Colour Import

[vman]

Folks,

I've got a need to import a couple of colours OR add a couple of colours to the permanent colour palet.
I am using MX Photo&Grphic Designer and WebDesigner. I use webDesigner to create and administer a business website and use MX2013 for my graphics (Business graphics that use a pallet of company colours). Everytime I open a new document (tab) in MX2013 I need to recreate my company colours and name them. This is also the same in WebDesigner.

Is there anyway to add colours to the permanent colour pallet so they are available for every document as a default? This small item would save me some time and the frustration of constantly needing to add the same colours to my pages over and over.

Thanks,

[amoore]

You can make up a series of squares with your company colours and add it to your default template. It's also possible to create your own palette in either *.jcw or *.pal format and add it to the Palettes subfolder in your installation folder. The palette will then appear in the Colour Gallery until you remove it.

Brian Etherington offers a freeware utility for creating *.pal files for use in Xara: http://www.smokingun.co.uk/index/downloads

Allison

[vman]

Thanks Amoore,

I downloaded the software you indicate and made a pallet with just the company colours. I need to import it on each new document but it is better than recreating it everytime. You mentioned that you can make a series of squares and add them to the default pallet. How would I do this?

Thanks for you help thus far.

[amoore]

You don't add the squares to the default palette. You add them to your default template.

Start a new document. Add your squares with the named company colors. (You might want to put them on their own layer and lock the layer. You can even turn off its visibility. The named colors will still be available in the Colour line and the Colour Gallery.) Then save the document as a template (File | Save Template) and mark the 'Use as default template' box on the right side of the Save Template dialog.

Allison

[Scotty]

Hi,
Too add to the recommendations here, go into Options and turn off 'delete unused colors'
Jim

[amoore]

Good point.

Allison

[angelize]

An easy way to add your custom colours to a template is to drag and drop your .pal file into a new blank document, drop it anywhere away from the colourline. The new colours will be imported into the document and will show up on the colourline. As Jim mentioned you need to make sure delete unused colurs is disabled. Save your template as Alison instructed.

You can also add your custom palette to the colours gallery by saving your .pal file into the palettes file in the Xara program files. Then it will be available for use with any template by using the colours gallery.

[vman]

Great Ideas,

I created a custom pallet using XPal ( http://www.smokingun.co.uk/index/downloads ) as suggested above. I then added it to a blank page and saved as a template. The colours didn't save in the template. Ultimatly, I found it easiest to create a palet in XPal, imported it to my document. Then I created a number of squares in a second layer named colours (page and layer gallery, right click - add a layer, then closed eye of layer 1 / opened eye of colour layer). I coloured each square with a colour from my custom pallet (which included company colours as well as gradients of those colours).

I then closed the visability of the colour layer (closed eye in Page and Layer Gallery), and opened visability on the main Layer 1. I then saved this blank document as a template.

When I now open a new document, all the custom colours are available on the colour pallet. Almost forgot, before doing the procedure listed aboove, I did as Scotty suggested and turned off "delete unused colors" from the Options menu.

Thanks for all the great suggestions. As always, there is a solution with Xara.