Worthless Help Files

[DBoydNL]

I have a 46 page Xara file in version 12. I want to print this 10 times double-sided and have the printer print pages 1-46 and then again, and again etc. Thus "assembling" the booklet for me. Everybody in the world calls this "collate", but not Magix. Nope, they call it... oh wait: nothing at all. So I look into Help files, which I already know have always been worthless, since Magix doesn't bother to update the help files when they bring out another version, so you don't see in the Help files, what you see in the program.
Yep, stupidity strikes again:
To give an (addtional) example: Print Pagina's is listed. As you can see in my version that is actually called: Paginareeks. Now since I basically understand how printing works from Word, Publisher, PageMaker, etc, I can manage to figure that out.
Then there is the description (in the help file) "Kopieën ordenen", which roughly translates into "Organize copies", which sounds like what I want ("collate"), and sure, the description does tell you in a very complicated way that this is more or less collating. I am NOT complaining about that necessarily... that lack of clarity is bad enough, no I am complaining that the function "Kopieën ordenen" is nowhere to be found on the Print dialog screen. I see the mysterious word "Parallel" in a place where it would make sense to place this option, but what in the world is Parallel? The only thing I can do is start printing. If the second page to come out of the printer is not page 3&4 then I know that Parallel is NOT "collate" and I am stuck. Instead I assumed Magix would be smart (like Word and Publisher) and print multiple pages as a book at a time, rather than the highly inconvenient one page at a time. I waited a bit too long to go look at what the printer was and by then it was already printing multiple copies of page 5&6, thus 26 pages into the job. Not wanting to waste toner and paper, I just let it go. Now I have to collate 230 pages manually into 10 books. Just in case you are wondering, that process is NOT called "Ik moet mijn stapel afdrukken handmatig parallel maken" in Dutch ("I need to make my stack of prints parallel manually")

Why do we pay good money for a program that doesn't update the help files, or doesn't translate the helpfiles properly. This is simply a question of hiring somebody to read through the helpfiles and make sure they are correct. Can't be bothered. Why do we have to put up with this?

This os aside from the annoying fact, that the functioning of the 8 "grabpoints" around a text object was changed in version 12. Check this out. Write a chunk of text, like as if you wanted to make it a title. You can grag the corner grabpoints and make the tekst bigger or smaller, right? Now turn off the padlock that keeps height and width the same. I want to make my title just a bit taller, but not wider. Can't be done anymore. Does Magix inform us when we upgrade that they have ruined the functionality that we have all gotten used to for version upon version? Nope. I cannot imagine that any user ever asked for this change, wanted it, or understands why this was done, let alone what possible advantage there is to what Xara does with a chunk of text now. I still don't know how to extend a chunk of text in only one direction. Similar things happen to other object when you mess with the padlock. It is there for a reason.

I cannot recommend Xara P&GD anymore. It is not well documented and the changes they make are not well thought through, let alone communicated. Try Cusomer Service some time. They don't read what you write. They don't try to understand or duplicate your problem, and if you have the unmitigated gall to keep trying to explain your problem to them, they stop answering and eventually you get a "Is your question answered?" Email.

Seriously disgruntled.

David

[jaydear]

I feel your pain, but PDF is your friend. I use Foxit, the free version is adequate. I print my MagiXara docs as a PDF, then print from Foxit which has good controls for odd pages only, etc., etc. You’ll save heaps of paper and ink/toner. Winner!

[RKissane]

David,
I maybe missing something but when I want to do a booklet I let the printer do the work not Xara. Under the screen you show in your post, I go into the printer tab and in the printer properties I select booklet and the printer prints out everything in the proper format. I just tested this again and everything works fine.

Ray

[jaydear]

That's a good printing tip, but DBoydNL is right about the built-in (lack of) help.

[lex]

I absolutely concur with this statement about PDFs. I have switched to Foxit PhantomPDF (the paid version of Foxit) instead of Acrobat as a PDF editor. But there are times when even Foxit does not produce the results I want (e.g. when embedding custom Type 1 fonts, they did not get embedded the right way using Xara print dialog or Foxit PDF Printer, I found that, for best results, there are 3 PDF making options that work: 1) using Xara, export to PDF and select commercial quality, 2) using Acrobat, make to PS file and distill it, 3) PDFCreator, which is a free Ghostscript print driver.

I feel your pain, but PDF is your friend. I use Foxit, the free version is adequate. I print my MagiXara docs as a PDF, then print from Foxit which has good controls for odd pages only, etc., etc. You’ll save heaps of paper and ink/toner. Winner!