Page 178 - Logos and Typography

**Davoid** · 08 May 2010, 11:01 PM

Hello,

I am following along with the tutorial that starts on page 177, but am stuck on the part on page 178 part .8. When I use the keyboard shortcut "ctrl-3" all I get is an error message "The shape combining operation failed to create a result". I have also tried doing this using the menu option, but same message.
I have also restarted the steps again, but no difference, can anyone tell me where I am going wrong?
At step 5 where it says to use "ctrl-shift-s" my actual shortcut is "shift-ctrl-s" even after I have reset the keyboard shortcuts back to default.
Also I am using Xara Xtreme Pro 5.

Would also like to thank Gary for an excellent book, it has helped me a lot to understand the program and the best way to us it.

Thanks for any help,
David

**Gare** · 08 May 2010, 11:18 PM

Hi David—

It sounds as though you might have a keyboard conflict: are you running any desktop widgets or have SnagIt or some other helper app loaded while running the tutorials?

The easy workaround to Ctrl+3 is to choose from the menu. Intersect shapes is Arrange>Combine Shapes>Intersect. Actually, faster still—because I use these Boolean operations all the time, is to choose Window>Control Bars>and then check the Arrange box. This puts all the intersect, subtract, all that good stuff as the top toolbox below the main menu.

Now, it's possible that your shapes don't overlap. The Intersect operation requires that two shapes have an overlapping region. Also, if you use subtract shapes? This operation takes the top-most shape and subtracts from the bottom one, so they have to be stacked in order. I've gotten the same message and although it wasn't for intersection, as it turned out, I was trying to subtract a bottom shape from a top one, and Xara doesn't like to handle impossible operations...it's funny that way.

There is no functional difference between Ctrl+Shift+s and Shift+Ctrl+s. And if this is indeed a keyboard conflict with some other app, choose Arrange>Convert to Editable Shapes from the main menu.

You'll get there!

Thanks for the kind words about the book!

Gary

**HayTay** · 08 May 2010, 11:31 PM

Welcome to TalkGraphics David!

After you've pressed Ctrl+Shift+S (or Shift+Ctrl+S, it's really the same thing) in step 5 and converted your text to shapes, verify that it shows '1 group on Layer 1' (or whatever layer you're working on) on the status line below the color selector bar below the work area. With the group still selected make sure that you press the Ctrl+U key combination TWICE to ungroup all of the letters. The status line should now display '9 shapes on Layer 1' ( or whatever layer you're working on). That should complete step 6.

If so, press the ESC key or click somewhere in the gray pasteboard area to deselect all of the letters as Gary says in the first part of Step 7. Now holding down the SHIFT key click on the 'M' and 'a' shapes in 'Marmalade', verify the status line says '2 shapes on Layer 1' (or whatever layer) before pressing Ctrl+3 to Combine the shapes in Step 8.

Does that help? The status line below the color bar is immensely helpful if you learn to check it when first starting out and later on when performing various operations.

Again, welcome, and I look forward to seeing how you progress with XXPro5.

Good luck and have fun,
Harry

**Gare** · 08 May 2010, 11:41 PM

A little addendum I might not have mentioned in the book:

Q: how come I have to ungroup stuff twice? But not all the time?

A: Because Xara is daddy, and because he says so, that's why.

Seriously, this messes new users up: When complex objects such as text are "simplified" to editable paths, there's a hierarchical grouping automatically performed by Xara—groups are nested within groups, depending on the simplification required by the program.

As an example: type a word using the Text Tool. In this example, make it a clean word, no profanity.

Press Ctrl+Shift+S to convert it to editable shapes. Note that on the status bar, you have 1 group selected.

Press Ctrl+U to ungroup 'em. You'll see you still have a group selected. Press Ctrl+U once more. If you have the Show Object Edit Handles clicked on the Infobar, you'll now see paths with control points and you're not free to edit the text using the Shape Editor and Selector tools.

Lesson is: if it doesn't ungroup after pressing Ctrl+U, press Ctrl+U again. Because after simplifying certain objects, you have a group within a group.

-g-