Xara Designer Pro X

[Zaahir]

Hi guys,

I did some design work for a customer in 2020. I need to make some changes to the artwork but the file does not want to open.
I tried going into backups to retrieve the file but backup does not have the final artwork. The file size is 57249KB

How do I go about retrieving the file?

Thanks,
Zaahir

[Acorn]

Zaahir, your best approach will be to ask Xara directly to see if it can recover anything from your design file.

With access to a backup and the website, you could use the image files in the website index_htm_files folder to add back into the back up.
This would be a poor second-best approach.

The final way would be to rebuild the design file totally from the published site, page by page.

Sorry you are in this pickle.

Acorn

[Zaahir]

Zaahir, your best approach will be to ask Xara directly to see if it can recover anything from your design file.

With access to a backup and the website, you could use the image files in the website index_htm_files folder to add back into the back up.
This would be a poor second-best approach.

The final way would be to rebuild the design file totally from the published site, page by page.

Sorry you are in this pickle.

Acorn

Thanks for your assistance Acorn, much appreciated. I managed to find a pdf of the design and brought that into Xara and everything worked out.

I need to pick your brain with another issue I'm having with Xara.
I have a habit of working with 20 plus files open at any time in Xara. These files stays open for a few days and sometimes weeks. Once the work is finalized then I save and close it.

The issue is even after saving and closing most of the files, if Xara is force closed or closed, and when I open Xara again it opens all those files all over again as untitled.

Is there any way to prevent this from happening?

Thanks,
Zaahir

[Acorn]

I have a habit of working with 20 plus files open at any time in Xara. These files stays open for a few days and sometimes weeks. Once the work is finalized then I save and close it.
The issue is even after saving and closing most of the files, if Xara is force closed or closed, and when I open Xara again it opens all those files all over again as untitled.
Is there any way to prevent this from happening? Thanks, Zaahir

Zaahir, the problem you are faced with is an uncontrolled crash of the XDA.As well as losing filenames, you will also lose any last changes that were not saved.
You have no way of knowing if any action, including a Save, might cause a crash. Luckily, these are fairly infrequent but can arise with large design files or numbers of them.

With over twenty files open, you are risking quite a lot.
I would use Xara's Automatic Backup options for both saving every 15 minutes and backing up on closing the application.
Next, I would close and re-open the application every 30 minutes.
On closing, if you have a crash, you have only lost, at most, 15 minutes of changes.
If the XDA closes and re-opens, I would Save the files you were going to save. A crash at this point loses nothing.
You could also possibly try a document tab right-click > Save As instead of a normal Save; it is possible Xara has different code for this.

To show how concerned I am about losses, my Backup folder is on a separate drive to the file save location. My file saves are to a Dropbox folder.
Weekly, I copy my file saves to a third drive.
I ensure my customers have versioned updates on a regular basis.

Acorn

[Zaahir]

Zaahir, the problem you are faced with is an uncontrolled crash of the XDA.As well as losing filenames, you will also lose any last changes that were not saved.
You have no way of knowing if any action, including a Save, might cause a crash. Luckily, these are fairly infrequent but can arise with large design files or numbers of them.

With over twenty files open, you are risking quite a lot.
I would use Xara's Automatic Backup options for both saving every 15 minutes and backing up on closing the application.
Next, I would close and re-open the application every 30 minutes.
On closing, if you have a crash, you have only lost, at most, 15 minutes of changes.
If the XDA closes and re-opens, I would Save the files you were going to save. A crash at this point loses nothing.
You could also possibly try a document tab right-click > Save As instead of a normal Save; it is possible Xara has different code for this.

To show how concerned I am about losses, my Backup folder is on a separate drive to the file save location. My file saves are to a Dropbox folder.
Weekly, I copy my file saves to a third drive.
I ensure my customers have versioned updates on a regular basis.

Acorn

Thanks for the tips. My files are saved so I'm not losing any work. It's just that when Xara is opened, it re opens all the files to an earlier time as untitled.
So I gotta keep clicking don't save and closing files.