XAR export to CDR or CMX

[taccom]

Greetings all. I have a client who has 'invested' in CorelDraw but has no experience with it. They are not (after spending the big bucks on CD) keen on buying yet more software.

She needs a template for a catalogue and I would like to hear any advice or experience with exporting from Xara (I'm using DP6) so that it can be opened with layers intact in CorelDraw.

TIA
Paul

[Soquili]

Hi Paul,

I've had good luck exporting to a .CMX file and opening that with Corel Draw X4.

[gwpriester]

You can use CMX but I would keep everything pretty simple. I am not sure how reliable CMX is when it comes to features that are different from one program to the next such as bevels, soft shadows, and different kinds of transarency etc.

[taccom]

Hi Paul,

I've had good luck exporting to a .CMX file and opening that with Corel Draw X4.

Hi Bill ... Thanks for the reply ... you're confirming what I thought. Trouble is that she is an inexperienced user. I suppose it's fair to assume that if CD x4 can import it fine then all subsequent CD releases should too?

I haven't really used CD much since I converted to Xara about 15 years ago so my ability to instruct her is rusty at best.

Cheers
Paul

[taccom]

You can use CMX but I would keep everything pretty simple. I am not sure how reliable CMX is when it comes to features that are different from one program to the next such as bevels, soft shadows, and different kinds of transarency etc.

Thanks Gary ... Bill has had good luck with CMX as well ... seems that the CMX won't deal with Xara's "muscle" any better than an AI export.

Cheers
Paul

[jclements]

You could try exporting to PDF although I'm not sure if (depending upon the PDF options used) if the result would be better or worse than CMX.

[taccom]

Thanks for the reply ... send her a PDF but she couldn't get it into Corel. I sure agree though the PDF is much nicer ... trouble is she wants to be able to edit it later when prices etc change.

[jclements]

Check out your options in Xara's Pros PDF export dialog. Set to the lowest version of PDF to begin with and see if that will work. If so, try other options until it fails in Corel. Each version of Corel often has a PDF import filter that is usaually one version behind that of the current PDF format available when the a new version of Corel is released.

If using CMX, be aware the center and right justified text can get shifted relative the text's original insertion point in Xara. I used to only use left justified text in Xara and then position the result to meet your design layout whenever I knew a CMX would be required.

This may save you some grief when dealing with a neophyte in Corel (less "How to" phone calls from your client) .

[Soquili]

As Gary mentioned you will need to forego many of Xara's features when exporting to .cmx and editing will be required once the data is in CD.

If you open the attached .xar file you would think that it is ready to export to a .cmx file. No transparency or feathering for the shadow or the highlight shapes. However you will receive an integer divide by zero error. The linear fill on the background rectangle must be changed to a flat fill.

[Albacore]

You can't expect to transfer files from one programme to the next and get all things to be editable as each company has different tools to try and get you to buy their product. If you keep things simple then yes with no bitmap effects like shadows, feathering and bevels also transparencies and complex fills will cause problems. That said go PDF and use what ever you want it will just make the editing that bit harder and yes it will allow layers to be used but watch what version of Acro Reader you export to as it has to be PDF 1.7 or lower and this will exclude the use of any transparencies.