File Exchange Format(s)

[BasilRathbone]

I'm giving DP11 a spin and was wondering what the best way to get Xara Designer 11 to play nice with others, i.e. CorelDRAW, Inkscape and Illustrator. The best tool in the world isn't of much use to me if I can't use it along with my other tools

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics

PDF is the best way to exchange files with other applications. PDF supports vector objects and text and bitmaps.

(By the way, Loved your Sherlock Holmes)

[mwenz]

With CD, I generally export as a CMX. Though often enough I use a pdf with Acrobat 8 compatibility. The PDF route is how I go into AI as well, though if simple enough I use the eps export. I don't use Inkscape but once in a blue moon but depending on the effects used in XDP I've used svg and or the PDF as well.

Mike

[hseiken]

I haven't tried the PDF export, that's one I should try.

I have noticed, however, when exporting .ai specifically, Xara doesn't properly apply masks. To get around this, it's necessary to manually clip objects that are inside the masking object. By clip I mean start using the 'combine shapes->subtract, using the frame to subtract from all the objects inside the frame. I ran into this issue not knowing it was an issue and had to go back and fix about 40 masks.

Just giving a heads up!

[Albacore]

Gee I have worked with Xara into Illy for years as most of my work places wanted Ai file format as well as PDF for finished drawings. So long as you kept things simple no problems and never had to do combined shapes in any of my drawings. If your talking about page fit on artboard yes, a few times, but nothing outrageous. Things that caused problems were the usual blends, all RGB effects shadows and the like and complex colours which would be illustrated with the correct colours but when edited for CMYK you lost all of the colours bar two. The other thing that annoyed was certain shapes that I had to use the "Expand" command to ungroup them which also could cause a problem when you had to edit.

[Michael]

For Inkscape; try the SVG export. Xara's really good when it comes to exporting as SVG. You can use extensive transparencies (even on bitmaps) for Xara knows how to mask in SVG's. Even Illustrator can directly read and almost flawless import these SVG's except for bitmap fills with transparancy.