August 2015 Video Tutorial -- Typesetting With Xara

[Gare]

Typesetting Etiquette

• Don’t use hyphenation for two consecutive lines. Use a Soft Break if necessary to kick a word or two down a line to get rid of second hyphenation.

• Depending on the column width and point size, when making a drop cap, try to have between 5 to 7 words on the line. Too many and the line looks crowded and invites “whiplash” as reader moves to next line. Too few words and the line doesn’t look like part of a sentence.

• Use paragraph spacing in a multi-paragraph document, or intent a paragraph, but don’t do both.


By the way, what you might have read in The Outsider today is true: due to budget limitations, Magix can't support my work in the future, they're bringing Xara Xone into the company internally to continue to run it, and I am going to earn my daily bread elsewhere.

None of which means I'm leaving TalkGraphics. I'm still a Mod, and will enjoin you folks in other areas of interest in Xara Designer.

TGIF everyone!

My Best,

Gary

[Rik]

[Ron Duke]

Great pointers and info Gare!
Thanks for ALL your hard work and generosity!

[angelize]

By the way, what you might have read in The Outsider today is true: due to budget limitations, Magix can't support my work in the future, they're bringing Xara Xone into the company internally to continue to run it, and I am going to earn my daily bread elsewhere.

IMO this stinks and I think it's a bad decision but I'm sure this is a Magix decision not a Xara one and we could all complain till the cows come home and no one will listen. I wish you well on the new site mentioned in the outsider and I'm glad that you and Barbara will continue to be a part of TG!

Getting back to typesetting here is a sample from me that shows a use for strikethrough text

[csehz]

I wish you well on the new site mentioned in the outsider

+1 and going to visit it of course.

Relating the new (company) Xone? I liked the inside Outsider tutorials if maybe that will be the style, the hardest will be for them to host it with the same encouraging atmosphere which was here by Gare.

Anything crazy was posted by anyone, Gare always found the positive side and encouraged people to run that Xara software also on the next day

[Gare]

Hi everyone—

Regarding what I wrote in Post #12, and similarly, what was written in The Outsider this month (I really wasn't leaking the story or anything!): I just wanted to post some sort of reassurance that I'm not disappearing from tg, and that's it. The press release in The Outsider was a little vague because it's uncertain when the Xone will start again, and I'm not certain when I'll have a new website up.

For as much as I'd like to embrace and savor the comments above, it's not my responsibility as a Moderator to cry over spilled milk in a public forum. I'm not soliciting sympathy—this could get me off my butt and make me work harder and produce better tutorials than ever!

So please, let's get back to typesetting, the core of this thread. And thanks.

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Disproportionately scaling text:

You probably discovered that in later versions of Xara Designer, if you drag a middle selection handle on text, it scales the whole text evenly...you're not smooshing it.

One way to fix this is to use the Aspect Ratio field on the Infobar when text is highlighted using the Text tool. However, if you want to drag the text to smoosh it interactively to suit your needs, select the text with the Selector tool, and then press Ctrl+G to create a group on one shapes. Then try the traditional way of created fake condensed text!

My Best,

Gary