Close this document without saving.

My Best,

Gary

Thanks for the video, Gary.

Mike

I enjoyed the video Gary, I use all of the features you covered a lot but I liked the pizza slice bullets! The soft return is handy for doing bulleted lists where you might want two separate lines but under the same bullet point.

What an excellent tutorial, Gary.
I'm going to have to make notes, and practice!

OK. I tend to draw, more than anything else, but, what your tutorial does show is what can be done, and with ease.

...soft break
...personalised bullets
...baseline shift
...tracking I know about, but, there were some thoughts to keep in mind

...EXCELLENT :-bd

Well, Rik—

As I mentioned toward the end of the video, if you walked away knowing one more thing than you did 12 minutes ago, then I'm happy, you're happy, the girl down the block is happy, fighting has ceased in the Middle Easy, and crops are beginning to grow again in Kansas.

@Frances—

Attachment 109651

When using soft breaks, always make sure your copy is thoroughly edited correctly before using a soft break. Why? Because unlike MS Word (or other text-oriented programme), Xara will not show you as visible characters where paragraph ends are, nor spaces between characters. So if you do soft breaks and then find a spelling or grammar error, it is not fun backspacing in random areas you're guessing at to find and resolve hard and soft breaks, as well as spaces.

Speaking as someone who has gone through it and lived to tell the tale—

My Best,

Gary

Thanks for the excellent Typesetting video tut. Gary, somethings I already knew but personalized bullets, soft break, had no idea. Also at the end of your video on fade out, I was surprised to see five of my drawings, Milano-Xmas Girl-Mighty Milk-Coffee Cup and Bad Girl, absolutely made my day :D

Stygg

Determination Poster.

Stygg

Nice tips are collected together in this tutorial, thanks for it

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stygg2003

Determination Poster.

Stygg

---

Stygg, I love your ingenuity and original thinking in combining several of the sections in the video tutorial. All are obvious and all are well done!

Attachment 109710

Typesetting Etiquette

• Don’t use hyphenation for two consecutive lines. Use a Soft Break if necessary to kick a word or two down a line to get rid of second hyphenation.

• Depending on the column width and point size, when making a drop cap, try to have between 5 to 7 words on the line. Too many and the line looks crowded and invites “whiplash” as reader moves to next line. Too few words and the line doesn’t look like part of a sentence.

• Use paragraph spacing in a multi-paragraph document, or intent a paragraph, but don’t do both.


By the way, what you might have read in The Outsider today is true: due to budget limitations, Magix can't support my work in the future, they're bringing Xara Xone into the company internally to continue to run it, and I am going to earn my daily bread elsewhere.

None of which means I'm leaving TalkGraphics. I'm still a Mod, and will enjoin you folks in other areas of interest in Xara Designer.

TGIF everyone!

My Best,

Gary

:)

Great pointers and info Gare!
Thanks for ALL your hard work and generosity!

Quote:

---

By the way, what you might have read in The Outsider today is true: due to budget limitations, Magix can't support my work in the future, they're bringing Xara Xone into the company internally to continue to run it, and I am going to earn my daily bread elsewhere.

---

IMO this stinks and I think it's a bad decision but I'm sure this is a Magix decision not a Xara one and we could all complain till the cows come home and no one will listen. I wish you well on the new site mentioned in the outsider and I'm glad that you and Barbara will continue to be a part of TG!

Getting back to typesetting here is a sample from me that shows a use for strikethrough text >:)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by angelize

I wish you well on the new site mentioned in the outsider

---

+1 and going to visit it of course.

Relating the new (company) Xone? I liked the inside Outsider tutorials if maybe that will be the style, the hardest will be for them to host it with the same encouraging atmosphere which was here by Gare.

Anything crazy was posted by anyone, Gare always found the positive side and encouraged people to run that Xara software also on the next day

Hi everyone—

Regarding what I wrote in Post #12, and similarly, what was written in The Outsider this month (I really wasn't leaking the story or anything!): I just wanted to post some sort of reassurance that I'm not disappearing from tg, and that's it. The press release in The Outsider was a little vague because it's uncertain when the Xone will start again, and I'm not certain when I'll have a new website up.

