When you link to an email address, Xara automatically adds the mailto: command. And if you link to text such as Send email, Xara encodes the email address to hide it from spambots.

And Acorn points out, this does not open all email clients, and it does not open webmail clients.

On the other hand, adding the actual email text and linking the actual email will make the email address visible in the HTML so it can be harvested by spambots.

I am not sure if this actually hides the email address but if you visit this gallery www.placitasartists.com/k_jacobs/ and click on Contact Info, you see the actual email address but it is not linked. I placed a rectangle over the text, made the rectangle 98% transparent, and linked the rectangle to the email address.