Is there any way to get Xara (Designer Pro X18) to be more accurate?

[handrawn]

Note that it is crucial for "Scale Line Widths" to NOT be ticked, otherwise for some bizarre reason Xara will include the width of the line as part of the size of the shape.

....:

Scale Line Widths button

The Scale line widths button on the Selector Tool InfoBar is used in many operations where the width and height of the selected objects are important. It controls whether the line attributes (not just line widths) are taken into account when working out the size and position of the selected object(s).




With the Scale line widths button set, scaling an object also scales its line widths. With this button unset, line widths remain unchanged.


You can toggle this button during drags by clicking "/" on the numeric keypad.

If you have a rectangle with a 4 pixel line width, as you turn Scale line widths on and off you'll see that the X, Y W And H fields in the Selector Tool change as the effects of the line width are included and excluded.

The following features are affected by Scale line widths:
•Position and size as reported on the Selector Tool InfoBar XYWH fields
•Changing position and size by entering values into the InfoBar XYWH fields
•Changing size by entering values in the W% H% fields
•Scaling/stretching objects by dragging in the Selector tool
•Alignment
•Snapping

The line attributes that are taken into account when Scale line widths is turned on are:
•Line width
•End caps
•Join type
•Dash pattern
•Arrowheads
•Brush style
•Stroke type (inc. variable width strokes)


In general, if you are interested in the visual positions of objects you should turn Scale line widths on. If you're interested in the exact positions of lines (e.g. where the centers of lines are, as is typical in technical drawings) then you should turn Scale line widths off.

re the dialog - yes, once you crteate such an object and have it selected

[shiphen]

shipen, I am sorry you seem to have problems.

In Options > Units, create a new unit - Name: Eighths, Abbr: mei; set 1 Eighths equivalent to 0.125mm.
Set Page Units to Eighths and Apply.

In Options > General, set Nudg size, Suplication distances X and Y all to 1mei and Apply.

In Options > Grid and Ruler, set Major Spacing to 1mm or 8mei and 8 sub-divisions.
Set Origin (0, 0) for X and Y both to 0mei and Apply.

Set Line Widths to 0px.

All operations on a 4x1mm (32x8mei), 0px LW Box are solid.

The only downside is if you are dimensioning something you need to include mm or be quick enough to multiply by eight in your head (double-double-double).

My small test file is here: Attachment 130082

If you Preview and Download PDF form it, the PDF at 6400% is pin sharp and accurate.
I have closed and re-open the file many times and all settings stick

Acorn

Hi Acorn

Cunning stuff.

OK that does work. There was just one problem with you solution, though which was that I need to measure off my parts in mm, multiple times per day, so I had to set the Options ==> Units ==> Page Units back to "Millimetres".

This then meant that Nudge size is still being displayed as "0.1mm", however because I entered the size as "1mei" rather than as "0.125mm", this time the Nudge Size seems to have stuck if I reopen Xara.

So that is one problem solved.

The core problem that has not gone away though is if I hold down an arrow key and Nudge about 100 times, the object will have noticeably moved away from the grid.

J



PS For completeness, here is the graphic that I failed to upload in my previous post:



That said, I now think Contour aren't relevant to me. Although I didn't know you could have a Contour Width of Zero. The result looks very like a line with but it does allow you to tick "Scale Line Widths" without screwing up the measurement of the shape itself (if that helps anyone else). My main objection to that though is I cant find any way to paste the Contours from one shape to another...

[handrawn]

maybe my post #7 holds the key to this

one way of reading that quote from manual is that nudging does not respect snapping, and if that is the case not much you can do

acorn may yet pull another rabbit out of his hat [he's good at this]

[pauland]

Apart from using the right tool for the right job, why not increase the sizes that you are using by a factor of 10 or 100? Then all you have to do is scale back the final output to get the size that you actually need.

[Acorn]

Apart from using the right tool for the right job, why not increase the sizes that you are using by a factor of 10 or 100? Then all you have to do is scale back the final output to get the size that you actually need.

I tried that first but 10 x A1 is too big for Xara to handle.

Acorn

[handrawn]

@ pauland good suggestion - xara has a scaling function, but you can just size up in your workspace I would have thought, maybe depends what else you are doing

and no, I would not ber doing this in xara - I mean, nudge 200 times there has to be a better way, surely

@acorn ah right, back to the right tool - but could you use xara scaling function ?

[Acorn]

maybe my post #7 holds the key to this
one way of reading that quote from manual is that nudging does not respect snapping, and if that is the case not much you can do
acorn may yet pull another rabbit out of his hat [he's good at this]

Just the one rabbit: DO NOT NUDGE MORE THAN TEN NUDGES

For 5 Nudges at a time use Ctrl+Nudge (LRUP Arrow).
For 10 Nudges at a time use Shift+Nudge (LRUP Arrow).
Better to type in the Nudge Distance directly into the X/Y input boxes as a sum: e.g., (value) + 10mm. [A number without units is added as millipoints]

I tried 80 Nudges with No Line Width, 0px, 2mp, 1px line widths.
All were slightly short of the Grid by 0.1mei or 0.0125mm or 12.5 microns.
So over 10mm's nudging, you get a relative error of -0.125%.
Using the Nudge Modifiers, there is no relative error.
Inputting a computed value, likewise.
All accurate to the conversion to Xara's internal millipoints.

Updated file: shipen - A1.xar

@shipen, I am failing to get these wide inaccuracies you seem to be experiencing.

Acorn

[handrawn]

makes sense

as would using a cad program, but hey....

[pauland]

4. Re my Windows number, did the following:
Control Panel ==> Region ==> Additional Settings ==> No. of digits after decimal ==> changed from "2" to "3" (But where will this change appear? Will I need to reboot Windows? [version10 x64])

Doesn't that just change how decimals are displayed but make no difference whatsoever to actual calculations?

[handrawn]

my understanding is that it would enable you to define a measurement in xara to three decimal places [rather than two] and thereby reduce rounding error - shipen wanted to define the nudge to three decimal places

the fact that nudge does not hold at more than one decimal place is a seperate issue