I have struggled to make a text flow around objects in Xara for couple of hours.
When you click Text Tool and a single click on a canvas a Text Line is created. But Text Area can flow around an object not a Text Line. Text Line looks the same as Text Area but it won't repel. I see no way of converting Text Line to Text Area.
To create a Text Area with Text Tool you have to click and drag pointer to make a window of Text Area.

The trick is not obvious for people used to MS Word and other text / graphic processors (%95 of world population ?) . This is not documented anywhere in Xara Help, movies or support.
In fact, Xara full of undocumented surprises.