Robert,

I think you've found one of Xara's annoying GIF export bugs.

See these two old threads:
http://talkgraphics.infopop.net/1/Op...88&m=529192468

and

http://talkgraphics.infopop.net/1/Op...1&r=9161907151

Neither was resolved. Xara X is pretty poor at exporting compact animated GIFs too. The earlier versions of Xara X were better at smaller filesizes than the current release - but no version of XX can get close to CorelXara 2 in terms of filesize.

I keep CX2 installed and quite often convert a XX file to editable shapes so it'll load into CX2, and then export from there. Otherwise, it's good to import XX's GIFs into Fireworks and re-export them for smaller files.

I've contacted Xara about these bugs by email in the past with no response. I also tried by telephone (+44 1442 350000) but the support people seem very defensive and/or arrogant over the situation, taking a "that's how it is" type stance unfortunately.