For as much as I'd like to embrace and savor the comments above, it's not my responsibility as a Moderator to cry over spilled milk in a public forum. I'm not soliciting sympathy—this could get me off my butt and make me work harder and produce better tutorials than ever!

So please, let's get back to typesetting, the core of this thread. And thanks.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Attachment 109721

Disproportionately scaling text:

You probably discovered that in later versions of Xara Designer, if you drag a middle selection handle on text, it scales the whole text evenly...you're not smooshing it.

One way to fix this is to use the Aspect Ratio field on the Infobar when text is highlighted using the Text tool. However, if you want to drag the text to smoosh it interactively to suit your needs, select the text with the Selector tool, and then press Ctrl+G to create a group on one shapes. Then try the traditional way of created fake condensed text!

My Best,

Gary

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stygg2003

Thanks for the excellent Typesetting video tut. Gary, somethings I already knew but personalized bullets, soft break, had no idea. Also at the end of your video on fade out, I was surprised to see five of my drawings, Milano-Xmas Girl-Mighty Milk-Coffee Cup and Bad Girl, absolutely made my day :D

Stygg

---

I did that segment months ago, stygg, with the dulcimer music, and I'd forgotten (old guys tend to forget!) I'd annexed your work and put it in the clip!

Attachment 109722

You're most welcome!

My Best,

Gary

Attachment 109783

Here's a little something in the typographical nature that might help you on your next logo assignment:

A lot of examples of good logos involve typing a product or company name, and then altering one or two characters to emphasize the type of product or other quality. Example? Below: "Manly Cologne", a fictitious men's hygiene product, has a visually opportunity to put the symbol for Mars (the male symbol in biology) in place of the first or second "o" in "Cologne".

But you might not want to convert the text to editable shapes, given that clients always want revisions.

1. Type your logo. Highlight the character you want to alter.

2. With the character selected (using the Text tool), choose the Transparency tool, and then drag the slider all the way to the right, making only the "O" invisible.

3. Create the replacement character or graphic, and then put it into position to create a custom logo.

Simple and perhaps obvious.

Attachment 109784

Attachment 109785

Perhaps not :)

My Best,

Gary

Neat tip! I learned something new :) here is one for the ladies :)

Thanks for the tip Gary.

Stygg

@stygg and @Frances—

Nice work. I'm happy you could fold this tip into your respective talent sets!

-G

Here's sort of a riff on "hiding the character with transparency".

Attachment 109811

Tracking in Xara is performed by highlighting a character and then increasing or decreasing the tracking value up on the Infobar. Tracking affects the space between the character you highlight with thew Text tool, and the character(s) directly to the right of the highlighted character. This can make a "locked rings" effect if two "o"s are in your text; use other character to create novel text mash-ups.

You can also hide the two characters, create duplicates, press Ctrl+Shift+S to make the text into shapes and then add the shapes to get a different text look.

Attachment 109810

Now you have another trick to create future logos for new clients (such as Google).

Or not.

My Best,

Gary

Another good trick with text Gary, thanks very much, all sorts of possibilities with this one, I could turn the top Look into a search engine ;))

Stygg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stygg2003

Another good trick with text Gary, thanks very much, all sorts of possibilities with this one, I could turn the top Look into a search engine ;))

Stygg

---

How would you turn the "look" example into "Bing", stygg?

;))

I think he means as a "title" for a search engine, Gare.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gare

How would you turn the "look" example into "Bing", stygg?

;))

---

We could change it to bingo :D as a search engine title as Ron pointed out. The emphasis being on the "go"

Stygg

I was kidding.
I was kidding.

I got it in one, guys. "Look. Google."

It's all good.

:)

-g

Good one Gary :D At least it made me think of what could I do with bing :think: ?

Stygg

Gary Priester & Gary David Bouton both of you have been excellent teachers, thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge by working on XaraXone!

You're very welcome, and I'm sure Gary P. will be along, and say the same.

My Best,

-g

Nice typesetting tutorial

Thank you, baguspro, and welcome to TalkGraphics.

I created the tutorial.

May I ask which part was most valuable, and what software do you use?

My Best,

Gary

waiting next tutorial with tips or triks Gare

won't there be more tutorials?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jvila

won't there be more tutorials?

---

Javier,

Tutorials and the XaraXone are now in Xara's hands to produce. Well, members are free to also post tuts here...

Mike