Filling empty shapes

[Juan]

Is there a "simple" way of giving fill to empty outlines?
I often import drawings via WMF or copy-paste from Autocad and try to give them a solid or gradient fill in Xara. I can't.
I have not found a simple way to do this and I always end up having to redraw the shape (usually many vertices) on top of the imported drawing. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Juan

[Juan]

Is there a "simple" way of giving fill to empty outlines?
I often import drawings via WMF or copy-paste from Autocad and try to give them a solid or gradient fill in Xara. I can't.
I have not found a simple way to do this and I always end up having to redraw the shape (usually many vertices) on top of the imported drawing. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Juan

[gwpriester]

Hello Juan

I think you are referring to an open path--a shape where the ends are not connected.

For some reason, if a shape was not filled, even if it is closed, Xara will not fill it, even if you close the path. This sounds like what is happening to you.

To close a path in Xara select one end with the Selector Tool and drag it over the other end. When the ends overlap, a + appears next to the cursor to indicate the path will be closed.

In most cases the path is closed and can now be filled. But as I stated earlier, this is not always so with imported files.

Xara X can turn a path into a shape, but then the shape is that our the ourline and not the entire shape. If you create a shape from an outline, you can Break Shapes and delete the inside shape. This might work.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Every So Humble...

[jim murphy]

I have just 'discovered' Xara and find it to be a wonderful program. I, however, had the same problem as Juan, importing drawings for rendering, this time from Autosketch. Gary gave the clue about filled shapes. I find that if each area of a CAD drawing is first filled with a separate colour and then imported into Xara the problem of being unable to fill goes away.
The only problem I now have is that the imported drawing (wmf) is now about 25 times as large as it should be and has to be reduced accordingly. Any ideas? Am I missing something very basic? Thanks in advance

[Sean Sedwards]

WMF is very compatible but tends to be inefficient, although it needn't be. It's not really an interchange format as there seems to be no standard set as to how various graphical elements are represented or interpreted. If possible, export in CMX (ideal but unlikely), AI (best compromise) or EPS (better than AI but may need to go via CorelDRAW). If you haven't got EPS as an export option, try printing to file using a PostScript driver; the resulting PRN file is actually an EPS. There may also be a route via a PLT file (HPGL) if you import into Draw first.

Regards - Sean