Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 19 Quirks

**ohioandy** · 28 May 2022, 01:26 PM

I've been using Xara Photo & Graphic Designer for years and love it! I just upgraded from v.10 to v.19. I definitely love the magnetic lasso - my new favorite tool!

With all of the fantastic upgrades, I have had a few frustrations:

1. I really enjoy the new look handles, however, I can no longer quickly slant my shapes. I used to quickly turn my rectangle into a parallelogram by clicking on the handle, and moving the <-> to the left or right. I have not yet found a way to quickly do this in Xara 19

.

2. At times, some of my text seems to randomly become uneditable. When selecting the text menu, instead of being able to change the text and font, I get a pop up that says, "What type of text do you want to add?" Auto fit inside, fixed inside, on top. I don't want to add text, I just want to edit it!

3. I'm experiencing a bug in v. 19 that I also experienced in v. 10 (hoping it would have been fixed by now). When closing and re-opening Xara, my open documents automatically revert to the last auto-saved version instead of the most recent (manual) saved version. This means that, when opening Xara, I often have to close the auto-saved version and re-open the latest version that I was working on. Please fix this!

Other than those quirks, I really do love the program!

**handrawn** · 28 May 2022, 01:40 PM

! - right click on the padlock icon [aspect ratio] on the selector tool infobar and then untick smart transform

2 - sounds like you may have created text within an object, that you are now trying to edit - if an object is selected when you type over it the text will now be created within that object rather than seperate - it is easy to do by accident

3 - one of the resons I have xara auto save switched off [I have other third party auto backups running]

**Acorn** · 28 May 2022, 01:41 PM

ohioandy,

1. The slant control is hidden inside the mid-points - very intuitive to discover.
2. It is possible you have changed your text block to a Shape with a spurious keypress. I don't have your XDA version but there are many ways to do this.
3. I have never seen this. Can you run your XDA as Administrator to see if that one action frees up things?

Acorn

**Acorn** · 28 May 2022, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by handrawn

! - right click on the padlock icon [aspect ratio] on the selector tool infobar and then untick smart transform

handrawn, you can slant with ST on or off.

Acorn

**handrawn** · 28 May 2022, 01:44 PM

good point about the slant.. acorn, thanks

**ohioandy** · 28 May 2022, 02:11 PM

Thank you for the great feedback!

1. I had not yet come across the "skew-angle of selection" feature. Your tips directed me to the right place! Thanks so much!
2. My text issue does come when I place text over an object and then copy and paste the object. Is it possible to "unattach the text from the object" (it is not currently grouped)?
3. Not sure how to run XDA as Admin?

**handrawn** · 28 May 2022, 02:23 PM

2 if you right click on an object that has text inside, the context menu has a text inside with options that include detatch

3 rightclick when you open the program and choose run as administrator

**ohioandy** · 28 May 2022, 02:45 PM

2. My issue seems to be unrelated to the "text inside" feature. I think my text has become a shape when I copy and paste the group containing my objects and text. However, it has not become "text inside" that I can detatch :/. The only option I have is to add "text inside."

3. Thanks so much for the admin tip!

**handrawn** · 28 May 2022, 05:14 PM

maybe the program is just asking you how to paste into a selected object - have you tried pasting after ensuring nothing at all is selected ?

**ohioandy** · 28 May 2022, 09:25 PM

handrawn, I really appreciate the suggestion, but I don't think that's it. I think maybe I failed to explain my issue well.

For some reason, I still haven't been able to pinpoint why most of my text gets converted to shapes (driving me crazy!) while some appears to be just fine, even after copying and pasting.

To my knowledge, I haven't done anything abnormal to the text that would make it act in that way. I have never had that issue with Photo & Graphic Designer 10, which I have used for years. Any thoughts on why my text might be converting to shapes?

Perhaps, a better question, what actions cause text to convert to shapes?