Using value boxes as a simple calculator

[Egg Bramhill]

I never knew you could use the value boxes in the way Bill did in his video. i.e. Just by typing in a minus value. I can't get it to work the same by entering + however.

[Soquili]

Egg I cannot find the original reference, but I got that from a post made by Charles Moir several years ago.

[Burpee]

I thought I'd seen that in one of Xara's beginner movies but I can't locate it either.

[Xcellent]

..in the color picker you can also enter values like 60% (e.g. for CMYK levels) and it converts it automatically to value 153 (0-255). very useful.

[PhilM]

Yes, any edit field that accepts a length measurement will add up all the values that you type into it. It assumes that any value without a minus sign must be positive and so you don't need to type a plus sign.

So it will accept strings like these and work out their sum totals:
"1cm2cm"
"50cm-2cm"
"2097.9pix-4pix"
"300pix4cm5in6mp"

Phil

[Egg Bramhill]

Thanks for the clarification Phil. Been using the software since Artworks and never knew that.

[gwpriester]

I use this in a way to translate units of measurement.

If I get a size for an image that is in metrics, or any other measurement with which I am not familiar, I just key in the size in the H and W text entry boxes followed by the appropriate extension (in, mm, pix, pt, etc.) then press Enter and the size is recalculated to my current units of measurement.

[Judi A]

Thanks Gary, I wish I knew that years ago. I often open a US letter template for album pages I create for print in Xara, then have to open a new 800 X 600 page to re size them for my family blog.